‘Be Vigilant’: What In-Home Care Providers Should Know About the Omicron Variant

Home Health Care News / By Robert Holly

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday officially designated the COVID-19 variant Omicron as “a variant of concern.” The U.N. agency on Monday followed that up by warning the global risk from Omicron is “very high” based on early evidence, noting the variant could have “severe consequences” as far as future surges.
 
While there’s still much to learn about Omicron, its emergence is yet another reminder that the pandemic is far from over for home health and home care providers. Additionally, it may be a glimpse at what the post-COVID world may look like without additional intervention.
 
“Be vigilant,” a LeadingAge spokesperson told in-home care providers in a message shared with Home Health Care News. “The pandemic is not over.”
 
Home-based care operators had already been preparing for a challenging winter prior to the discovery of the Omicron variant, first detected in South Africa with cases later confirmed in Scotland, Spain, Canada and other countries. Many were feeling relatively optimistic about the next few months as well, with the worst of the Delta variant largely behind them and staff-quarantine numbers starting to go down.
 
“The number of clinicians on quarantine has peaked,” Amedisys Inc. (Nasdaq: AMED) President and COO Chris Gerard said on a recent earnings call. “And entering Q4, we’re seeing the [quarantine] number decline rapidly to less than 1%, which is also encouraging.”
 
If Omicron ends up being anywhere near contagious as Delta, it could upend the current outlook. And it’s only a matter of time before the COVID-19 mutation makes its way to the U.S., according to President Joe Biden.
 
“Sooner or later, we’re going to see cases of this new variant here in the United States,” Biden said, speaking Monday from the White House. “We’ll have to face this new threat just as we face those who have come before it.”
 
Delta was first detected in India in late 2020. By August, it had spread to over 160 countries.
 
Despite targeting Omicron as high risk, WHO says it’s unclear whether the variant is more transmissible compared to Delta and previous COVID-19 mutations such as Alpha, Beta or Gamma. The agency similarly says it’s uncertain whether Omicron causes more severe disease compared to infections with other variants.
 
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor for the pandemic, said it could be two weeks or more before further information about Omicron’s transmissibility and severity come to light. Early patterns, however, suggest Omicron likely spreads more easily, he said.
 
“If you look at the pattern of what’s going on right now in southern Africa — particularly in South Africa — when you have a spike of infections, they are very heavily weighted toward this new variant, the Omicron,” Fauci said during a Sunday TV appearance. “Therefore, you have to presume that it has a good degree of transmissibility advantage.”
 
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