Narrowing Solutions

We’re ramping up for a dire winter according to many predictions. The Omicron variant is widely believed to be far more transmissible than Delta even as early reports from South Africa and other places say it is less severe in the symptoms of infection. Or, you’re more likely to get it, but less likely to be hospitalized or die from it. On the whole good news if you presume (as I do) that Covid variations are not going to just disappear on their own and we are not going to suddenly develop bio-technology to eradicate them. Like the flu, Covid will continue to be around but will gradually grow less challenging as people develop better immune responses.

Thus far, the only solutions to yet another wave of Covid I’ve read focus on the need for vaccination, despite the fact many initial reports indicate vaccination does not prevent infection or even symptoms, but reduces the impact of infection. Or, getting the Omicron variant if you’re vaccinated should be less painful than if you get it and you aren’t vaccinated. Of course, I haven’t read many comparisons of the effects on vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated persons. If you have, send me a link. I surmise the lack of discussion about this is because vaccination is the solution we have culturally honed in on to the situation.

But if Covid will become endemic rather than pandemic (something common and expected as opposed to new or unfamiliar), the virus could continue mutating for some time, causing repeated spikes. While I pray this is not the case and the virus goes the way of other pandemics such as the Spanish Flu, which was really only extraordinarily deadly for 2-3 years, we can’t know that for sure. If it doesn’t, and there are recurring spikes, the problem is less a matter of keeping people from getting the virus than it is having the capacity to assist those who experience it more harshly and in potentially life-threatening ways.

Already cities and states and counties and countries are locking down again. While this may slow the transmission to some extent it certainly doesn’t stop it, as we’ve already seen in the various Covid waves thus far. But what it can do is minimize the number of people who have to go to the hospital. The concern ultimately is that we aren’t equipped to help those who are most likely to require hospitalization, that hospitals and ICUs will become overloaded and unable to help everyone who needs it.

I still marvel that no exploration of increasing our capacity (literal, our hospital bed capacity) has generated any notice or interest. We can’t shut down countries and states and cities indefinitely, but we could expand our hospital capacity to help more people who might require it. Considering we’ve spent already $3.5 trillion dollars on Covid-related relief, expanding capacity in New York City or Los Angeles seems like a good investment. At the very least, it could be good practice.

It’s not like there isn’t a plethora of real estate available that could be put to this use, even if temporarily. Creating the equivalent of higher-tech, more robust Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals seems like good practice to have. Beyond dealing with pandemic issues such experience could be valuable for other types of natural or national disasters. And if we had the capacity to handle the most serious cases Omicron might bring this winter, we could allow the virus to run it’s course in the hopes it is indeed less severe and could therefore provide additional levels of immune and antibody resistance to larger numbers of people more safely. There are reports that even for vaccinated people, contracting Covid further improves their immune response.

Our resolute determination to eliminate Covid may be valiant at one level, but it’s also a very narrow response. It would be nice to hear about other approaches to handling this pandemic so that it truly can transition to endemic status if our efforts to simply eliminate it fail. This sort of investment could economically benefit a much wider segment of our businesses than just the pharmaceutical companies.