Happy New Year!
🦠 About Omicron…
I’ll be quick. It’s highly insanely infectious, and seems to stay in the upper respiratory system, which makes it less dangerous for most… But still dangerous for many — among whom young children (which sucks, because as you’ve seen, Pfizer vaccine trials for them have yielded poor results). Inflammation of the upper respiratory tract causes it to close up in little ones, and this can require hospitalisation. Hence the record numbers of kids in hospitals.
And speaking of hospitals, let’s start with the good news: intensive care unit beds are ok. “Regular” hospital beds, though, are another story. In the U.S., the U.K., France, and many other countries, they’ve started delaying surgeries. Staffing shortages are also a growing issue, which is leading the U.S. military to send support.
🎙What are they doing to help?
For months now, the U.K. has just allowed the virus to run rampant, with little to no restrictions, betting openly on herd immunity by infection and/or vaccines — who cares anymore.
Australia, initially top of the class on the Zero Covid front, hit 72,121 cases yesterday. The chart is almost comical (swiped this from the NYTimes):
Yet they allowed tennis star and notorious anti-vaxxer Novak Djokovic to come to play unvaxxed at the Australian Open on a “medical exemption.” They said the application was done anonymously, with names redacted, but citizens and other players aren’t fully buying it. To be fair, the authorities recanted after the dude sparked global outrage by sharing this on Instagram.
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caused a whole new wave… of memes with their new isolation guidelines, which are both incomprehensible and, many experts argue, counterproductive. They say you can come back out after 5 days of isolation after you test positive, but maybe wear a mask (doesn’t say what kind of mask) if you’re around other people. No, you don’t need to test, even if it appears that about one-third of people are still infectious after day 5. Who knows. No one gives a damn.
The CDC cannot enforce a thing, but localities take cues from them. Following this new guidance, the Department of Education of New York City, during a record-breaking wave amongst children, has instituted a “modified quarantine:” exposed kids and teachers, vaccinated or not, do not have to isolate until they get a negative test. They did promise to test more kids more often, but that leaves a lot of cracks. Rapid antigen tests don’t seem to be catching every case in the early days after exposure — even as those testing negative are infecting others. PCR testing is harder and harder to come by: queues are endless, appointments are scarce, and even when you do manage to get swabbed, labs are slammed and your results will probably take days. Yay.
In France, schools are still open, no extending the holiday break by a week, kids should wear masks, but ventilation? Or air purification? I mean they’re a good idea, just not the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. Localities should do something about that, said the Minister. Helpful (not).
Anyway, it looks like the trend in most places is mostly just to shrug and forget restrictions.
A few months ago, I saw an aerosols scientist argue on Twitter that the insistence on handwashing as a safety measure was a way for authorities to put the onus on individuals to look out for themselves. Admitting that Covid is airborne would make it a policy issue, which would require infrastructure to be rethought and updated, which in turn would have, ahem, money implications. Insisting on handwashing is merely a way for authorities to wash their hands of us and our safety (see what I did there?)
With Omicron, we’re seeing that on a broader scale. Our repeated public health policy failures have become starker than ever. But instead of trying harder to contain it, politicians the world over are just throwing their arms up in the air and leaving us (mostly) to our own devices.
😳 What do we do, then?
1) Masks 😷
Aside from insisting on better ventilation, air purification, working from home and everyone getting boosted, our most pressing issue is the quality of masks.
Respirators are where it’s at. That’s filtering masks, also known as N95s, KN95s, or KF94s. A simple chart, based on pre-Omicron data:
Upgrade your masks if, and as soon as, you can.
“Oh, but respirators are complicated and expensive!”
Anecdotally, our family moved to KF94s by Korean maker Dr. Puri and have never looked back. They stay off our noses and mouths, they’re great if you wear glasses as they help prevent a lot of the fog we got with cloth masks, they have small, medium, and large sizes. To the kids, who need them most, we give one mask per day of the week. We change them after a few weeks.
“What about counterfeit masks?”
My friend John Brecher reminded me of Project95, a site where you can shop for respirators that have been checked for quality.
2) Know your exposure 🤒
Top experts put together this chart to help us measure our risk. José Luis Jiménez and Lydia Bourouiba are two of the world’s top scholars on aerosols. Trisha Greenhalgh is a clinical researcher in Britain, who created the very first version of the chart. Please consult and share it far and wide:
3) Get your shots and boosters 💉
You know it.
Wishing you all that your 2022 be as peaceful and uneventful as possible. From my family to yours…