Welcome to the New Reality of Omicron

Over Thanksgiving weekend, America – and the world – learned a new word: Omicron. It is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet and has a numerical value of 70. In the current context, however, where Greek numbers identify variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, omicron has a value of 30 – 30 gene mutations in its spike protein.

This is double the number of mutations in the currently dominant Delta variant and has scientists and global health leaders concerned enough that the U.S., Canada and U.K. quickly acted to ban travel from eight southern African countries.