The true beginning of COVID-19, the first winter in the valley under the shadow of death, is when my most vivid memories are. It was the political and social chaos that broke out at the start of the holiday season. It seemed as if nobody in positions of power had thought about families gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas until that November, and the resulting chaos — in my opinion, anyway — is when this whole calamity first became hopelessly politicized.
Right-leaning bloviators began to rant about religious freedom. This crisis was perfectly matched by restrictions placed on houses of worship to stop the spread of the virus. The next step was to limit the number of family holiday gatherings. However, this was done quickly and caused an emotional trauma that was not welcome in the larger context. Failure to prepare for the holiday season had terrible consequences, including a large body count.
It’s an 80-degree July day, the last day anyone wants to start thinking about Christmas plans… but think about it we must, because COVID Winter 3.0 is not all that far off at all, and it threatens to bring with it a new wave of a COVID variant — BA.5 — unlike any we have seen to date.
Omicron variant BA.5 has been developed described by scientists as “the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.” It is now the dominant strain in the U.S., suspected of having caused some 54 percent of current infections. (There were more then 107,000 new infections yesterday. That’s an 8 percent increase over the previous 14 days. “Along with twin variant BA.4,” reports Fortune, “it swept South Africa this spring thanks to its ability to evade immunity from both prior infection and vaccination.”
The good news is that BA.5 seems to not go for the lungs like previous iterations. This makes it less lethal. Infections are infections. The more that happen, the more deadly variants will emerge. I don’t think we will ever learn this lesson if we don’t yet.
The bad news is that winter is approaching, and millions of people who can be vaccinated refuse to get the shots. We are wide open for another horrific spike in infections that could overwhelm our already-tattered health care “system” and the professionals who are holding it together with gauze and good intentions. There were horrible infection spikes following the holiday seasons. Now is the time to begin planning for the next holiday season.
Planning, you ask? What is this “planning”? This is America! We don’t plan. We pretend things are better than they are, and if they don’t get better, we find ourselves subsumed in right-wing political shoutfests over trans kids, immigrants, which books are best to burn and what’s on Hunter Biden’s laptop. The Democratic side of things isn’t much better, as The New York Times explains:
President Biden’s request for $22.5 million in emergency coronavirus aid to bolster the nation’s supply of coronavirus tests, vaccines and treatments, which stalled for months amid objections from both parties, is now the subject of Democratic infighting and finger-pointing on Capitol Hill. While Senate Democrats claim they are waiting for legislation to be passed by the House, House Democrats insist that the Senate will take up the matter.
It has been three months since Mr. Biden’s request for additional aid collapsed after some Democrats balked at the plan for covering the cost. Senator Mitt Romney (Republican from Utah) stepped in to negotiate a $10 million aid package. Republicans held the measure up, and Mr. Romney, a Republican from Utah, has since withdrawn from the package, due to his own irritation with White House. Now, Senator Chuck Schumer (majority leader) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi both claim that the bill was passed by their respective parties.
Beyond the bog-standard basic stuff needed to combat COVID — an actual testing regimen would be nice after three years, I think — that is being fumbled by the vapid “leadership” in Congress are a number of other crises that threaten to explode without proper attention. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has declared a public health emergency. It will expire on July 15. That’s the end of next week, for those of you playing along at home. Millions of people could be affected by the declaration being canceled. could lose their health insurance overnight.
I was happy to see. The Washington Post’s editorial board echoing my concerns in yesterday’s paper. “The pandemic is a relentless race against Mother Nature,” they wrote. “Waves of infection took millions of lives, and only highly effective vaccines prevented even more deaths. Now, the coronavirus has mutated, evaded immunity, and is moving faster. The arrival of subvariant BA.5 should be a reminder that the finish line in this race is nowhere to be seen.”
Legendary sportscaster Dan Patrick would often say of a superior athlete, “You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.” The same is true for COVID Omicron variant BA.5. We lost our chance to stop any of this in the bonfire of incompetence that was Donald Trump’s last year in office. We can only hope for containment, which requires immediate action across multiple fronts.
Re-up the HHS emergency declaration of public health before next week comes. The president must get Congress to pass new funding for the basics: Treatment, testing, and vaccines. No “atta-boy” cheerleading from the sidelines; it’s time for the White House to finally get loud.
Last but not least: Now is the best time to make holiday plans, especially in July’s heat. Accept the worst and make the most of it. After Halloween, it will be too late to do anything except accept the circumstances. You might be able to find something to celebrate if you can change the circumstances now.
