omicron photos on Flickr

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

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Governor Hochul Updates New Yorkers on the Spread of Covid-19 and the Omicron Variant in New York City by Governor Kathy Hochul

December 20, 2021 - New York City - Governor Kathy Hochul, joined by Jackie Bray, Acting Commissioner of New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, and Director of State Operations Kathryn Garcia updates New Yorkers on the Covid-19 spread in New York State, particularly on the Omicron variant, during a press briefing Monday December 20, 2021 in New York City. (Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of the Governor)

A Seussical Birthday Party by San José Public Library

1

The Sigma Omicron Pi Sorority of San Jose State University helped make our King Library Dr. Seuss Birthday Party a huge success

OmiCron v.3 at Sea of Dream NYE 2012_ - 74 by Jason Stephens

2

OmiCron in the Fractal Forest (the interactive tech area of the Anon Salon NYE party, Sea of Dreams)

20220702 by Guy M Wong

www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-02/covid-persist...

New ultra-contagious Omicron subvariants BA.4, BA.5 worsening California coronavirus wave

The growing dominance of two new ultra-contagious Omicron subvariants is prolonging a wave of coronavirus cases in California and sparking growing concerns from health officials that coming weeks could see significant spread and increased hospitalizations.

BA.4 and BA.5 are now believed to be responsible for most new infections nationwide. The strains are of particular concern because they are not only especially contagious but also capable of reinfecting those who have survived earlier Omicron infection.

When it comes to BA.4 and BA.5, their “superpower is reinfection,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious-disease expert.

Additionally, “there’s strong evidence they can spread even faster than other subvariants,” said Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

“There also have been some concerning findings in laboratory studies, which found that BA.4 and BA.5 were better able to infect lung cells than the earlier BA.2 subvariant of Omicron,” she said.

BA.4 and BA.5 are likely to affect countries and regions differently, depending on the overall level of immunity and the number of older and medically vulnerable people. But “all of the information to date points to the need for us to prepare for the likelihood of significant transmission in the upcoming weeks,” Ferrer said.

“Because of the uncertainty of how exactly these new subvariants will affect us in L.A. County, it does remain important to use all of the measures that work to reduce COVID-19 risk,” such as vaccinations, masks, moving activities outdoors, increasing ventilation when indoors, testing and staying at home when sick, she said.

Though coronavirus reinfections have been possible throughout the pandemic, the risk has heightened of late.

“BA.4 and BA.5 are of special concern because of their apparent ability to cause reinfections in people who were already infected with other Omicron subvariants,” Ferrer said.

From early December, when Omicron’s presence was first detected in California, through the end of February, the state reported an average of about 14,325 people who were newly reinfected with the coronavirus per week, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

That figure then receded along with the initial Omicron wave, with an average of 2,315 weekly reinfections reported from early March through early May.

But the metric has since shot up — with 10,409 weekly reinfections reported from mid-May to mid-June. That timeline roughly corresponds with when BA.4 and BA.5 started to circulate more widely.

“It is likely that increases in the total number of reinfections is a result of changes in the epidemiology of COVID-19, trends in case rates and vaccination,” as well as improvements in the realm of data compilation, including the implementation in February of automated processing for new reinfections, the California Department of Public Health said in a statement to The Times.

According to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, BA.4 and BA.5 comprised an estimated 52.3% of cases for the weeklong period that ended June 25. That’s the first time the pair has represented a combined majority of estimated cases nationwide.

The previous week, the subvariants made up an estimated 37.4% of cases. The proportions are similar in the southwestern U.S., which includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and U.S. Pacific territories.

Though the ultimate repercussions of the two strains remain to be seen, their apparent ability to reinfect people threatens to weaken one of the few guardrails for a pandemic-weary populace.

Previous waves have come to a close because the coronavirus hit a wall, stalling when enough people were vaccinated, had been infected or were altering their behavior to an extent that the virus was deprived of vulnerable hosts.

But in a world dominated by BA.4 and BA.5, those who have been infected with the coronavirus — even as recently as a few weeks ago — may not be adequately shielded.

“Reinfection risk is substantially increased due to the new spike mutations we are getting exposed to,” Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, wrote in a recent blog post. The first Omicron variant “induces a fairly weak, narrow immune response, which doesn’t help with exposure to” the more recent Omicron strains, he added.

Topol called BA.5 “the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.”

“It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen,” he wrote in another blog post. “You could say it’s not so bad because there hasn’t been a marked rise in hospitalizations and deaths as we saw with Omicron, but that’s only because we had such a striking adverse impact from Omicron, for which there is at least some cross-immunity.“

The shifting subvariant dynamic may help explain why the coronavirus is still transmitting at high levels across California, quashing hopes that the pandemic is over.

“I’m concerned because we are seeing more BA.4 and BA.5 in our population, and that could be why we’re sort of treading water at such a high level of transmission,” Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the L.A. County Department of Public Health, said during a recent briefing.

As of data released Friday, California has recorded a 12% increase in coronavirus cases compared with mid-June, tallying an average of more than 16,900 per day over the last week, according to data compiled by The Times. On a per capita basis, that’s 303 cases a week for every 100,000 residents.

A rate of 100 or more cases a week for every 100,000 residents is considered a high rate of transmission

Los Angeles County is reporting nearly 5,300 cases a day, for a weekly rate of 367 cases per 100,000 residents. That‘s the highest case rate since early February and represents a 20% week-over-week increase in cases, erasing improvements in the case rate recorded in mid-June.

