Americans have the memory of a goldfish. We will all be exposed to Omicron by Christmas. It is doubling every day and a half which is faster that any of the previous waves. Because of America and the world’s failed response to the virus, herd Immunity is off the table.
It is like we have returned to the first weeks of the pandemic. Superspreader events crop up faster than I can document them. A Norwegian cruise ship is again acting as a petri dish for spreading disease.
When death numbers fall a bit, Americans are in a mad rush to return to “life as normal.” They rush to crushing crowds at concerts and celebrate holidays with as many people as they can in enclosed spaces. Mindless selfishness is the norm. The virus has come to its senses and realized that it makes no sense to kill off it’s human host so quickly. It is best to keep the human host alive to incubate new and more exotic variants.
Do not panic. Early cases of Omicron though spreading faster, are presenting as less severe that previous waves. The numbers of hospitalizations and people needing oxygen are not rising exponentially in South Africa. However with so many people becoming infected around the world all at once, even a small percentage of deadly infections could be a horrifyingly high number. The good news is that this tsunami of infections, if not severe, could infect and thus give anti bodies to those that have refused to get vaccinated. The previously infected will be re-infected. This could create some semblance of normalcy as we learn to live with the virus, but future mutations could be more deadly.