The State of the Pandemic
Sometimes it can be hard to keep up with all of the COVID news, and this becomes even more difficult when so much information is delivered in the form of arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong about this or that.
To help you cut through the noise, we’re offering a quick State of the Pandemic, striving to sidestep controversy and focus on facts.
We’re now watching the Omicron variant with concern. First identified in South Africa, this variant has attributes that allow it to spread quickly. While there were no reported cases of the Omicron variant in the U.S. in early December, officials say it likely is already here.
Officials and scientists are scrambling to respond to Omicron quickly. As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in late November, “Historically, the work to obtain the genetic information and patient samples for variants and then perform the testing needed to evaluate their impact takes time. However, we expect the vast majority of this work to be completed in the coming weeks.”
Nine vaccines are now fully approved for use. Sixteen more are in limited use, and more than 100 additional vaccines are in clinical trials.
More than half the U.S. population has been vaccinated. Nearly 60 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and many have received boosters.
More and more employers are requiring vaccines. A late-November Willis Towers Watson survey revealed that 57% of organizations already require vaccinations to return to work or plan to do so soon.
The vaccines do appear to work. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that unvaccinated people are five times as likely to contract COVID-19, and 13 times as likely to die from the virus.
U.S. cases are up. As of mid-November 2021, the country was experiencing an increase in cases, fueled largely by spikes in cases in the Northeast and Midwest.
Those early measures still matter. Even with vaccines, those things we learned early on about preventing the spread of the virus still matter. Wear a mask, wash your hands often and carefully, avoid others if you’re sick, maintain a healthy social distance, and so on.
Settle in for the long haul. Nobody sees this pandemic ending within the next six months, so we all need to remain vigilant, and do all we can to protect ourselves and each other.
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Tags: COVID-19, health, pandemic