May all the charms of this beautiful holiday season gladden your heart and allow you and your family to find the energy to revive yourselves and your spirits with high hopes for a healthy new start and virus free 2022. Enjoy the Holidays with your loved ones and appreciate how precious life is.
By the numbers: There are as of Friday December 10,2021: 51,503,438 positive cases to date in the U.S. and 825,622 deaths to date in the U.S.. This is up 1,439,173 and 7,014 respectively over last week. 2021 is proving to be a deadlier year for COVID than 2020 and we have TWO weeks to go before the end of the year. To put it in perspective, as of December 31,2020, 377,000 people died versus 825,622 deaths. Sobering numbers to reflect on.
Nearly 50 million, or 15 percent of the population, has received a booster shot, with half receiving the Pfizer shoot as their booster.
America is also averaging around 120,000 new daily Covid cases, a 30 percent increase over the past two weeks. Deaths in the U.S. are up 18 percent over the past two weeks, up to nearly 1,300 per week, and the 62,000 Americans in the hospital due to severe cases of the virus is a 20 percent increase over the past two weeks.
The U.S. is seeing a growing number of infections, largely with the Delta variant. An average of 118,000 new infections a day were reported over the past week – a 37% increase over the previous week.
Now we need to get ready for the Omicron surge, and we need to take it seriously. But remember that the vaccines appear to provide strong protection against what matters most: severe Covid illnesses. The booster dose seems to increases the body’s ability to combat the Omicron variant. The news over the past few days — both scientific studies and real-world data — has added to the evidence that Omicron is more contagious than any previous version of the Covid-19 virus. It is now in 37 states. Experts believe it will be in all 50 states in a few weeks especially with all the holiday travel.
“When Omicron enters a community, the increase in case numbers looks like a vertical line,” Dr. Paul Sax of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said. One reason that Omicron seems to spread so quickly is that it causes more cases among the vaccinated than earlier variants, although they are likely to be mild. “There will be a lot of breakthrough cases,” Dr. Jennifer Lighter, an epidemiologist at N.Y.U. Langone Health.
The most encouraging news about Omicron is that it does not appear to cause more severe illness than earlier versions of the virus.
Most evidence suggests Omicron is less severe than other variants resulting in no to few hospitalizations and no deaths. A new study from Hong Kong, found the Omicron variant infects around 70 times faster than Delta and the original Covid-19 strain, though the severity of illness is likely to be much lower. They also found that Omicron replicated itself less efficiently than Delta inside the lungs, which could make it less likely to cause acute symptoms. But many scientists say it is too soon to be confident.
Fully Vaccinated People Are Going to Test Positive with Omicron: 'Our New Normal'Dr. Vin Guptafrom the University of Washington said that they're "forecasting that cases are going to rise" in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, but those with their shots aregoing to be protected against severe illness. "We have to get comfortable with fully vaccinated folks testing positive, that's going to be our new normal," said Gupta. "But people should not worry about that because the purpose of vaccines is not to prevent a positive test or a respiratory virus like Omicron. It's to keep you out of the hospital, and that's exactly what they're doing."
Gupta explained that with respiratory viruses like COVID-19 or the flu, it's not possible to fully prevent infections, but vaccines keep them from becoming severe and leading to hospitalization or death.
A similar finding recently published from the Oregon Health & Science University supports the concept that breakthrough infections greatly enhance immune response to variants of the virus that causes COVID-19. Senior author Fikadu Tafesse, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine. "These vaccines are very effective against severe disease. Our study suggests that individuals who are vaccinated and then exposed to a breakthrough infection have super immunity."
Symptoms of OMICRON COVID: An analysis of the first 43 cases of the new strain showed 89% of people had a cough, while 65% reported suffering from fatigue and 59% had congestion or a runny nose.
Other symptoms reported by those infected included fever, nausea, shortness of breath and diarrhea.
