We Are SO Not Ready For This

Even Though We’ve Had Two Years To Prepare

Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash

Get this, fans — Omicron is now the second-most contagious virus in the entire world. Woo-hoo! Climbing the top of the charts! It can take “as little as three” days to make you sick, so this badass can skirt around many of the tests we currently have available, so there’s that.

Just a few days before Christmas, our sane, rational president gave the kind of speech a real leader should give — he reassured his constituents that we will get through this, that we’ll be okay. Mr. Biden said plainly, “If you are not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned,” and he was honest that we will see plenty of vaccinated people get sick. But he also basically said that, in the end, everything will be fine.

It sure doesn’t seem that way.

But, our president sort of has to be that reassuring. Because: presidential. You understand, right? (The last guy totally didn’t get this concept.)

The reality is that this whole thing is looking more and more like a long-term disaster. Here’s why:

We absolutely know that Omicron is super-contagious, and that it isn’t milder than the earlier strains all on its own. We know that it works around Pfizer’s vaccine efficacy, so it has the potential to make you very, very sick even if you have been vaccinated, and that the benefits of the vaccine are showing effectiveness for just months, not forever, so efforts are ramping up for additional rounds of vaccine.

Researchers are working hard to create a vaccine that specifically targets Omicron, but that won’t be available until Spring of 2022.

We are already starting to see health care systems on the brink of collapse due to the new surge of Covid-19 cases, like the San Antonio Texas hospital system.

Even with this rise in cases and numbers, families returned to celebrating the holidays like we did before, leaning on vaccinations and boosters as a panacea, a false reassurance that everyone is healthy and safe to resume activities like we did before.

Except it’s not so safe, and we shouldn’t be so glib.

Even with many of our leaders urging vaccination boosters in time for the holidays, those recommendations…