Fauci: On Second Thought, Maybe We Overreacted to the Omicron Variant

Within hours of South African officials announcing their discovery of a new coronavirus variant, omicron, the chain reaction of hysteria set off around the globe. New York State went into a state of emergency, New York City put a hold on elective surgeries, and the Biden administration announced travel restrictions to eight African nations. Then, days later, it was discovered a Minnesota man had already contracted the omicron Covid variant and likely spread it around an anime convention in New York before it was ever even announced by South Africa.

Now, more than a week out from the global omicron meltdown, even Dr. Facemask Fauci is tempering his rhetoric and floating the possibility that everyone may have overreacted to the omicron variant of certain-doom:

Preliminary data about the severity of the Covid omicron variant is “a bit encouraging,” the White House’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Sunday, following early figures from South Africa that suggest it may not be as bad as initially feared.

However, Fauci cautioned that more data was needed to draw a complete picture of omicron’s risk profile. The World Health Organization said the variant was “of concern” on Nov.26, prompting a flurry of international travel bans and new Covid restrictions.

“Clearly, in South Africa, omicron has a transmission advantage,” Fauci told CNN, adding that “although it’s too early to make any definitive statements about it, thus far it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it.”

It took just days to see cases popping up in unexpected locations over the place, indicating that viruses move much faster than government bureaucracies. As has been the case from the very beginning, government and public health agencies are often several steps behind a quickly evolving and airborne virus. We act like there is some semblance of control, but there really isn’t.

Even Peter McGinn, the Minnesota man who was omicron patient zero in the United States, said he took every notable precaution while traveling and still wound up contracting it:

“I got a call from the Minnesota Department of Health saying not only did I have COVID, but I had the variant. That was kind of a shock,” Peter McGinn said.

The 30-year-old Hennepin County man spent a few days in late November at the Anime NYC convention with some friends that required guests to have a vaccination and wear a mask.

“I really was taken aback, just like, me, I did everything in my power not to get this,” McGinn said.

His symptoms were mild, as were those of his friends who also contracted it. No hospitalization, no serious issues beyond a mild cold. In essence, nothing different than contracting the original Covid SARS-CoV-2 strain or the more transmissible delta variant for most healthy people, vaccinated or not.

For this reason, now that more data is available, people like Dr. Fauci are backpedaling on their warnings and hysteria that the United States, and the world, was about to enter a dark winter of restrictions and lockdowns. It didn’t stop one noteworthy dictator, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, from announcing a sweeping vaccine mandate on every private business in the city before he ends his term. The newly-elected Mayor Eric Adams says he will “revisit” De Blasios’a mandates when he takes office in weeks.

One particular issue of note, that gets no attention from any mainstream press, is the number of hospital patients who are admitted for some other ailment but have an incidental positive Covid test when they’re there. This was the case in South Africa, only disclosed after the omicron discovery itself was shared:

The main observation in the report was that the majority of patients were not oxygen dependent (as was common in previous waves, the report stated) and that most of the patients in the Covid wards were “incidental Covid admissions,” having had another medical or surgical reason for admission to the hospital.

Being admitted for something unrelated to Covid, yet getting a positive test result winds up being counted in most cases as another Covid hospitalization. The two things are not linked, as many Covid-positive patients have no symptoms or mild symptoms that require no hospitalization.

While authoritarian bureaucrats were excited by the omicron discovery, it doesn’t seem like they will be able to keep riding the wave of fear and panic toward new restrictions or limits on personal freedom.

On the contrary, omicron has provided more cover for the Biden administration to change the subject away from his failing economic policies and get back to barking about Covid with punitive restrictions that clearly intend to accomplish nothing:

President Joe Biden announced a series of COVID-19 protocols on Thursday to combat the new omicron variant. The protocols will do little to promote health, but that’s not their intent anyway. Instead, these regulations condition Americans to tolerate continued governmental intrusions in our lives as they chip away at our freedoms on the false promise of safety.

Biden had banned travel from South Africa, where the omicron variant was first detected, and seven other southern African countries (remember when such bans were racist?) prior to the measures announced Thursday. The newly announced requirements include extending the federal mask mandate on public transport, including airplanes, until mid-March and requiring international travelers to the United States, including vaccinated U.S. citizens, to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken a day before departure.

These measures will not prevent the new variant from spreading through the United States. On Monday the president himself admitted that “[T]ravel restrictions can slow the speed of omicron, it cannot prevent it. But here’s what it does: It gives us time. It gives us time to take more actions, to move quicker, to make sure people understand you have to get your vaccine.”

Really? That’s about as believable as “15 days to flatten the curve” 21 months later.

Ah yes, 15 days to flatten the curve. Remember when we were duped into that in March of 2020 by the public health bureaucrats around President Trump? People like Dr. Fauci yearn for those days when he could say “Jump!” and most of the country wouldn’t even ask “How high?”, they’d just start jumping with no end in sight.

Omicron is a lesson in patience and data gathering over fear and reaction. As with the original cases of Coronavirus back in February and March of 2020, when the government overreacted because it was caught off guard, you could sense a similar feeling in the last few days of November.

The omicron variant discovery meant certain doom. Until it didn’t.

Good news, America. Christmas can be put back on the calendar once again with the pi variant expected to drop right around New Year’s Day.