What does January 2022 hold in store for us? Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are warning that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 could overrun the country within a month, which (along with continuing Delta infections and expected flu cases) could overwhelm health care facilities.
Omicron cases have increased sevenfold in the past week,bounding from 0.4% of U.S. cases to 2.9%. One of two scenarios the CDC said could happen: The first the United States could see a tidal wave of infections as soon as January. The second scenario envisions a smaller surge in Omicron cases, which officials said could occur in the spring. The CDC did not say which scenario was more likely.
Bronwyn MacInnis, director of pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University said she is stunned by the pace by which omicron has been crowding out other variants and taking over the pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 3% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are omicron. But MacInnis said she believes that number was probably an underestimate on Dec. 11 – just three days ago –when the CDC first announced it, and now it’s likely much higher.
Omicron has been moving “faster even than the most pessimistic among us thought that it was going to move," said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease expert at Massachusetts General Hospital.“There’s a high likelihood that it will come to your holiday gathering.”
The End Of COVID Pandemic Could Mean A Seasonal Virus That Sticks Around, Experts Predict:
After two non-stop years of the virus and its’ mutations and as cases ofCOVID-19surgeonce again, scientists are suggesting that afterthe pandemic comes to an end, COVIDmay shift to a “seasonal cycle” virus. As the U.S. enters winter, COVID cases are up 62% from November, reaching an average of 121,084 new cases a day as of Thursday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Scientists also point to the COVID waves that have happened in the winter previously.
“Since it has been doing it twice so predictably, it's highly likely that a winter wave will happen again,” said Dr. Hawre Jalal, an assistant professor at theUniversity of Pittsburgh.
What can we expect between now and the end of the year: America's worsening Covid situation, combined with the Omicron variant and general apathy the population has for the pandemic at this point, has one expert sounding alarms that things may get worse for the nation.
Dr Gregory Poland is one of the nation's top experts on vaccination and immunology, and works as an epidemiologist for the Mayo Clinic and is editor-in-chief of the scientific journal 'Vaccine'. He states
as deaths in America continue to rise people should not let their guard down. “32,000 Americans who think they're going to be alive to celebrate Christmas and New Years are, no pun intended, dead wrong,” he says, as his calculations show that with the current death rate in America, around 32,000 more people are likely to die between now and New Year’s.
While early data about the Omicron variant is promising - showing that the highly infectious variant does not cause severe cases as Delta and other Covid strains - he fears that people will see those messages and expose themselves to the existing dangers of virus. 'Everybody's comforting themselves with the idea that Omicron is less severe,' he said. Poland urges Americans to get fully vaccinated as soon as they can, and for those already fully vaccinated to get their booster shot.
Poland says that much of America's failures to deal with the pandemic draws back to humans’ inability to understand the scale as to which how quickly the virus can spread. Because of the nature of Covid, and especially the more infectious variants like Delta and Omicron, cases can double in a matter of only a few days if spread is not mitigated - meaning a situation that seems controlled can quickly become overwhelming.
The United States reached 60 percent of its population fully vaccinated earlier this week, a milestone reached only days before the one-year anniversary of the first vaccine doses becoming available.
What do we know so far about Omicron: Dr. Saad Omer, Yale Institute for Global Health reports “we know that it is a highly infectious strain. We know that it evades immunity, especially by two doses of the vaccines we use, but we also know that it responds to three doses. So, people have better protection with three doses of vaccine.
“What we don't know is how severe it will be. So, there are two ways of looking at severity. You look at severity at the individual level. It seems there are very early signs than Omicron is less severe than Delta causing only mild symptoms. So, on the individual level there may be less severity per infection. But at the population (community) level, if something is more infectious, say three times more infectious and half as severe, it will still produce more hospitalizations. We're not helpless in the face of this new variant. We can get vaccinated and boosted. We can take other precautions in the interest of public health and personal protection, like testing before gatherings, including family gatherings, like wearing masks, like having good ventilation, et cetera.”
