We had a Zoom with all of Susan’s sisters this past Sunday. It was a birthday meeting for the youngest of the sibs who had her 60th birthday. During the meeting, one of the sisters allowed that she had recently contracted COVID for the second time. She got it from her infant grandson who had just begun daycare. Of course, President Biden had recently, and unartfully, said that the COVID Pandemic was Over.
I had to chime in, of course. “It’s over for sure. We’re only seeing 400-500 US COVID deaths daily, and the US hospitalization numbers are only in the thousands now.” Everyone laughed, and the sisters started recounting the stories of their hospitalized friends. Alas! This shit is not over.
Here is Dr. Klotman’s Week 131 COVID update. The COVID cases, positivity rate, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to fall or at least plateau worldwide. New vaccination approaches are being tested in the lab. These involve targeting viral proteins other than the coronavirus spike protein. It sounds promising especially because other proteins in the viral capsid seem to mutate less frequently than the spike does. We will have to wait to see whether this approach yields a more robust immune response – one less likely to be evaded by new variants like BA.4.6 which has been gaining ground on the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants.
I’ve heard it said that, “It ain’t over until the Fat Lady sings.” Unfortunately, the Fat Lady is in the ICU, on a ventilator and not doing so well. She won’t be doing any singing anytime soon. She was a vaccine denier who said it was her body, her choice. Sigh. We can’t fix stupid. The best we can do is sedate it, ventilate it, medicate it, and hope for the best.