The heavily mutated Omicron variant has led to a serious dent in the ability of vaccines to protect us from catching the Covid virus.
Two doses of some vaccines offer almost no protection from an Omicron infection, although they should still greatly reduce the risk of becoming so ill you need hospital care.
The vaccines were all developed to fight the first form of the virus that emerged two years ago.
So can a third or “booster” dose of those original vaccines make the difference or has Omicron already outwitted the protection they can give?
I remain skeptical
Yikes! – If we continue waiting for more evidence about omicron, it will already be too late
People think fairly linearly, and we like to feel rational by making decisions on the basis of large quantities of data, gathered carefully over time.
It is unintuitive to think exponentially. Yet, understanding exponential growth of infection is absolutely key to responding to and mitigating pandemics. This is because the amount of harm increases so quickly, and the economic and social costs of mitigating that harm rise alongside it.
In “normal” times, the practice of medicine has many challenges, some from within and some from outside the profession. If you let it, much of your daily practice follows specialty guidelines, insurance company criteria, hospital formularies, and other annoyances. None of those entities have any liability when it comes to our patients. For the most part, liability lies with the treating 
