Doctor: Mild Omicron Symptoms Due To The Effectiveness Of Vaccination On The Body

JAKARTA - Head of the Department of Pulmonology and Respiratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia (FKUI) and Friendship Hospital, dr. Prasenohadi said that the symptoms of patients infected with the Omicron variant can be mild because of the effectiveness of vaccination which has been proven to protect the body.

"In the case of Omicron, most of the cases are mild, maybe because of the influence of the effectiveness of the vaccination," said Prasenohadi, quoted by Antara, Thursday, December 30.

Prasenohadi said the symptoms of the Omicron variant are actually not much different from the symptoms caused by other virus variants. Symptoms generally include fever, cough, shortness of breath. The symptoms are not typical, at least such as headaches and muscle aches in the body.

Even if there are patients who are exposed to COVID-19 again as a result of Omicron even though they have received a full dose of vaccination, this can happen because of the decrease in antibodies caused by a decrease in the efficacy of the vaccine that has been given.

While talking about the mildness of symptoms in the average Omicron patient in Indonesia, he said it might be due to the widespread vaccination coverage. So that there have been no cases of death due to the new variant. Different than when the Delta variant came.

"In the case with Delta, where vaccinations have not been widely carried out and it seems the virus is coming more intensely. So we see many cases with more deaths due to infection with variants of Delta," he asserted.

Reaffirming, he said that vaccines really help prevent symptoms due to COVID-19 in a person from becoming severe and have been proven to prevent or at least cause milder effects.

For example, developed countries such as the United States can still be exposed to Omicron waves. This is because many patients in the emergency department have not been vaccinated and end up with severe symptoms.

Therefore, he asked the entire community to be vaccinated immediately. In addition, if the community feels the symptoms mentioned previously, they are expected to immediately go for a consultation to the nearest facility for further examination and monitoring.

Meanwhile, the government requested that the booster vaccine be administered in order to re-establish antibodies that had previously declined.

"So it can also (affect) people who have received a booster. That's why boosters are very important in dealing with cases with Omicron. So it seems that two vaccinations are not enough to deal with the virus," he said.