The omicron variant certainly didn't give Czechs the Christmas gift epidemiologists had suggested it might, but it did give Health Min. Vlastimil Válek one. Thanks to omicron, he now has an excuse to renege on the promises he made as an opposition politician. If you pay close attention to what he now says, you might come to the conclusion that he plans to keep his promise to cancel the vaccine mandate for those in the 60+ age group by extending it to include all adults and adolescents who don't pass an antibodies test. He will apparently say that omicron changes everything and that protecting the old folks wouldn't be fair to everyone else. Later, he would drop the part about antibody testing, saying that it isn't recognized internationally. We could be wrong, because Válek is using just the sort of ambiguous language he vowed to do away with. Soon enough, though, it will likely become clear that omicron was just what he needed to become a firm believer in a broad vaccine mandate.