Here we are again. Just like Scrooge’s ghosts, this virus has come back to haunt our Christmas holidays. Not that Covid ever went away, the variants have always been with us. Let’s be honest, though, when the amazing vaccines were discovered and distributed, most people thought that we would at least be permitted to gather with friends and family again by Christmas. If not for the politicization of vaccines, we would be, but that’s just our country now. We’re not going to change it during my lifetime and I’ve pretty much given up tilting at that particular windmill. I can’t deal with stupid. Never have been able to deal with stupid people. Now an entire political party of stupid. Too much.

The Delta variant of the Covid virus is ravaging the Northeast. Once again, ICUs are filling up and EDs have patients backed up into hallways. Hardly noticeable with all of the Covid press attention on Michigan and the Northeast, but Southern states are once again seeing alarming increases in case numbers over the last 3 weeks. All of this is prior to the large gatherings that will occur during the 2 week holiday period. Even with just the Delta variant, the US needs to prepare for exponential growth in cases in January. Adding the largely-unknown Omicron variant factor to the equation makes the potential impact of Covid on US public health in early 2022 truly frightening.

What about Omicron? Well, we know a bit more about Omicron than we did 10 days ago. This strain is highly infectious and will become the dominant Covid strain in the US sometime in January. Some early studies seem to indicate that Omicron attacks the cells of the lung passageways more than the cells of the alveoli. If that’s true, Omicron then may cause less severe symptoms, but this is clinical medicine and is definitely not my field. However, from an epidemiological standpoint, we should be cautious about claiming that Omicron is less virulent until we have sufficient numbers and sufficient time to assess the degree and severity of symptoms associated with infection by this variant.

One area we can be fairly comfortable predicting about Omicron is that this variant will infect more people and cause more illness than previous Covid variants. Even if the variant is less virulent, some percentage of infected people will become seriously ill and the sheer increase in numbers will stress our health care delivery system and our public health agencies. I’d like to stress this point again, when you are looking at Omicron and the future, please bear in mind that this variant is going to infect a lot of people rapidly. Omicron is highly infectious and we have let our guard down. To a great extent, we depend on the vaccines to protect us, but only 30% of “fully vaccinated” people have received the booster and 70 million are not vaccinated at all. Since vaccines can best be considered as protecting the population as a whole and boosters are necessary to resist Omicron, the US population seems very vulnerable. (Just calculating as I am typing, probably about 240 million of us are not adequately vaccinated.)

Add to the vaccination problem the fact that our society is just tired of living in fear and is becoming more lax about masks and social distancing. People are looking to place blame and, since they don’t understand the virus, have focused their rage on health authorities who are providing guidance to survive this crisis. And it is rage that we are seeing. Threatening health directors, smashing furniture at school board meetings, and punching flight attendants over mask requirements are all behaviors that we have seen ad nauseam in the last year. The fact that these actions are supported by Republican leaders means that anti-social behavior on this subject will continue and will impact US Covid-related response far into the future. If possible, avoid prolonged discussion with these idiots about Covid. Not only will that protect you from the virus, it will also protect your sanity. What bullshit they spout!

Personally, I’ve altered my behavior slightly over the past week. I had written in this space a few months ago that, after being vaccinated, I would live my life. Well, I continue to do that but now with a few more safety factors included. I have started to once again wear my masks when inside public places and I am limiting my inside dining. I’ll travel for family events, but not for vacations or leisure. I won’t go into anyone’s house nor have anyone in mine. I also purchased some testing kits that I keep on-hand. The most fundamental difference in my Covid approach is that I now expect to become infected with Covid. I’ve never felt that way before about this virus – not even at the beginning. So, since I expect to become infected, I have testing supplies and over-the-counter therapies on hand for the possible event. I live in a hurricane-prone area and people who live in those areas keep supplies on hand during hurricane season. I am treating Covid in a similar manner. If it happens, I want to be ready.

But, yeah, I think a lot of us are going to get this now. Hope I’m wrong.

Stay safe. Stay informed. Wear a mask. Get the damn shots. Have a good holiday season.

P.s. – Congratulate me for the title of this essay. I am the first person in the last 50 years to say or write “deja vu” without adding “all over again”. I celebrate my small victories.

If you’re looking for some light reading over the holidays, I recommend “Edison” by Edmond Morris. Edison was truly a fascinating man. Not someone I’d like to necessarily hang out with, but brilliant and complicated. (It’s really not “light reading”, though.)