I don’t think it’s the worst idea but I have a couple reasons I am actively avoiding getting Omicron this month:
I expect a strong chance that a new variant displaces Omicron in the next say year (we had ~3 displacements in the last ~year: Alpha Delta Omicron). So then the question becomes, how much does Omicron protect against the next big variant (probably a good amount). Vs how much does your vaccine already protect you against the next big variant (probably similar). If that’s the case, I don’t see much advantage to getting Omicron.
I’d expect Omicron to infect a large fraction of the population, but it’s unlikely to infect “almost everyone” (before Omicron is displaced by the next big variant). So I definitely think it’s still avoidable.
Getting Omicron in January is the highest risk time due to strain on treatment capacity. Also Paxlovid is becoming more available. I think the risk of very bad outcomes will be much lower in March.
If what you’re optimizing for is protection from severe disease, vaccines already do really well.
The severity of Omicron looks less because more of Omicron’s cases are breakthrough infections, which are less severe. If you look at the severity in people of a given vaccination status, it’s about ~50% less severe by the latest estimates I could find, which is a lot better than Delta but similar to Alpha.
I don’t think it’s the worst idea but I have a couple reasons I am actively avoiding getting Omicron this month:
I expect a strong chance that a new variant displaces Omicron in the next say year (we had ~3 displacements in the last ~year: Alpha Delta Omicron). So then the question becomes, how much does Omicron protect against the next big variant (probably a good amount). Vs how much does your vaccine already protect you against the next big variant (probably similar). If that’s the case, I don’t see much advantage to getting Omicron.
I’d expect Omicron to infect a large fraction of the population, but it’s unlikely to infect “almost everyone” (before Omicron is displaced by the next big variant). So I definitely think it’s still avoidable.
Getting Omicron in January is the highest risk time due to strain on treatment capacity. Also Paxlovid is becoming more available. I think the risk of very bad outcomes will be much lower in March.
If what you’re optimizing for is protection from severe disease, vaccines already do really well.
The severity of Omicron looks less because more of Omicron’s cases are breakthrough infections, which are less severe. If you look at the severity in people of a given vaccination status, it’s about ~50% less severe by the latest estimates I could find, which is a lot better than Delta but similar to Alpha.
I have a post on some of these topics: https://firstsigma.github.io/omicron