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Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021

Is the CDC just renaming the common cold or a respiratory syncytial virus as the omicron variant?

Ed Payne, Lead Stories
no

The omicron variant is a mutated version of the original COVID-19 virus.

While the common cold and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) are viral infections, they are different viruses than COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), which is a novel coronavirus, a new type that had not been seen in humans before 2019. RSV was discovered in 1956. The cause of the common cold was identified in the 1950s, but the disease appears to have been around since early in human history.

Despite early reports suggesting less severe symptoms for omicron, experts like World Health Organization Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that it's a risky assumption:

"It is probably unwise to sit back and think 'this is a mild variant, it's not going to cause severe disease,' because I think with the numbers going up all health systems are going to be under strain."

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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