By: Madeleine Lau
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world suddenly and with force, quickly dominating the human population and forcing a quarantine mandate to be established. New Mexico officials have consistently jumped to protect their citizens from the virus by mandating masks indoors and requiring vaccines, but no one could have prepared for the new variant rushing into the fray.
Omicron is a dangerous variant of COVID-19 because it is highly transmissible regardless of vaccination status. An NPR article dated December 15th stated: “In a household, the risk of spreading the omicron variant to another member is three times higher than it is with the delta variant.” The vaccines and boosters do protect people from getting sick or hospitalized, so the variant is mostly a threat to the unvaccinated.
On Wednesday KOB4 stated that omicron now makes up from around 50-60% of COVID cases in New Mexico,
In the CDC update posted on Dec. 27, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Wallensky said, “The Omicron variant is spreading quickly and has the potential to impact all facets of our society. CDC’s updated recommendations for isolation and quarantine balance what we know about the spread of the virus and the protection provided by vaccination and booster doses.”
Following this, the new guidelines posted by the CDC state that if a person tests positive for COVID they must quarantine for five days, where originally it was ten, and if the person in question is asymptomatic by day five they can stop quarantining as long as they wear a mask around others. This is mainly because transmission occurs early on in the illness, usually 1-2 days before symptoms and then 2-3 days afterward. APS and the state of New Mexico agreed to follow these guidelines last week.
The State Health department continues to remind the public that the best way to protect against this new variant is vaccination. In the CDC update, Dr. Rochelle Willinsky said, “Prevention is our best option: get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial and high community transmission, and take a test before you gather.”
The vaccines are free, and New Mexicans can sign up for a vaccination at vaccineNM.org.