Friends,
My little newsletter only goes out when I am aware of something not generally publicized yet.
The new variant - based on the absolute panic in various governments, WHO, and CDC, including ban on flights from South Africa and Southern Africa, there is something scientists suspect about the new Omicron variant which is not yet being disclosed in public.
It is possible there is no risk but the signs are very bad, including the fact that my contacts are not responding, saying they are busy.
Locally the hospitals are filling up for the first time in this pandemic.
Punxsutawney Hospital at least, has no vaccine mandate for critical workers - I know this because the person drawing my blood for the lab told me she hadn’t found time to get vaccinated for COVID despite working one floor above a vaccine clinic and despite having gotten the flu vaccine this year. The hospital refused to comment.
So I am cautioning everyone to consider wearing an N95 mask any time outside the house.
Locally very few people are wearing masks.
We are always stocked up in the winter because we avoid the flu. But we will be getting perishables at Walmart before seven a.m. and Aldi during the early days for the vulnerable.
Note on flight bans - silly. There is already a requirement that any foreigner must be fully vaccinated or recently tested to enter the U.S. anyway. Unfortunately it isn't applied to U.S. citizens (as if they aren't infected??).
Flight bans are counterproductive because of that and because they discourage governments from reporting new variants they discover.
Failure to vaccinate people in other countries such as third world countries means a large pool of people passing COVID around and therefore producing new variants such as Omicron. The only good news about that is since they are unvaccinated the new variants are not developed trying to avoid the vaccines which is why many are not getting any notice. Note that Omicron is the 15th character in the Greek alphabet so there have been a lot of variants of concern, the only ones which get named. The CDC skipped Nu and Xi, Nu because it would be confused with NEW, and Xi to avoid any Chinese connection (Premier for life is Xi Jinping.)
I am reading and getting bulletins from the WHO, Nature (the world's top science journal), The Lancet, and the NEJM. I will send another newsletter only if there is a major development.
Best to all of you,
John
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