Boosters, Omicron, and What’s Next in the Pandemic

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Omicron variant is sweeping across the United States and the rest of the world, breaking previous records of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. While it may cause milder illness, its transmissibility and ability to evade vaccines make this surge particularly challenging to navigate.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the latest episode of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Dose</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">podcast, host Shanoor Seervai asks Alison Galvani, founding director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis, to bring listeners up to speed on this phase of the pandemic. Galvani and her colleagues have found that increasing the number of boosters administered each day could save thousands of lives. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Vaccination is relatively inexpensive, particularly compared with the costs associated with hospitalizations and productivity losses, even from mild cases, she says.</span></p>