{"654026":{"#nid":"654026","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Omicron Is Pushing America Into Soft Lockdown","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENobody wants to mandate business closures, but so many people are getting sick during the recent Omicron wave of Covid-19\u0026nbsp;that businesses are closing anyway.\u0026nbsp;For most vaccinated people, Omicron will be mild. Yet\u0026nbsp;even a mild cold, sufficiently widespread, can disrupt a city.\u0026nbsp;But if soft lockdowns help suppress that viral spread, then cases will drop off sooner, while many people are still susceptible. In other words, \u0026ldquo;when you see a peak and see it go down, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean the risk has abated,\u0026rdquo; says \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/biosciences.gatech.edu\/people\/joshua-weitz\u0022\u003EJoshua Weitz\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;Professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/biosciences.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESchool of Biological Sciences\u003C\/a\u003E, Co-Director of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/qbios.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EInterdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences\u003C\/a\u003E, and Blaise Pascal International Chair of Excellence at the Ecole Normale Superieure.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"34434","created_gmt":"2022-01-04 18:58:13","changed_gmt":"2022-01-04 18:58:13","author":"Renay San Miguel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2021\/12\/omicron-soft-lockdown\/621121\/","dateline":{"date":"2021-12-26T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2021-12-26T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"166882","name":"School of Biological Sciences"},{"id":"11599","name":"Joshua Weitz"},{"id":"189614","name":"soft lockdowns"},{"id":"189615","name":"omicron"},{"id":"184289","name":"covid-19"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}