Covid cases rise as U.S. passes 1 million deaths
What happened
As the country marked the grim milestone of 1 million Covid deaths, the Biden administration warned this week that a new wave could infect nearly a third of Americans. Cases shot up more than 50 percent nationwide over the past two weeks, and hospitalizations rose nearly 20 percent. The Omicron subvariant BA2.12.1, an offshoot of BA.2 that is 25 percent more contagious, now accounts for nearly 43 percent of new infections, and it could explode in the fall. Covid czar Ashish Jha warned that a late2022 surge could infect 100 million people. Data from last winter’s Omicron wave, meanwhile, suggest that some 42 percent of deaths in January and February were among vaccinated people, mostly elderly. Still, the death rate overall among the vaccinated was seven times lower than for the unvaccinated, and boosters continued to bolster protection against the most serious illness. Only about 30 percent of American adults, though, have gotten a booster—a rate lagging behind that of most Western countries.
Pfizer and Moderna are currently working on so-called bivalent shots, which combine a vaccine against the original Covid strain with one that targets a newer variant, but funds for buying vaccines and the antiviral Paxlovid are drying up. After getting cut from a budget that included $40 billion in aid to Ukraine, a bipartisan proposal for $10 billion in Covid funds remains stranded in Congress. Senate Republicans vowed to block the money unless the White House reinstates Donald Trump’s Title 42 restrictions, which allow officials to turn away or even kick out migrants.
What the editorials said
Deaths during this “catastrophic chapter in American history” have now outstripped deaths from “both world wars” plus the tolls from the conflicts in Vietnam and Korea, said The Washington Post. The carnage has also rattled confidence in leadership. Trump’s response was “reckless,” yet under Biden, “confusing and shifting” publichealth guidance further eroded trust. What would happen if the CDC decided to tell Americans to mask up again? “Would we?”
While a sense of normality has returned, “appearances can be deceiving,” said the San Antonio Express-News. Cases are rising, and
“the impact of these deaths has spiraled beyond the deceased” as survivors grieve, their lives forever altered. Still, even after negotiators whittled Biden’s proposed $22.5 billion in Covid relief funds down to $10 billion, the money has been “undermined by haggling.” Lawmakers should “do the right thing” for a country battered by staggering loss.
What the columnists said
The pandemic has been “a complex political and cultural event,” said Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal, yet the Pavlovian Democratic response was “throw money and expect gratitude.” Trillions in Covid relief filled state coffers but did little to help overwhelmed families juggling homeschooling and parsing masking policies “micromanaged into incomprehensibility.” The attempt to mortgage our children’s future with Build Back Better was “an exercise in political grandiosity wholly out of sync with a public that had turned inward.”
Americans will be “rightfully furious” to learn that their leaders could have prevented Covid’s next wave, said biotech executive Andrei Floroiu in The Hill. Developing “second-generation vaccines” tailored to new variants is our best shot at taming transmission. But such efforts require a fountain of money not seen since 2020’s Operation Warp Speed. While the first vaccines reduced deaths and illness, their effectiveness waned within months, so they alone cannot halt the pandemic.
Variants “seem to be coming at us faster and faster,” said David Axe in The Daily Beast. At least four new Omicron subvariants have surpassed their ancestors to become regionally dominant. Geneticist Niema Moshiri likened Covid’s evolution to slot machines: With the virus producing two mutations every two weeks in each infection, it’s making millions of plays, so it can hit the jackpot with a stronger variant again and again. “Don’t be surprised” if you win this unwanted prize, “even if you’re vaccinated and boosted and maybe even have antibodies from past infection.” But “don’t panic,” either. Keeping up with your vaccinations means that even if you get Covid, it’ll likely be mild. That’ll remain true unless the virus hits the “mega-jackpot”—a variant that achieves total immune escape. If that happens, “everything changes.”