Now is bad time to let guard down
It’s been a long two years. Even though many of us were able to spend the recent holidays with family and friends, it was not without significant anxiety: worries of infecting older people and young children, stress induced by elusive testing appointments and a lack of home test kits, and concerns we won’t be able to meet financial obligations if we get sick.
Many of us have meticulously followed the carousel of recommendations: social distancing, isolating after exposure and upgrading our masks. As soon as the boosters were ready, we were waiting in line. As the new year begins, we’re left wondering when we’ll reap the benefits of our compliance. We’re eager to ditch our masks, visit our favorite restaurants and regain a sense of normalcy. Yet now, with the highly contagious omicron variant, we hear that we will all get infected anyway.
So, why should we still take precautions to protect ourselves from getting and spreading COVID-19 today?
⏩ While your friend may only have a mild case, many are at risk of getting really sick.
Vaccines provide amazing protection against hospitalization and severe disease, but they are not 100% effective. They were never meant to be. At peak effectiveness, mRNA vaccines, like Moderna and Pfizer, prevent 9 out of 10 infected people from going to the hospital with severe disease. But, one will. Of those who do not go to the hospital, many will be bedridden, with symptoms that prevent them from doing basic everyday activities.
⏩ Even with mild disease, you may experience COVID symptoms for a long time.
Long COVID is still perplexing scientific and medical communities. Anyone can experience symptoms that persist for weeks or months, even if their infection was mild. Although it’s still too early to truly understand the long-term effects of an infection, there are many anecdotes of individuals whose quality of life has been significantly impaired.
⏩ It’s not only the unvaccinated who are at risk.
While a number of people made a personal choice not to receive the vaccine, others do not have a choice. There are approximately 20 million children younger than 5 who are not eligible for vaccination. Since they only became eligible in November, a portion of the 24 million children ages 5 to 11 are still waiting to be fully vaccinated. Moreover, 7 million immunocompromised
Americans are vulnerable because vaccines may not offer them adequate protection due to other health conditions. Those who got their last jab more than five months ago are less protected due to waning immunity, which includes some portion of the 14 million children 12 to 17. Up to 65 million Americans, mostly children, have no choice but to remain vulnerable.
⏩ You might not be able to access care in a hospital.
Once again, hospitals are under strain and health care workers are exhausted. While a smaller percentage of people sick with COVID-19 require hospitalization compared with earlier in the pandemic, the sheer number of infections means the absolute number of people admitted to hospitals is increasing. In California, only 20% of staffed adult intensive care unit beds were available on Sunday. This is exacerbated by the fact that hospitals are also struggling with staffing shortages as doctors, nurses, lab technicians and porters — all critically important to a functioning health care system — aren’t coming to work because they have been infected or exposed or need to take care of a family member. While infections
continue to rise in this wave, health systems continue to steadily lose staff to burnout as the past two years took their toll on those who have yet to be replaced.
⏩ Schools may need to close again.
Three days into the first week of classes this year in San Francisco, 19% of teachers were absent. Staff from various school districts are calling for sickouts to protest the lack of preparation taken by district officials. Ongoing transmission in the community may lead to schools shuttering if enough classrooms lack teachers and students to fill them, exacerbating the mental health crisis our children are facing and wreaking havoc with our economy as parents struggle to adjust schedules to provide child care.
⏩ You might not get your groceries delivered.
As other critical services — waste collection, public transportation, grocery stores — lose staff to illness and caregiving, they may not be able to operate. We’ve already seen bus route delays, flight cancellations, store closures and postponed football games due to COVID. Staying home will not be as easy, either, if delivery services are not able to fulfill orders.
⏩ More cases mean more variants. Viruses are constantly mutating. While few of these changes affect the ability of the virus to spread, how serious infections may be or the performance of vaccines and treatments, some have dire consequences. The more transmissions occur, the more mutations occur and the more likely that one of these may lead to a variant of concern.
It’s true, you probably will get COVID, eventually. But now is not the time to give up. It’s still important to try to limit infections and halt surges. We have mastered the tools to help slow the spread, and it’s in our own best interest to continue using them: masking, limiting large gatherings, testing to identify infections and staying home when sick. It may be difficult, but if we are persistent, we are more likely to retain the ground we’ve gained on this virus and be closer to the day when we can look back on this as a challenge we rose together to meet.