The cost of COVID to date: Aside from the human life toll, the U.S. health care spending rocketed to $4.1 trillion last year as Congress opened the spigot of federal dollars to battle the coronavirus pandemic across multiple fronts. A government report out Wednesday said national health spending jumped by 9.7% in 2020, more than double the usual growth rate, with health care accounting for nearly $1 of every $5 in the economy. The federal government share of health spending increased by 36%.
The $4.1 trillion tab for 2020 represents an increase of about $365 billion from national health spending in 2019. It works out to $12,530 per person.
COVID Hospitalization:COVID-19hospitalizations have been on the rise in parts of the United States as winter weather sets in and the Omicron variant continues to spread. U.S. hospitalizations have risen 23% in the past 14 days to a daily average of 65,277 as of Saturday December 11 while new cases have risen by 40% for a daily average of 119,325 within the same timeframe, according to federal data gathered byThe New York Times.
Children and the COVID Vaccine: Nearly 5 million children have gotten COVID vaccines and no safety problems have been seen, CDC director Dr. Walensky says: With nearly 5 million children ages 5 to 11 now vaccinated against COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky says real-world monitoring finds vaccines are safe for young children.
Crucially, the CDC hasn't identified any concerns with the temporary heart inflammation known as myocarditis, a potential side effect of mRNA vaccines seen in rare circumstances in teenagers and young adults. "We haven't seen anything yet” said Dr. Walensky. “We have an incredibly robust vaccine safety system, and so if problems were there, we would find it."
Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for children 5 to 11 years old in early November. Despite robust safety data, fewer than 1 in 5 children in this age group has receive their first vaccination.
Israeli study finds Pfizer Covid booster protects against omicron variant: Israeli researchers at Sheba Medical Center and the Health Ministry’s Central Virology Laboratory said on Saturday they found that a three-shot course of thePfizer-BioNTechCovid-19 vaccine provided significant protection against the new omicron variant.
The findings weresimilar to those presented by BioNTech and Pfizerearlier in the week, which were an early signal that booster shots could be key to protect against infection from the newly identified variant. Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba, said
“The good news is that with the booster dose it increases about a hundredfold. There is a significant protection of the booster dose. It is lower than the neutralization ability against the delta, about four times lower,” she said.
The 'Memory' Of Your Immune System May Offer Some Protection Against Omicron Variant:
Symptoms reported for Omicron have appeared to be mild.But scientists say that there may be evidence that the immune system may have internalized enough knowledge of the virus to offer some added protection against it.
“It may be that our antibodies may not work as well, but the immune system has these backup plans that give us some resilience against Omicron,” E. John Wherry, director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania
To defeat viruses, the body relies on antibodies as its first line of defense, but if these are overcome, the body relies on other cells for protection. There are two types of T-cells known as helper cells that guide the immune response and cytotoxic T-cells, known as killer T cells, that recognize and eliminate viruses. These two types of cells coordinate resistance against foreign substances entering the body to prevent them from causing too much harm.These T-cells tend to be less affected when a virus mutates than antibodies because they do not target specific surface areas of a virus.
The large number of unvaccinated adults means that Omicron may lead to spikes in Covid hospitalizations and deaths, which in turn could overwhelm some hospitals. Hospitalization rates are still lower with omicron than with earlier waves and patients are less likely to require ventilation, though it’s not clear whether that’s because of the newness of the variant, because it is less dangerous, or because prior infections and vaccinations provide protection
Until next time, Stay Safe, Stay Well, Practice Mitigation Factors including Mask wearing, Washing your hands frequently and consider getting Vaccinated if you have not already done so and get your booster as soon as you are able-. Any medical concerns as well as decisions about the vaccine should be made between you and your physician. Not the media or social media. How well we end the year and gain control over COVID -19 in 2022 is in each of our hands.
James A Vito, D.M.D.