The fall of the omicron surge should come just as fast as it rose, but experts are still warning that numbers will be higher than they were before the variant arrived.
Dr. Michael Osterholm discussed this and the state of the pandemic with News Talk 830 WCCO's Chad Hartman.
"The real challenge we're gonna have is that when these case numbers come down, they will come down a lot from where they were at their peak, but they're not going to go back to a baseline or very low levels," Osterholm said pointing to South Africa where case numbers are still "12 to 15 times higher than they were before omicron came in."
Osterholm shared that it is unclear what will happen in the "tail" of the surge.
When it comes to current vaccination and booster rates, Osterholm says it is disheartening because nothing in medicine prevents death from COVID-19 like the vaccines do.
The doctor pointed to data from the CDC, which reported a 99% reduction in the number of people who have died from COVID when comparing those who are vaccinated to those who are not.
"The bottom line is this is really, really an important tool that can save your life," Osterholm said.
There have been talks about variant-specific vaccines to help protect Americans, but Osterholm is not entirely sold on the idea yet.
Osterholm explained that having the vaccine created from the original strain may offer the most protection because each variant developed from the initial version of COVID-19.
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If the variants had been splitting off themselves and progressing down the line — for example, if delta came from beta, which came from alpha — then Osterholm could see a reason to create a new vaccine, but because this isn't the case, he doesn't think it's the right call.
"It's too early to even begin supporting an omicron-specific vaccine as being better," Osterholm said.
The epidemiologist raised multiple questions about the new shot, like what will it do to new variants?
"Will it even have as good of protection as the original vaccine did, and it very well may not," Osterholm said. "I think that the companies may be out there on a public relations kind of approach."
Osterholm thinks the experts need to take over the narrative, instead of a company, when it comes to what a vaccine should look like.
As for booster shots and not many Americans opting to get an additional dose, Osterholm is worried that if more doses are needed, people simply won't get them.
"I think one of the things we have to look at is what we can practically do to reach these people," Osterholm said.
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