It has been so long since I have written. The reasons are many and varied, but primarily I have been stymied because of the political aspects of everything Covid. There’s little sense right now trying to disseminate simplified facts and direction when neither of those seem to matter. Now, though, with the new variant and the continuing uncertainty around vaccines, I thought it might be the time to put out a little effort on my part. So, without further ado, I take my quill pen in hand, dip into the ink well, and forge forward. (Pretty good intro, huh?)

Before discussing Omicron, I want to take a moment and cover the most frequent question everyone had concerning Covid “pre-Omicron” – “Now that we have vaccines and boosters and potential new treatments, what is the future going to be like with Covid?” That answer is easy. This is it. This is the future. This, how we are our currently living with Covid, is our future Covid landscape. Sorry. That’s just the way it and the way it’s going to be. A simple breakdown:

Vaccinated – The proportion of people vaccinated in the US will gradually increase slightly now that vaccines are available to children. My guess is that we will increase to about 68% total population fully vaccinated. Annual boosters will be part of our lives, similar to flu shots. Eventually the need for annual shots will drop the vaccination proportion of our population to below 65%. Not nearly enough to achieve herd immunity.

Unvaccinated – I don’t want to give these people too much space or too much of my time. They will remain recalcitrant and dangerous. Dangerous, not because of “owning the libs”, but because of willful ignorance and because they will remain a reservoir of vulnerable hosts for this virus to reproduce and to mutate. I care less everyday about these people suffering the consequences of their infections, except from the standpoint of overwhelming our medical capacity.

Naturally Immune – A natural question is: “If the non-vaccinated (fools) provide the host reservoir for this virus, won’t enough of them eventually become infected so that we reach “herd immunity” and new infection numbers drop significantly?” Good question. The answer is no. Although still being researched, my guess is that protection from this virus resulting from natural infection lasts only 4-6 months and then a person can be re-infected. If that estimate is true, the math becomes pretty easy. With about 100 million of us unvaccinated, the virus will have a ready, continual supply of hosts far into the future. Easy hunting. Keep in mind that no vaccine is 100% effective, so having a virus constantly infecting a large number of people puts all of us at increased risk, both those vaccinated and the fools.

Outbreaks – Through this summer, the Covid virus caused high infection rates, ICU capacity problems, and increased fatalities throughout the Southern states. After a few months, the numbers began to subside, but the Covid wave moved to the Western states, then the Midwest, and is now aiming once again for the Northeast. You may call them outbreaks, if you wish, but they are not really outbreaks. I project that we will see these trends recur every year or so. Infection rates in a region of the country will increase, then subside, and the virus will move on.

Hospitalizations and Deaths – New treatments will reduce the more serious health ramifications of Covid.

Variants – As long as the Covid virus is loose in a world with billions of unprotected people, we will be need to be surveilling for new variants with the potential for greater harm. Since the virus mutates continually, we can expect regular alarms to be raised by our public health agencies and be ready to adapt to the new threats.

So, in my estimate, that’s our future. My only caveat is that a more dangerous strain of the virus will alter the above estimates – obviously, for the worse.

OMICRON – Not much is currently known about this new strain that recently came to the fore in South Africa. The research is moving quickly and we will know much more by mid-December. If you have read my previous Covid essays, you know that public health concerns about any new Covid strain focuses on 3 important factors: infectiousness, virulence, and resistance. What do we know right now?

Infectiousness – We really don’t need too much research data on this. Omicron spreads quickly. The question is how much more infectious Omicron may be compared to the Delta strain and the degree that Omicron’s infectiousness will impact our current public health measures.

Virulence – The level of damage that Omicron may cause to the human body, the type of damage, and the number of systems that may be impacted are important research questions for the scientific community. Omicron is still problem even if the associated illness is mild, but Omicron becomes a public health nightmare if the health impacts are severe.

Resistance – Omicron may have mutated in such a way that renders our current vaccines less effective or ineffective.

I am going to go out on a limb here and project that Omicron will be found to be highly infectious (even more than Delta), relatively mild in health impact, and mostly susceptible to our current vaccines. We will see. Maybe I’m just hopeful.

Stay safe. Get the shot and the booster.

p.s. – Rodney Crowell’s “It Ain’t Over Yet” is songwriting at its best. Just a beautiful song made even better by having his ex-wife Roseanne Cash sing the “ex-wife part” of the song. Give it a listen.