Omicron variant symptoms may change based on your COVID vaccine status

The omicron variant of the novel coronavirus has become the dominant strain in the United States. Now, more reports of the omicron variant symptoms have started to emerge from front-line workers.

Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency room doctor in New York, recently shared some anecdotal information about what’s been seen in the emergency room when it comes to COVID-19. Here’s what he found:

• Every patient who got a third booster COVID-19 vaccine shot had mild symptoms. This included sore throat, fatigue and muscle pain.
• Patients who had two doses of Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines had mild symptoms but more than those who had three doses. He said there was more fatigue, more coughing and more miserable symptoms overall.
• Those who had one dose of Johnson & Johnson were worse, feeling horrible with a fever for a few days. Tiredness, weakness, shortness of breath and cough were also common COVID-19 symptoms for this group.
• Every patient that needed to be admitted was unvaccinated. The unvaccinated had “profound shortness of breath” and their “oxygen dropped when they walked,” he said. The unvaccinated needed “oxygen to breathe regularly,” he added.

Dr. Bruce Patterson, who works for single-cell diagnostic company IncellDx and the Chronic Covid Treatment Center, told me in an interview that he has seen a number of new cases recently, many of which had similar COVID-19 symptoms.

• He said, “the one thing that’s always present with COVID is fatigue.” He said he has seen less loss of taste and smell among COVID-19 patients, too.
• “I haven’t seen a lot of the tremendous shortness of breath. I’m seeing a lot of headaches. You know, sniffles, things like that just kind of general cold-like symptoms, but with the massive fatigue.”

Overall, early data and research suggest the omicron COVID-19 variant leads to less severe symptoms and hospitalizations, as I wrote for the Deseret News.

• That said, the new COVID-19 variant has been shown to evade COVID-19 vaccines, which means fully vaccinated remain at risk for the new variant.
• There’s some research from Oregon Health & Science University that suggests fully vaccinated people could receive “super immunity” if they end up getting infected with COVID-19, too.