With so many unknowns about omicron, when will we have answers?
ABC News
Learning if this version of the COVID-19 virus is deadlier could take many months, experts say.
The latest COVID-19 variant of concern, omicron, first reported to the World Health Organization from South Africa last week -- and now detected throughout the U.S. -- continues to worry many Americans with still much unknown about the virus.
Health authorities continue to urge calm as scientists across the globe search for answers.
"Right now, we're really in a state of knowledge acquisition," said Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts. "We really need to know more. We need to know how pathogenic it is. We need to know how transmissible it is and we need to know whether or not it evades antibody responses induced by the vaccines."
Experts caution that answers to those questions may not come for months.
