The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 167 (667)

In a survey of 1,759 vaccinated adults who said they'd had covid, 55 percent said they'd had it before they got any vaccination. Four percent said they'd been partially vaccinated when they got it, and 36 percent said they'd been fully vaccinated at the time they were infected. As to the end of the pandemic, 53 percent of respondents said that they believed it would be more than a year, or never, before we can return to normal, pre-covid lives. Will we ever return to pre-covid behavior? Some people might, at least within some group of people with similar belief structures. I'm not sure I will. I have the feeling I'll always be looking at strangers or people I know only slightly and wondering what they might have that I don't want to have. The number of people I'm willing to hug will certainly be smaller. I avoid large crowds already at least as much as I can given the panic attacks I tend to have, so that's not an issue. 

The daily case rate in the US hit 1,350,000; the seven-day average has tripled in two weeks and is now over 700,000 per day. Only seven states have not yet set case records in 2022: Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, and Wyoming. There are 145,982 covid patients in hospital, more than last winter's peak. A New York Times comparison of New York City and Seattle showed cases rising for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people with a relatively low death rate for vaccinated people in both cities. The bottom line? Vaccination is highly effective at preventing severe covid, but the risk of getting covid is not zero even for generally healthy people. Dr. Fauci quantified it for a Senate committee. Being unvaccinated means a person is 10 times more likely to test positive, 17 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 20 times more likely to die. I can't help but think of that last bit--"more likely to die" or "20 times more likely to die"--as the title of a James Bond movie. 

Beginning Saturday, private health insurers in the US will cover the cost of up to eight at-home covid tests per month for each person covered by a policy. At the same time, misinformation about what those tests might show is growing on social media. Some videos demonstrate tests yielding positive results after exposure to tap water or juice to suggest that at-home tests don't work. Other tidbits of misinformation include that PCR tests are vaccines in disguise or don't work at all, covid counts publicized include cases of influenza, and that at-home tests are pre-treated to give a certain result. I guess it had to come to this with earlier misinformation campaigns concerning masks, vaccines, and the severity of covid; tests had to be next.  

WHO suggests that half of Europe's residents could get Omicron in the next six to eight weeks. While WHO previously complained that boosters would increase vaccine inequity, they now say that boosters could be essential in protecting the most vulnerable as well as protecting essential personnel such as health care workers and teachers. WHO also says that it's too early to think of the coronavirus as endemic. A key factor in its becoming endemic would be a sense of predictability, something Omicron showed us we do not yet have. 

A not-yet-peer-reviewed study shows that coronavirus loses 90 percent of its ability to infect within five minutes of becoming airborne. If true, this would suggest that improved ventilation is less of a preventive factor than masks or distancing. Research has shown that Omicron is milder than Delta. Will the next variant be even milder? Unfortunately, not necessarily. Some viruses, such as Ebola, have become more dangerous over time. One variant does not evolve from another; each variant has evolved independently.

A couple more US and global notes. Data in some of the first cities hit by Omicron show deaths spiking sharply. While they are not rising as quickly as cases are, they are rising fast enough to worry about. There is speculation that the CDC may recommend N95 or KN95 masks for the general public. China has now locked down three cities. About 20 million Chinese are now confined to their homes. House arrest? Japan will continue its ban on nonresident foreigners until the end of February. And while not totally related to the pandemic, both Rolls-Royce and Bentley posted record sales in 2021.