Contagion: Now… Omicron

 

This thing, this Covid, this Corona Virus, will not go away.  We are into the second year of this pandemic and there is no end in sight at this time.  It was two years ago when we first started hearing about it in China.  In those early days, I remember learning that we were dealing with a SARS variant.  I remembered then that the original SARS scare that suspended international travel for like a minute or so in the early 2000s, really did not amount to much.  I remember thinking that this latest manifestation was going to be another false start… basically a big nothing.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  We all couldn’t have been more wrong.

By March and April of 2020, we were all thinking that it would be over by the summer when the warm weather would kill or somehow diminish the virus.  That didn’t happen. 

We thought the initial supply issues, like toilet paper and soda cans, would go away.   Those issues stabilized and the supply chain concerns morphed and gravitated to other areas that became the shipping issues of this fall and the on-going labor shortage. 

By the fall, the incidence rates were on the way up again.  Soon, almost everyone knew at least one person who had contracted the virus and passed away.

At the beginning of this year, the first vaccines were approved and in record order.  People were being vaccinated and the numbers started going down.  There was a general feeling that we were coming out of it.  People were returning to work, travelling, going to restaurants, and enjoying the summer.  For a minute, it seemed like the pandemic might be coming to an end. 

Then Delta hit.  The term “breakthrough infection” became a real thing.  Thankfully, the vaccine, including a third dose of both Pfizer and Moderna, have made these cases akin to a cold.  The unpopulated population was feeling the brunt.

Now, we have Omicron.  The combination of Delta and Omicron seems to moving quickly and in the wrong direction.  Broadway shows are closing to mitigate the spread.  College and professional sport teams have cancelled or postponed games because of too many players testing positive. 

People are weary.  No one wants to go backward.  No one wants a move anywhere near a lockdown.  The trend however is scary.  Per Reuters,

Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is confronting another dark winter, with the red-hot Omicron variant threatening to worsen an already dangerous surge of cases.

 

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have jumped 45% over the last month, and confirmed cases have increased 40% to a weeklong average of 123,000 new U.S. infections a day, according to a Reuters tally.

A McKinsey report provided further gloom by saying “In the base-case scenario, US COVID-19-related hospitalizations could peak significantly higher in the next six months than in the past six months.”  The Reuters article went on to note that Pfizer is predicting that the pandemic will probably last until 2024. 

These are, of course, all predictions.  Predicting the future is always an iffy venture.  People want definitive answers from scientists.  The problem is that scientists are still learning about this virus, which keeps mutating.  Thus, the changing science is changing our outlooks and policies.  It is no surprise, that a segment of the population has turned away from the science and don’t want to be told what to do.  That is bothersome.  President Biden is addressing the nation on Tuesday in this regard to presumably lay out a strategy to mitigate both the fear and the impact.  I truly hope we can all come together on this.