PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — When it comes to COVID-19, the term “mild” could be misleading.
Over the years, descriptive terms, like mild or severe, have been used to interpret everything from heart disease to cancer. When someone has a mild case of arthritis, they may have occasional pain, but severe arthritis can be crippling.
COVID-19 has been such a devastating illness with so many deaths in such a short time that “mild” basically means not hospitalized. Of course, many who stay home suffer greatly, while many others don’t.
If you hear that as long as you are vaccinated and boosted, omicron is mild, don’t be fooled. It is not so mild that you should go out with friends and say “I’m not worried, it is just mild.” It just means you are less likely to be hospitalized compared to the unvaccinated.
Big picture: For the vaccinated, hospitalization is far lower than at any time since the beginning of the pandemic, hence the term “mild.”
KYW Newsradio’s Medical Reports are sponsored by Independence Blue Cross.