Omarion Reacts to Jokes Comparing His Name to Omicron: 'I am an Artist, Not a Variant'
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Omarion has seen and heard all of the Omicron comparisons and is setting the record straight.
On Saturday, the 37-year-old R&B singer shared a video on TikTok in which he addressed the jokes tied to his name and the latest variant of COVID-19.
"Hi everybody, this is Omarion. I am an artist, not a variant," he says in the clip. "So please be aware that if you just so happen to run into me on the street, you don't have to isolate for five days, nor do you have to have a negative test result in order to dance to my music."
"So please, be safe, be healthy, happy new year," Omarion adds in the short video.
RELATED: Doctor Says Fully Vaccinated People Are Going to Test Positive with Omicron: 'Our New Normal'
In two follow-up videos shared on his TikTok account, Omarion continued to poke fun at the similarities between the spelling of his name and the Omicron variant.
Last month, actor LaKeith Stanfield playfully teased Omarion in a since-deleted post he shared on Instagram, Complex reported.
Posting a screenshot he sent to the B2K musician, Stanfield, 30, wrote, "You ruining Christmas for everybody smh." The Atlanta star captioned his post, "I'm weak i wonder if he's gunna respond."
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The Omicron variant spreads "more easily" than its predecessor, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said.
In December, Dr. Vin Gupta from the University of Washington explained that experts are "forecasting that cases are going to rise" in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, but those with their shots are going to be protected against severe illness.
"We have to get comfortable with fully vaccinated folks testing positive, that's going to be our new normal," Gupta said while on Today. "But people should not worry about that because the purpose of vaccines is not to prevent a positive test or a respiratory virus like Omicron, it's to keep you out of the hospital, and that's exactly what they're doing."
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