Before Christmas, I posted on Instagram saying I was taking a break from 2021 - meaning a week vacation before the end of the year - and asking 2022 to give me a fucking break too. Well, both 21 and 22 answered: “Gracias, pero no gracias.”
On my first day of vacation, two days after Christmas Eve, my husband and I found out we had been exposed to Covid-19 at our 8 people Expat's Christmas dinner. We had asked everyone to get tested before, but somehow omicron sneaked its way into our celebration. It happens.
I tested negative after a rapid and a PCR test, but my husband was positive. Luckily, both didn't show any symptoms, but we quarantined for 5 days following health protocol. After that, 5 days of social distancing, using a mask at all times when outside. Needless to say that all NYE celebrations and traveling were canceled to avoid spreading the virus. This means, during our quarantine, we watched the rest of the world on social media celebrating the beginning of another COVID year with different interpretations of social distancing.
Being locked inside once again – last year, without the vaccines, we were still in NYC during the holiday – gave me plenty of time to reflect. But reflection doesn't help much anymore. The writings are on the wall for anyone to see. So, at this point, when it comes to Covid-19, regardless of the variant du jour threat, we all know what to do or, most importantly, what not to do. But do we all really know what to do?
But one thing is for sure: there's more than only writings on the wall about our current dystopian reality. One of the hits of the end of the year was "Don't Look Up," the star-studded Netflix Adam McKay’s world's environmental collapse satire. The social chattered was divided between those who thought it was funny enought and those who thought the catastrophic metaphor wasn't sufficient to convince climate change deniers about the unavoidable upcoming environmental disaster. To me, a comet heading towards the Earth is a clear metaphor for any disaster. Still, some people argue that deniers will always be deniers.
But curiously, while enlightened people questioned the film's efficacy in delivering its doomsday message to a not-so-enlightened and deniers audience, in a very democratic way, everybody decided put aside their differences for NYE's celebration. Social media was invaded by images of fireworks, people dancing, drinking, hugging, kissing, and posing for pictures – severe case of FOMO here. In this highly polarized world, it's very refreshing to see people coming together to celebrate a new year's arrival. After all, we all needed a break, right? Well, maybe not so fast.
Whether the comet is a good metaphor for an impending disaster for some, or the virus spread is enough of a fact for others, it seems denial isn't exclusive to one side or the other.
In the first days of 2022, the US only registered 1 million new cases of Covid. If this doesn't look like a comet, I wonder what would make people understand that stopping spreading the virus is a real challenge, and it doesn't look like it will end soon?
But, of course, it is different from 2020 when we didn't have a vaccine. According to many reports, omicron can cause not much more than a "mild cold" to vaccinated people. Nevertheless, as a reference, the US has only 62% of its entire population vaccinated. It means that about 1/3 of the country can get really sick and compromise the whole health system capacity. Yes, it’s a Petri dish from hell! But, of course, one can argue that those unvaccinated people chose this way. Still, we can't forget that those are human lives too.
Anyway, during my forced break – in between binge watching – two recent articles called up my attention.
First, CNN's last week headline said: "Previous rules of virus are 'out the window." CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner says in the article that "now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection. And the he added, "including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed." Yes, he said all of that.
CNN is indeed shameless in posting sensationalist headlines as clickbait. However, if this is true, how come governments and health authorities are not making a big deal about it? Instead, what we read in the press is mostly about the "mild cold" effects – which lead vaccinated people to believe they are safe regardless that they are still spreading the virus. As a result, over the holiday, thousands of vaccinated people traveled everywhere feeling confident that the worst-case scenario was feeling a little "down."
Just to give a little context, when it comes to spreading, invincible vaccinated American travelers over the holiday only, have pushed the virus spread across all the Americas. Now, only a few days into the new year, and it's confirmed we are in a new Covid huge wave, the most transmissible so far. Fasten your seatbelts!
Another article that I found interesting was on the Washington Post today. The article "This is not the same pandemic" says that the coronavirus might have mutated to "highly transmissible, hard to avoid contracting and less dangerous for most people.” However, it argues that "to understand that omicron is (apparently) different is to understand that the response is different and the old recommendations potentially less effective or appropriate." In short, the context has changed as much as the virus itself has mutated too. But in the current context, more than the virus, what we see is a lot of misinformation circulating. Again.
We know very little about Covid-19 yet. A version of the virus that grants broad immunity to all strains for an extended period, leaves fewer people at risk of severe illness, and offers only brief periods of sickness for the infected, looks like it's not what we have circulating right now. Also, the current surge is likely to strain hospitals, given the sheer number of people getting infected and seeking care. It might look mild to some, I might be disappointed for wasting my holiday at home, but news flash guys, there’s a pandemic ravaging the planet.
There's a lot of misinformation and denial out there. Lots and lots of politics involved too. And whether we are positive or negative, we are all VERY tired of Covid. Fact. However, we can spin it the way we like it, but there's a comet heading towards the Earth!
*Note that the Covid-19 pandemic is also linked to environmental collapse.