COVID-19 variant omicron emerges as holiday season ramps up

CHARLOTTE — The World Health Organization said the global risk for infection from the COVID-19 variant omicron is very high as Americans gather with their families over the holiday season.

“Love and enjoy and this is just love out here,” said Joella Schefano, who was visiting the Billy Graham Library Monday. “You can just feel the love of God.”

Schefano and her sister, Cookie Dobbins, traveled from Birmingham, Alabama to visit the library.

“We have been wanting to come here for years and so this year we did,” Dobbins said. “As far as the virus and all the COVID, God is in control.”

[Omicron variant: What we know about the new variant; travel bans; WHO meeting]

COVID-19 has turned the concept of normal life upside down and now there is a new variant.

“God has been good to me and kept me all these years,” said Charles Hadden, another library visitor.

Hadden, 94, of Red Springs, has been vaccinated and was not going to let a new variant stop his trip.

“Fear is worse than the disease, and I will not be afraid,” he said. “I go to church every Sunday and every Wednesday night.”

It is not clear how much of a threat omicron will be.

“It’s a fairly highly mutate variant that took off by surprise over the last week,” said Dr. Christopher Ohl, an infectious disease expert with Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. “Even if it turns out that we need to modify and change our vaccines, that can be done within a few months. I think if you’ve been vaccinated and you’ve been boosted, I would really not change what we’re doing because masks still work, avoiding large crowds and groups of people.”

[Omicron variant: CDC recommends COVID-19 booster for all adults amid latest threat]

Hope Nicholls, owner of Boris and Natasha, has been in business for 23 years and the rise of omicron is unwelcome news.

“We’re all tired,” she said. “We’re all overwhelmed and confused but we gotta just keep going.”

She said the new variant reinforces the message that the pandemic doesn’t have an end date.

“We’re doing everything we can to be safe here and to offer people a safe place to come and forget about their troubles for a little bit,” Nicholls said.

(Watch the video below: Italy and Germany report cases of omicron COVID-19 variant)