Why Omicron is Mysteriously Disappearing…

The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is unexpectedly... disappearing. The second most contagious disease in the world is starting to vanish just as fast as it appeared.

No, not everywhere and not all at once, but in regions like the UK, the number of COVID cases has dropped by 50% in just the last week, and in Cleveland, Newark, and Washington, D.C. daily cases are falling dramatically, suggesting that parts of the world that were hit first by the Omicron wave have either already reached peak infection rates, or are about to in the next week.

The fact that this variant cycle is seemingly only about a month or two long, and doesn’t appear to be dragging out infections, or seeing a significant rate of re-infection, is a huge relief. But before stripping off your mask and canceling your booster appointment, we’re not at the end of the road yet. The Omicron variant is the second most viral disease on earth after measles - and areas that have not yet hit their peak are seeing an uncontrollable spike in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

Despite the fact that this variant is proving to be less deadly, across the United States 150,000 people are currently hospitalized with the virus, which is more than at any other point in the pandemic. The relatively less fatal Omicron is SO much more contagious that we had fewer hospitalizations with deadlier variants. Today, hospitals in most of the country are completely overwhelmed, especially in Western and Southern states that are seeing a 400% increase in just the last two weeks.

Despite it’s shorter shelf-life, the latest variant has effectively disrupted even the new normal that we’re starting to get used to. More than 1,800 people are still dying of COVID every day, almost all of them from Omicron. And actually, these record-breaking statistics don’t accurately reflect the severity of the situation - because the reality is much much worse.

These outrageously high estimates are probably underreporting the speed and scale of Omicron infections. Most people are testing at home, and don’t report positive tests to any tracking organizations. And despite so many positive cases, we’re also not seeing a lot of evidence that this wave is leading to an end to the pandemic like we hoped. Immunity from Omicron is expected to last just a few months - in fact, one of the things we’ve learned from Omicron is that COVID-19 is able to uniquely evolve a trait known as “immune evasion”. That’s when viruses have a tendency to mutate to avoid existing immunities, like prior infection, or vaccination, or even herd immunity. 

And that means that non-immunity tactics, like wearing masks, social distancing, working from home, and other social-based solutions may be our only way to protect ourselves from future infections. But looking at the extreme politicization of those solutions, not just in the United States, but around the world, predicts a pretty bleak future when it comes to fighting the virus in the long run.

As we’re seeing in real-time, despite the most catastrophic scenario we’ve encountered with the virus so far, which is a vaccine resistant, hyper-contagious variant - there have been almost no new serious efforts to curb the spread from the top down. 

We STILL don’t have enough at-home tests, hospitals are overrun even as we enter the third year of the pandemic, and administrators are desperate to keep in-person schooling in session despite this virus’s greater impact on children. Kids are literally staging walkouts because they care more about their own wellbeing than the people whose jobs it is.

Here’s the point: it does look like we’re seeing a fast and abrupt end to the Omicron variant cycle, and that’s seriously great news because it could have been so much worse.

But the flip side is that this likely isn’t the last variant, nor is likely to be the only variant that is immunity evasive, and besides the vaccine, our other solutions to fighting the virus depend on a society where most people care about each other, and are willing to take steps to benefit everyone else, even if it slightly inconveniences them… and the reality is: we don’t live in one.