Ómicron would be less dangerous, but it has the US in chaos (analysis)

When will the peak of omicron be in the US?

1:19

(CNN) -

All Americans have been forced to consider how much risk is acceptable for the nation to get back on its feet as the omicron variant of the new coronavirus spirals out of control.

The country is being engulfed by a flood of new infections, but after two grueling and demoralizing years, the momentum of millions of people to try to find a way to live more normally with the disease has never been stronger.

Striking the right balance is tricky, as the pandemic has reached its most paradoxical phase yet.

Signs of a worsening winter crisis are popping up everywhere, even as there is new hope that a virus that has ruined the past two years is perhaps not so terrifying in its latest form.

It's also jarring that infection curves skyrocket upward in vertical lines as hospitals overflow, but many Americans contracting COVID-19 for the first time ignore it like a minor cold.

The situation has led to a debate in Washington - where President Joe Biden will address the rapid spread of omicron on Tuesday - to governors' mansions, corporate boardrooms, schools and living rooms from coast to coast.

There is particular confusion in education, which is distracting parents for the umpteenth time during the pandemic and again threatens to cause major economic consequences if key workers do not have access to child care.

Schools in Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Cleveland and Washington are inundated with the virus and have returned to virtual learning or delayed classes for at least a few days after vacation.

And Dr. James Versalovic, chief pathologist at Texas Children's Hospital, warned Monday of the "staggering" number of children in his wards battling omicron.

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But on the same day, New York City's new mayor, Eric Adams, bragged about his "swagger" and told the Big Apple, where infections are skyrocketing, not to "wallow in the covid," while scorning teachers who asked for similar treatment to colleagues elsewhere who have returned to distance classes.

To deepen the contradictions, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Adams Democrat, warned that "we are not in a good place" as the winter wave rolls in.

It's also puzzling how crowded NFL stadiums are as the playoffs loom in a sign of normalcy, but thousands of airline flights are being canceled due to crews reporting ill.

A mean combination

While the signals appear contradictory, they can be rationalized, although combining them into a coherent national response to a pandemic that has incessantly overtaken political leaders and deepened national divisions is something else.

The most important key to understanding the parallel realities of covid is that the omicron variant is far more infectious than the delta variant it is outperforming but, based on mounting evidence, generally causes less serious illness.

This vile combination of increased transmissibility but apparently more moderate disease challenges the tenuous balance between mitigating and preserving a semblance of normal life forged in previous waves of infection. It also means that political and corporate leaders grapple with the question of whether a virus that manifests itself in mild illness and even without symptoms for many people should continue to threaten critical infrastructure and basic services that sustain American life.

Some elected officials err on the side of caution, including those who are closing schools, at least for a time. It makes sense, because it's hard to understand how to keep in-person learning going if teachers test positive and have to go into isolation. But other leaders, like Adams, give the impression that the country is waging the latest war against the pathogen when a new one has just begun. His optimism is the luxury of a mayor with a new term.

But it can put him at risk of falling into the trap of many leaders who underestimated COVID-19 before him.

Three days into his tenure, Adams seemed to implicitly admit that some Republicans who have long argued that epidemiological mitigation has gone too far may have been right.

Surprisingly, he was on the same page Monday as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican opponent of mask-wearing mandates who promised omicron would not close schools in the golden state, in his usual style to win political headlines. .

But the idea that omicron is a docile foe shifts the risk equation too far toward underestimating the virus and could lead to dangerous shortcuts.

"This narrative that it is just a mild virus is not accurate," Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday.

"We just did a terrible job vaccinating our children across the country ... So even though there is a lot of talk about the omicron variant, a less serious disease, when all the factors are added ... We are faced with a very serious in this country, especially for children. " Targeting that crisis, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Monday an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer / BioNTech booster vaccine against covid-19 for adolescents ages 12-15. For everyone else who is already eligible, it shortened the time between completing an initial series of vaccinations and a recommended booster from six to five months, and allowed a third dose of the primary series for some immunosuppressed children aged 5 to 11 years.

As more Americans tire of the fight, conservative critics of public health officials may want to avoid the temptation to gloat. Even now, the majority of Americans hospitalized and dying from the omicron surge (and the delta wave still unleashed in some districts) are the ones who rejected free and effective vaccines, amid a torrent of misinformation fueled by many. Republican politicians and conservative media anchors.

The best way to stay protected against serious illness, hospitalization, or death is to get vaccinated and receive a booster, regardless of whether the omicron variant is less potent or not.

Many of the 820,000 Americans killed by the disease could be alive if some Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, had not made public health a victim of their political ambitions, ignored the science and pushed for premature economic openings in 2020.

Hospitals get hit again

And living with the virus is easier said than done.

One of the cruelest quirks of omicron is that while it seems easier for most people to get rid of, its higher transmissibility means that even a smaller percentage of patients become seriously ill on this wave than others could weaken. health care systems and put even more pressure on hero doctors and nurses who have been squeezed by the pandemic. For example, hospitalizations nationwide reached 100,000 on Monday for the first time in four months, and most experts expect this number to rise. System overload could also seriously lower the quality of care for people with other ailments, especially chronic conditions like heart attacks or strokes.

But the nature of this pandemic is that it raises questions that, for the most part, are impossible to answer satisfactorily, especially those that cross into the fractured political arena. Senator Marco Rubio, for example, welcomed the image of packed football stadiums over the weekend and warned in a tweet against "irrational hysteria" sparked by omicron. But the Florida Republican earned a reprimand from the president's top medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who pointed out on CNN's "State of the Union" show Sunday that 1,200 average daily deaths from covid-19 "is not a trivial situation. "

But even Fauci has argued in recent days that the country is in the process of recalibrating its tolerance for risk, saying last week that no activity in a pandemic was entirely safe.

Public health authorities, for example, have begun to adapt their approach, as omicron's infectious properties threaten to rapidly deplete the workforce and affect the capacity of hospitals, police, and emergency services. Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cut the recommended isolation period in half to five days for those who test positive and are asymptomatic or whose symptoms are decreasing. as long as they wear a mask for another five days. However, there is confusion here too, and Fauci told CNN on Sunday that clearer guidance is coming, perhaps involving running a test. But even if the new CDC guidelines clears up the problem,Many Americans find it impossible to get tested amid a nationwide shortage, so they may not be able to comply.

That's just another reason for the nagging feeling in the country that everyone is groping for not just a way out of the pandemic and its hardships, which seems unrealistic, but a modified way of life that is sustainable.

But despite hopes for a quick omicron spike, no one can say for sure how long it will rule, or if it will be followed by another irritating and chaotic variant.

Covid-19