Green shoots
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The thing about better news is that at least it beats worse news:
The explosion of omicron cases along the Interstate 95 corridor from the Mid-Atlantic to New England is showing signs of slowing down, according to health officials and epidemiologists, offering reason for cautious optimism that the turning point could be near and that the coronavirus variant’s U.S. trajectory is similar to that of other countries.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said Tuesday the rates of tests returning positive and case increases seem to be slowing — particularly in New York City, which emerged as an early epicenter of the highly contagious variant.
“They’re still high, but we are not at the end, but I want to say that this is, to me, a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of hope in a time when we desperately need that,” Hochul said at a news conference.
Coronavirus levels in Boston-area wastewater are falling, a promising sign because alarmingly high levels spotted earlier presaged record infections. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has seen the rate of teachers testing positive during asymptomatic weekly screening plunge from 25 percent in the week between Christmas and New Year’s to 2 percent in recent days.
Forecasters are expecting similar trends in the Mid-Atlantic, where infections have been slowing in the District and Maryland, but the ongoing strain on hospitals prompted officials to declare emergencies.
“Omicron is more like a flash flood than a wave. It goes to enormously high levels very quickly and then, based on other parts of the world, may come down very quickly,” said Tom Frieden, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director and New York City health commissioner. “We know that the more people who are up to date with their vaccines, the fewer deaths there will be, the fewer hospitalizations there will be and the less economic disruption there will be.”
There will still be lots of infections after the peak, but by February things might be looking a lot better. And the vaccines still work incredibly well, the nation’s most mediocre legal minds notwithstanding:
A new CDC analysis found that severe illness and death from Covid were extremely rare in vaccinated people. Among 1,228,664 fully vaccinated people across the US, 185 (0.015%) had severe illness and 36 (0.0033%) died. Covid vaccines are extremely safe and remarkably effective.— Dr. Tom Frieden (@DrTomFrieden) January 6, 2022