The Pandemic — Still — Isn’t Over

I hate to be the one to tell us all this (no, I really wish I had almost any other news), but the pandemic is still raging on.

“Nunh unh,” says everyone, “Omicron is mild, and anyway, there are hardly any cases anymore.”

It’s true, there are hardly any cases (we care to know about) anymore. Testing (that has dropped to a very low level and) suggests that cases are at their lowest since May of last year.

No new variants (that we know about) have emerged since BA.2. Vaccines and natural immunity are preventing (most) serious illness even if BA.2 continues to show the ability to break through that immunity (and it is certainly the last variant of this virus we will ever experience in our lifetimes!!).

Need more good news? Daily deaths are down to just 500 a day. That’s right — we’re only losing 3,000 or so folks a week to this thing!! Just the flu, guys, clearly. It’s never been more obvious that not only can we go back to normal, we can stop worrying about COVID altogether. Companies are going back to the office as if it were 2019, even though cases now are higher than they were last June when everyone was still toiling away in their spare bedrooms.

It truly is a glorious time. We’ve thrown in the towel. Wait, no, we’ve squeezed our eyes shut, clamped our palms over our ears and loudly declared to COVID: “I’m not listening!!! I’m not listening!!! I’m not listening!!! I’m not listening!!!” as if a tantrum will bring the pandemic to an end.

I get that we’re all exhausted — I know I am — but the pandemic doesn’t end just because we decide to stop paying attention. We could and should at the very least continue to encourage people to wear masks and continue to test.

The virus will continue to spread and mutate, and we haven’t just relaxed — we’ve given up.