Dr. Wen’s advice for the holidays
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2021
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
Omicron is now the most prevalent variant of the coronavirus in the country. But public health expert and emergency physician Leana Wen says that with a three-pronged approach — testing, vaccines and masks — we can still celebrate the holidays.
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Once again, America is looking down the barrel of a winter surge of the coronavirus, thanks to the highly transmissible omicron variant. Houston Methodist Hospital, which has been sequencing genomes since the beginning of the pandemic, says that in a week, omicron spread as rapidly as the delta variant did in three months.
But emergency physician Leana Wen says this isn’t a time for despair: “Despite these staggering numbers, I don’t think vaccinated people should have to cancel their plans for Christmas, New Year’s Eve and other holidays.” Wen joined James Hohmann on his opinion podcast “Please, Go On” to talk about how we can use the tools we’ve developed to keep omicron at bay this holiday season.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There are not many things that you can spend $9.99 on that will make a difference to you |
| 0:10.0 | every day, and maybe smarter, more informed about the stories that matter to you. |
| 0:14.6 | A pair of socks or a candle will not do those things. |
| 0:18.4 | But for the cost of a pair of socks or a candle, you can give yourself or someone that you |
| 0:22.8 | care about a full year subscription to the Washington Post for just $9.99 for a full year. |
| 0:30.1 | This amazing deal is back and ends on January 4th. |
| 0:33.2 | It only takes a minute to subscribe, and you can do that at WashingtonPost.com slash subscribe. |
| 0:48.1 | I'll say that right now, the major concern is that we have Omicron on top of already a winter |
| 0:56.8 | surge of the Delta variant. |
| 0:59.5 | Already we had hospitals that were at or near or even over capacity in many parts of the |
| 1:04.4 | country because of Delta. |
| 1:07.4 | This is Dr. Lena Wen. |
| 1:08.5 | She is an emergency physician, public health expert, and contributing columnist for the |
| 1:12.7 | post. |
| 1:13.7 | And then you have on top of that this extremely contagious variant. |
| 1:16.8 | I mean, we talked about Delta as the most contagious variant that we've seen, and now |
| 1:22.0 | we have Omicron that's many more times more contagious than that. |
| 1:27.1 | Dr. Wen is our favorite expert to turn to during scary times like these. |
| 1:31.9 | Because as we all know, the Omicron variant is surging across the US right now. |
| 1:36.7 | We are all getting these texts from friends and family members about positive cases and |
| 1:41.4 | needing to cancel holiday plans. |
| 1:44.0 | But the news is not all bad. |
... |
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