New York Officials Pitch Vaccines as Best Way to Fight Omicron Despite Lack Data on Effectiveness

New York officials are pitching vaccines as the best way to combat the Omicron variant of the Chinese coronavirus as five cases popped up in the state, yet Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) admitted that they “don’t have specific information on how the vaccines are holding up or the boosters are holding up to this variant.”

“We still don’t have specific information on how the vaccines are holding up or the boosters are holding up to this variant, but it is real,” Hochul said during a Thursday afternoon press conference alongside New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), where they detailed five cases of the variant popping up in state, most in New York City.

Early evidence, she said, suggests the symptoms “are not life-threatening” and they “seem to be minor cases.” 

One of the cases is a 67-year-old woman in Suffolk County, who has experienced a headache and cough. Hochul said the woman has “some vaccination history,” although she was not sure if she received one shot, two, or booster shot. She recently traveled from South Africa.

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Two of the cases are based in Queens, one in Brooklyn, and another in an unnamed borough. The vaccination status of those individuals remained unknown at the time of the press conference.

However, Hochul said it is “no cause for alarm” and urged people to get vaccinated, despite admitting, mere minutes before, that they “don’t have specific information on how the vaccines are holding up.”

“The best thing that everyone can do is realize we are not defenseless against this variant at all. That vaccine we know is going to ensure that there is less severe symptoms. The booster is something we would highly recommend,” she said, also urging parents to vaccinate their children and mask them up:

If you’re not vaccinated get vaccinated. If you’re have vaccinations, both series, get the third dose which is your booster. Ensure that our children are masked up as well as making sure that they get their vaccinations if anyone above 5 years old and also [I] recommend that people continue to wear their masks indoors and avoid large gatherings at this time. 

Again, Hochul emphasized the cases are not cause for “major alarm,” but she said there are no shutdowns on the table at this point.

Hochul is not the only high profile official to pitch vaccinations as the best way to fight the variant, despite the fact that the first case identified in the U.S. occurred in a fully vaccinated individual — a detail unmentioned by Jeff Zients, the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator.

What is more, Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted over the weekend that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not been transparent about the number of breakthrough infections — those occurring in vaccinated individuals — with the American public.

“It’s a very complicated situation,” Fauci said during an appearance on Face the Nation.

“And often the public doesn’t hear yet in time things that are being collected. So there’s a lot of data, clearly a lot of data, that’s being collected by the CDC that people don’t know about yet,” he told Margaret Brennan, who asked why the U.S. decided “not to track those breakthrough infections.”