Back in February of this year, I blogged about COVID-19 (Why Hasn’t COVID Rapid Testing Been Done in Canada? | FROLITICKS (wordpress.com)). I noted at that time that: “We are in a veritable war to contain the spread of COVID-19. One would think that we would employ all the weapons at our disposal to combat spread of this virus.” This was all before the Delta variant, and now the newer, more contagious Omicron variant. Back then we had no vaccines for COVID, and relied heavily on various forms of strategic lockdowns and individual prevention measures in the form of masking and physical distancing. We put restrictions on the numbers of people who could gather in their homes or who could visit hospitals and long-term care residences. We recognized that seniors were the most vulnerable as evidenced by the rate of hospitalizations and deaths among the elderly. Schools were closed to students and more on-line learning was introduced. Various testing for COVID was introduced, including rapid antigen tests. A collaborated attack, led by governments and scientists, was implemented to develop vaccines to combat the coronavirus. Having successfully developed COVID vaccines, a mass inoculation was undertaken to vaccinate as many adults (18 and over) as possible. In Canada, this resulted in over 75 percent of the adult population being vaccinated by last summer. In the U.S., due to greater vaccine hesitancy, about 60 percent of adults are vaccinated. As of November, we began vaccinating children (5 to 11 years), hoping that we could keep kids in schools and prevent the spread. Both American and Canadian governments introduced mandated vaccination policies, not only for government employees, but also for federally-regulated industries.
Slowly with the majority of Canadians and Americans being fully vaccinated, restrictions on businesses and schools were lifted by the spring. Life seemed to be happily moving back to normalcy, as a number of battles with COVID had been won and hospitalizations had plateaued. Then the Omicron variant arrived. Having been seriously hit by the predominant Delta variant since last spring, the Omicron variant is now reportedly about four times more infectious than the Delta variant. What is more disconcerting is the evidence that COVID vaccines may not be as effective against Omicron, with many more breakthrough cases among vaccinated persons. For the unvaccinated, Omicron may be just as serious as the Delta variant resulting in more hospitalizations and deaths among the infected.
In Canada and the U.S., as in Europe, Australia and elsewhere, new positive cases for COVID are exponentially increasing as a result of Omicron. Reports are now indicating that a new wave is hitting the hospitality, retail, entertainment and travel industries. As for restaurants who were hoping for an upsurge in business prior and during the Christmas season, many are being forced to close due to workers testing positive for COVID and customers who are cancelling their dining plans out of fear of exposure to Omicron. The problem is that many people have yet to get vaccinated, risking getting seriously ill as a result. In one example, I was amazed to read that Walmart, which had mandated vaccines mainly for its corporate staff, had not done the same for front-line workers. According to data compiled by the Shift Project at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, only 66 percent of Walmart’s roughly 1.6 million U.S. employees are vaccinated. Like in numerous businesses, the numbers of unvaccinated workers remains a serious problem, more so now with the emergence of the Omicron variant.
While we have won a number of battles with COVID-19, the war is not over. However, we have been carrying on as if this war was over. Large sporting events took place with full crowds in attendance, many without masks. Fortunately, being fully vaccinated was a requirement for participation in such venues. Unfortunately, medical experts are pushing us to get booster shots for those already vaccinated in order to deal with Omicron. This still leaves millions of Canadians and Americans, including the majority of our children, who have not yet been vaccinated for COVID-19. Should the case loads increase as projected, we can expect that more severe restrictions may have to be put in place, including lockdowns which none of us really want. If we choose not to consider such measures, it could lead to us to losing the global war with COVID. Or perhaps I’m just being overly pessimistic and alarmist!
FROLITICKS 