On the menu today, we have three aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic that you probably haven’t heard about: The average daily number of new cases of Covid-19 reported nationwide has declined 42 percent in the last two weeks; the daily rate of deaths — traditionally a lagging indicator — has increased 30 percent; and the Delta variant is just about gone. Once again, our debate about what policies should be in place to deal with the pandemic is well behind the rapidly changing conditions on the ground.
The Omicron Wave Subsides
Do you feel like the decline has received as much attention as the incline in late December and January?
Second, the daily rate of deaths — traditionally a lagging indicator — has increased 30 percent, to 2,558 this morning. Has that figure received as much attention as the increase in cases?
Third, the Delta variant is now just about gone. As of January 22, 99.9 percent of all Covid-19 cases where the variant was genomically identified were Omicron; Delta is now down to one-tenth of 1 percent.
This is an oddity in coronavirus coverage, something that runs counter to the media’s traditional preference for the dramatic over the mundane, and whatever conscious or subconscious preference for bad news over good news exists. The good news is that the early assessments of Omicron were correct. Omicron is much, much less likely to kill you — otherwise, our death rates would have increased tenfold the way our caseload did.
As I noted over the weekend, one-third of all U.S. Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic have occurred since early December. The Omicron wave infected a lot of Americans — more than 25 million, and remember that our figures are undercounts because not everybody who tests positive on a home test is going to notify their doctor or local health authorities.
The bad news is that because Omicron is so contagious, it was and remains more likely to work its way toward the people who are particularly vulnerable — mostly but not entirely the unvaccinated elderly, the immunocompromised, those with comorbidities, and those with genetic factors that make them less likely to fight off the virus. I write “mostly but not entirely the unvaccinated,” because even the fully vaccinated elderly or immunocompromised may not be able to fight off the virus, depending upon other health factors.
Washington State’s department of health offered some updated numbers which showed that, from February 1, 2021 to December 28, 75 percent of the state’s 5,057 Covid-19 deaths during that period were individuals who were unvaccinated. Vaccine skeptics can argue until they’re blue in the face, but the evidence is overwhelming: Vaccination makes it much less likely that you will die from Covid-19. Does this mean everyone who is unvaccinated will die if they catch Covid-19? Of course not. But the vaccine trains your immune system to be prepared for a run-in with the virus.
But it is also worth noting that fully vaccinated people can still die from Covid-19, and in Washington’s numbers, 262 people — 5.2 percent — were partially vaccinated when they died, and 995 people — 19.7 percent — were fully vaccinated when they died.
With the Omicron wave declining and no sign of a new variant coming along to replace it, we may finally — finally! — be at something akin to herd immunity. There is a demographic out there that is stuck in a mid 2021 mindset (if not a March 2020 mindset) that sees every mitigation step as necessary because of those darn unvaccinated people. But those unvaccinated people are down to 13 percent of the adult population, and less than 15 percent of those over age twelve. This country has administered more than 539 million shots. We’ve experienced the biggest, fastest, and most wide-ranging vaccination effort in human history.
Of the remaining unvaccinated Americans, about 20 million are kids under age five, and kids between six months and five years might become eligible for vaccination by the end of the month.
It is time to stop using the small minority of unvaccinated Americans as an excuse for keeping various measures in place forever.
A week ago, I noted that Glenn Youngkin had the upper hand in the school-mask-mandate battle. The position of masking all kids, no matter what, even if they have learning disabilities, speech issues, hearing issues that require them to read lips, etc., is untenable, and becomes less and less defensible as the case rate comes down. A week ago, Virginia had about 57,000 confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases. This week, that figure is down to about 42,000.
Allowing people to get back to their normal, pre-pandemic habits must be a national priority — and not just because Monmouth polling finds that 70 percent of Americans “agree with the sentiment that ‘it’s time we accept that Covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives’ — including 78 percent of those who report having gotten Covid and 65 percent of those who say they have not been infected.” More than two years of constantly having to fight over when you must wear masks, whether you’re wearing the right masks, are you vaccinated, are you boosted, did you remember your vaccination card, is your child’s school open, is it safe to come into the office, are too many people in that room, how long should you self-isolate, and so on have frayed Americans’ nerves to the breaking point.
This morning, Marisa Iati of the Washington Post offers an article that seems to begin as a denunciation of fed-up Americans’ behaving badly:
An airplane passenger is accused of attacking a flight attendant and breaking bones in her face. Three New York City tourists assaulted a restaurant host who asked them for proof of vaccination against the coronavirus, prosecutors say. Eleven people were charged with misdemeanors after they allegedly chanted “No more masks!” and some moved to the front of the room during a Utah school board meeting.
Across the United States, an alarming number of people are lashing out in aggressive and often cruel ways in response to policies or behavior they dislike.
But about halfway through, Iati focuses on the extraordinary and unprecedented struggles we’ve all been through, now entering a third year:
Some of those behaviors appear to be the result of living through a long-lasting public emergency with no clear endpoint, the experts said. As the omicron variant rages across the country, it is again unclear when the pandemic restrictions will end. For some people, this kind of catastrophe strains their coping resources and causes them to act in ways that they normally would not.
“We’re just not meant to live under this level of tension for such a prolonged period,” said Vaile Wright, senior director of health care innovation for the American Psychological Association. “So what that ends up doing is it really wears on our coping abilities to the point where we aren’t able to regulate our emotions as well as we could before.”
This doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to physically attack flight attendants, restaurant hostesses, or school-board members. But it does mean that the tools for fighting a contagious virus that public-health experts deem best are not always going to be the ones that are best for people’s whole health, particularly over long stretches. The Chinese approach of welding apartment doors shut to ensure the infected don’t leave their homes is probably quite effective at stopping the spread. It’s also de facto imprisonment without trial, for committing no crime. If the “most effective” policy stops the spread of the virus but simultaneously drives people crazy, then it’s no longer the most effective policy. And as we’ve seen in the case numbers discussed above, it’s possible that no set of public-policy choices was ever going to mitigate the spread of Omicron much.
In certain circumstances, the precautions against Covid can be more harmful than Covid itself. The Wall Street Journal has a dark, depressing, eye-opening report about all of the deaths that are consequences of the pandemic, beyond the direct infections:
Meantime, U.S. drug overdose deaths, already at record highs, soared about 30 percent in 2020, and early data show the toll may have worsened last year. The pandemic was destabilizing for people already struggling with addiction, or trying to seek sobriety, parents of recent overdose victims say.
It was harder for Nick Fort to find addiction treatment, due to full beds and Covid-19 restrictions, according to his mother, Sally Fort. Though he sought help many times through years of struggles, he overdosed and died at 30 on a mix of fentanyl and cocaine at his suburban Des Moines, Iowa, home in early November.
A dog lover with a rescue named Bailey, Mr. Fort had been open about the challenges he faced, including a felony record linked to his drug problems, his mother said. He made clear that if he died, he wanted others to know what happened in hopes of erasing the stigma about addiction, she said.
“He had issues for many, many years,” Mrs. Fort said. “Covid certainly didn’t help it, because it drove him into isolation more than before.”
Isolation isn’t good for people. Our decisions about Covid-19 must start accounting for the other, not-so-visible costs of the “safest” approach.
ADDENDUM: We made it to February! Remember, tomorrow the groundhog comes and lots of us pretend that it can determine the weather six weeks from now. Also tomorrow, the Washington Football Team announces its new name, and the hot rumor is they’ll be the “Washington Commanders.” You know what we can say about that earlier rumor that they would become the “Washington Admirals,” right? It’s a trap!