Rockford Doctor Explains What We Know About The Omicron Variant

 Dr. Norem has been joining us pretty much every week for over a year now. He was explaining things during last spring's lockdown, and he's been guiding us all the way through the pandemic. We learn something new from Dr. Norem every week and this week was no exception.

Today's visit from Dr. Norem was timed perfectly with the announcement of a new COVID-19 variant discovered in South Africa that was named the Omicron Variant.

A lot of ink has been spilled and words uttered on the topic from sources that just want you to look at them and instantly react in the proper way. We were glad to have Dr. Norem on to calmly answer some questions we had.

First of all, and this should be a surprise to no one, it's far too early to make any declarations about the severity and future ramifications of this new variant. Dr. Norem said that we will need to wait at least 2 weeks to even begin to understand what we're dealing with. We don't know if this strain is more or less resistant to our current vaccines. We don't know if this strain targets a different demographic. We don't know if the symptoms are worse or longer lasting than what we've been dealing with. The only thing we know is the limited study done by South Africa and as Dr. Norem pointed out you really can't compare two vastly different populations and draw many conclusions.

He gave us the news that really no one wants to hear. We're going to have to wait and see.

We'll wait through this week and check in again with Dr. Norem next week to see if there is any new information.

Dr. Norem joins the 1440 WROK morning show every Monday morning to bring us the latest on the COVID-19 pandemic. We thank him for his time and look forward to his next visit.