How serious is the omicron variant?

f you're experiencing COVID fatigue-apathy towards media coverage of the pandemic, not actual symptoms-you may want to brace yourself because this virus does not appear to be going away any time soon.

The omicron variant, the third major variation of the virus since the start of the pandemic, is now the dominant strain in a host of countries, including the United States, Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), omicron has made up 73 percent of all new COVID-19 infections sequenced in the U.S. over the past week. To put this i...