Almost all the New Years greetings I’ve been getting have included wishes for a better 2022 than 2021. I bet you’ve given and received similar messages. They don’t have to include what we’re talking about when we ask for a better year. Everyone knows without saying that it’s about COVID.
But here in the United States, at least, and elsewhere in the world, that hope is tempered by news that Omicron is on fire. And it’s probably about to get worse.
Doctors are predicting a surge in cases and hospitalizations due to gatherings during the holidays.
In Illinois, the governor is urging hospitals to postpone non-emergency surgeries. By the way, it’s not in the United States.
Some Canadian hospitals are postponing surgeries, too.
In New Jersey it’s so bad the governor has declared an “Omicron tsunami.”
Omicron cases are up in Los Angeles County, New York state, Florida, Alabama, Michigan and elsewhere.
In Colorado they’re dealing with two disasters. The COVID outbreak and the aftermath of a massive wildfire near Boulder that destroyed more than 500 homes.
In Iowa a man’s family says he died because he had to wait 15 days for a hospital bed for a non-COVID ailment because there were no beds because of the pandemic.
This Omicron variant has a different feel than the Delta strain. During the Delta peak, we all knew people who tested positive. Most of us knew people or learned of people, who died. But the numbers of people we knew who got sick were much fewer than this time.
I hear the term ‘‘dropping like flies” all the time, especially in the work environment where people are calling out sick and staying out for their isolation periods.
But there’s some good news, too. While our chances of getting this new strain are greater, our chances of getting so sick that we need hospitalization are less.
That doesn’t necessarily translate, however, to fewer hospitalizations. Many hospitals are at capacity due to the shear number of Omicron cases.
And then, there is Delta.
Omicron did not replace Delta. The attention, right now, is on Omicron. But Delta is still around. And studies so far show Delta is more deadly than the Omicron strain.
OK I promised a hopeful note on the subject and here it is:
As we know this variant originated in South Africa and they were hit by a pandemic before us. Well, in South Africa, it appears Omicron has run its course. Many scientists are hopeful the same thing will happen in the United States and other places where it’s out-of-control as well.
So despite the dire situation right now, I too wish for a Happy and better New Year.
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this is what germ warfare does were the chinese testing out this ?