Researchers have, not surprisingly, considered the changes the pandemic may have brought to our lifestyles. To get a handle on this, they're looking at Google searches. Since the pandemic started, there have been more searches for hair, nail, and skin care products; lounge wear; massages; office products; toys and games; and (you knew it was coming, right?) alcohol. Some items had search histories that peaked then fell back to normal; two examples are bleach and paper towels. Finally, searches for daily items such as eggs or pet food have remained at pre-pandemic levels.
Remember the WHO official who said that half of Europeans would get covid in the next month or two? Dr. Fauci said that Omicron is likely to "find just about everybody," but people who have been vaccinated and boosted with do "reasonably well." As for the unvaccinated, the current CDC estimate is that one in five Americans has not been vaccinated. That's about 65 million people.
Our new order of N95 masks arrived today. My supply of KN95 masks was dwindling. I'd agree with what one writer noted which is that any mask is better than no mask, but you should wear the best mask available that you can afford. The cloth masks I got or made early on are certainly cute, but I haven't worn one of them probably in about a year. The other mask advice I happened on is that if your glasses fog, your mask is not tight enough. That's the first thing I check any time I put a mask on.
Various sectors of our daily lives are reflecting the people-drain that is Omicron. Schools or classes going virtual due to too many teachers being out side. Flights being cancelled because too many crew members are out sick. Hours are cut at retail establishments including even pharmacies because of staff shortages. The Red Cross has declared a national blood crisis for the first time ever. It's not that health care is using up more blood but that people just aren't donating now. POTUS says he wants to keep schools and businesses open, but it's not clear how easy that will be.
North of the border, Quebec is imposing a "health contribution" tax on unvaccinated residents, about 10 percent of the provincial population. Quebec did see a surge in vaccination bookings when the announcement was made that customers in cannabis shops and liquor stores would need to show proof of vaccination. Says an infectious disease specialist at McGill University, "I'm not going to mince words: things are bad right now when it comes to hospitalizations. Every time there's a ceiling, in terms of hospital capacity, the hospitalization rate breaks through that ceiling."
Influenza, coronavirus, common cold, allergies. (There's a certain rhythm there.) Telling one from another may be difficult, particularly influenza versus coronavirus. The symptoms are so similar and spread in similar fashion. Both can spread before symptoms develop. Flu symptoms usually arise one to four days after being infected. Covid symptoms usually arise after about five days but could start from two to 14 days. Loss of smell or taste means covid, not flu. Common cold symptoms tend to be mild; in particular, there usually won't be aches or fever. If one's eyes, nose, or ears itch, the cause could be allergies. Usually, the flu starts to increase in October and peaks between December and February. It is possible to have two viruses at the same time. One article referred to "flurona," and now I can't get "My Sharona" out of my head.
Following up on my broken nose and septum, it's all good. That means I try not to hit it again before things finish doing whatever healing they need to do. I got the stitches out, but it will still be a while before I can wear my glasses as high on my nose as I did before the fall.
And did you miss the case, hospitalization, and death counts? The numbers surrounding the coronavirus were recently called a "data disaster." I've mentioned some of that here in recent posts. I'm going to try to not use numbers in any specific way as we move forward. We'll never know the true extent of the novel coronavirus, so we might as well just concentrate on coping the best we can.
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