I was not going to write another blog this week but my last one seemed to me to be a little defeatist, and after a conversation with a relative, I was snapped out of my funk. This switch was also fueled by listening to a podcast about how we are destroying the oceans and are decimating massive numbers of animals, especially fish and how this is also impacting on global warming and the resultant climate change we are experiencing. I have learned a lot about all of this of course in the last few years, but just like anything, there is an element of overwhelm leading to apathy.
You might think that these issues: the pandemic, the oceans, climate change, animal welfare… are not related, but the bottom line is that convenience, complacency, selfishness and indifference is why we are in this mess to begin with. All of this is linked to our arrogance and behavior. We are in a global pandemic caused by a virus, originating in an animal (a bat), captured and sold for food along with some of the animals it infected (the pangolin and civet cats) which were raised for meat and then the virus was isolated and manipulated by humans. How it actually got out is irrelevant. ALL developed countries are playing these genetic “gain of function” games with pathogens. We are destroying the life on our planet in order to feed ourselves with animal products which we don’t need and are unhealthy to eat anyway, quickly making the planet uninhabitable and condemning our future generations to who knows what, if they even survive. We have a political system which fosters division, violence and greed. It’s all related.
We keep talking about going back to “normal”. It’s our “normal” patterns of behavior which is killing our species, all the other species and the planet itself. We will never be “normal” or at least what we perceive as normal. If we don’t change, this will not be the last pandemic and the destruction of our species and the planet will march on. The planet will survive since Mother Nature always wins. But humans just won’t be part of that future.
Enough of that, and let’s look at some Covid numbers just to keep things in perspective.
We keep hearing about how we are heading out of this pandemic. Although the numbers in general are trending down, it’s all relative. 2 years ago, 1000 deaths a day was catastrophic. Today, dropping from over 4000 deaths a day a few weeks ago to 3200 deaths, yesterday’s total, seems optimistic???? The most recent 7-day average in the US is still 2600 deaths a day!
The average 7-day new Covid case count is 204,000 a day in the US, much higher than during most of this pandemic. But again, compared with the record shattering average of over 800,000 a day just a few weeks ago, 204,000 seems pretty darn good.
Our healthcare system was strained before the pandemic. 400,000 healthcare workers have left healthcare in the US since the start of the pandemic and 18 states report critical shortages in staff in hospitals. 24% of US hospitals with an ICU are over 95% capacity. ER waits are well over 10 hours in many places. This is a bad time to have a heart attack or appendicitis! People have died recently from these, and many other treatable conditions, because of delays in treatment.
Israel, one of the most vaccinated countries which is also taking some of the most aggressive anti-Covid measures, is having 70k new cases a day. The previous high at any point in the pandemic was only 10k a day. They are having much fewer hospitalizations and deaths, but again, it’s all about the numbers. More cases inevitably leads to more illness and death. The vast majority of those hospitalizations and deaths are in unvaccinated or incomopletely vaccinated people. Their hospital systems are also being overrun.
The BA.2 Omicron subvariant is now in 67 countries and 42 US states.
It accounts for 2% of worldwide cases, 3.6% in the US
The BA.2 subvariant is at least 30% more infectious than BA.1 (original Omicron).
It appears to cause milder disease, but as mentioned above, it’s about the numbers.
We recently went over 400 million worldwide cases of Covid.
It took the entire first year of the pandemic to reach 100 million cases.
7 more months to reach 200 million,
6 months later we got to 300 million,
And now with the introduction of Omicron, we hit 400 million in just 1 month!
It took only 30 days to infect as many people as were infected in the first 365 days of this pandemic. It’s crazy.
The point is, we are nowhere near out of the woods, in any aspect of our modern day lives. We’ve simply adjusted our pain threshold and our expectations. Despite all the interest in plant-based eating, the average American consumes even more meat than ever before. Global warming marches on. And this pandemic is far from over. Our waistlines continue to expand with obesity rates continuing to go up, despite the warnings of weight being the #1 risk factor for a bad case of Covid. We might eventually achieve some kind of endemic state here in the US, but we have to keep in mind that there are plenty of places in the world where variants continue to develop because of their lack of vaccination and standard practices like proper masking (stress the proper). Given how quickly Omicron has spread worldwide, there is nothing to support that another variant won’t develop and wreak havoc once again.
We have better treatments available to treat Covid, but good luck getting them if you really get sick and need them. It’s like hoping that someone will come along and develop some new technology to reverse climate change. As renowned epidemiologist and pandemic specialist Dr. Osterholm puts it, “Hope is NOT a strategy”.
Please consider getting vaccinated, and boosted if you have not yet done so. Again, the US ranks somewhere in the 60s when it comes to full vaccination. Iran is ahead of us for goodness sake!
Please continue to wear a mask but wear a good one (see my last post for what is good and what is not) and wear it effectively.
Take care of yourself as well as all of those around you.
Stay Safe and Be Well.
AC