That still-potent spread can be chalked up to several factors, including residents who have largely abandoned infection-prevention measures and returned to pre-pandemic habits, the emergence of ever-more-contagious strains and the waning of virus immunity.

It was comparatively easier to avoid last summer’s Delta variant or even the first Omicron strain that struck after Thanksgiving than the more transmissible editions of Omicron that have emerged since.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, first tested positive for the coronavirus 2½ weeks ago. Xavier Becerra, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, tested positive in Sacramento in mid-June — about 3½ weeks after initially testing positive while visiting Berlin.

Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious-disease expert at Stanford University, wondered whether Becerra’s June bout of COVID-19 was caused by BA.4 or BA.5. On Twitter, Karan described how he contracted the coronavirus in January, likely with the first Omicron variant, BA.1, but then got infected again in May, likely with BA.2.12.1.

“With more immune-evasive variants, that could be the case for many of us once again, and soon,” Karan wrote.

Erica Mancini, an accordionist, poses before taking the stage to perform in a Ukrainian avant garde jazz opera, Friday June 17, 2022, at Bohemian National Hall in New York. Mancini has suffered three COVID-19 infections: one at the beginning of the pandemic, one last year and one in May of this year.

Any infection — whether it’s the first or a repeat occurrence — still poses potential health problems. Though much has been said about Omicron’s comparatively milder nature, it can still pack a punch.

Even if hospitalization is not required, COVID-19 can still cause miserable symptoms. And long COVID, in which ailments like fatigue, brain fog or difficulty breathing can persist for months or years, remains a risk after every infection, though it is probably reduced by getting up-to-date on vaccinations.

“It’s prudent to remain careful despite the fall in hospitalizations and deaths in recent months,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of UC San Francisco’s Department of Medicine, wrote recently, adding that he has stopped dining at indoor public spaces amid high case rates in his city. “It’s all about long COVID — both prolonged symptoms and the elevated long-term risk of [a heart attack], stroke, diabetes, and more.”

It’s a risk he’s all too familiar with. His wife is still contending with symptoms weeks after she was initially infected.

“A healthy 64-year-old who has been vaccinated and boosted, she had an uneventful initial bout with the virus. Yet seven weeks later she continues to suffer from extreme exhaustion and feels as if her brain is working in slow motion,” Wachter wrote in an op-ed.

As to whether BA.4 or BA.5 causes more serious illness than other members of the Omicron family, the jury is still out.

Though the World Health Organization noted recently that current available evidence doesn’t indicate a change in disease severity associated with either, the agency also said their growing prevalence “has coincided with a rise in cases” in several regions, with those increases leading to a surge in hospitalizations in some countries.

BA.5, Topol said, “led to a marked rise in hospitalizations in Portugal where it rapidly became dominant,” and is having a similar effect in many European nations and Israel.

There have been reports that a wave fueled by BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa was associated with somewhat lower death rates than its first Omicron waves, Ferrer said. But, again in Portugal, “the increase in BA.4 and BA.5 appears to be associated with a death rate that’s pretty similar” to its first Omicron wave, she said.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if the ability of existing vaccinations to protect against severe disease erodes when tested against BA.5, Topol said. After all, the vaccines plus a booster resulted in a 95% protection against severe disease caused by the Delta variant, but that was lowered to 80% when tested against the early Omicron variants BA.1 and BA.2, he said.

One major question is whether the potential rollout of an Omicron-specific booster later this year will help. Given how much the variant has mutated in the last seven months, there are concerns such an offering may be relatively outdated by the time it’s available.

It’s ever more important, Topol said, to accelerate work on a new generation of vaccines, such as a nasal vaccine intended to better protect people from infection, and vaccines that can work against all coronavirus variants.

www.cnn.com/world/live-news/omicron-variant-coronavirus-n...

Omicron Xi 40th Anniversary Brunch at the Oswego Country Club.

06/11/22

20211227 by Guy M Wong

The latest on coronavirus pandemic and Omicron variant

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortened its recommended isolation time for those who test positive to Covid-19 from 10 days to 5 days if they don't have symptoms.

More than 2,000 flights have been canceled globally today as more airline staff and crew are calling out sick as the Omicron variant spreads.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities are disinfecting an entire city of 13 million people as Covid-19 cases continue to rise.

US flight attendant union criticizes new CDC isolation requirements

The Association of Flight Attendants is criticizing the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new isolation guidelines for those who test positive for Covid-19, saying it will be on the lookout for employees being pressured to return to work prematurely. The association notes that the five-day period only applies to those who are asymptomatic.

“The CDC gave a medical explanation about why the agency has decided to reduce the quarantine requirements from 10 to five days, but the fact that it aligns with the number of days pushed by corporate America is less than reassuring," the association says in a statement.

Earlier Monday, the CDC shortened the recommended times that people should isolate when they've tested positive for Covid-19 from 10 days to five days if they don't have symptoms – and if they wear a mask around others for at least five more days.

Fauci calls CDC's decision to shorten Covid-19 isolation guidelines "very prudent"

Dr. Anthony Fauci said the changes the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made to its isolation guidelines for Covid-19 are a good idea.

The CDC shortened the recommended times that people should isolate when they’ve tested positive for Covid-19 from 10 days to five days if they don’t have symptoms – and if they wear a mask around others for at least five more days.

The CDC also shortened the recommended time for people to quarantine if they are exposed to the virus to a similar five days if they are vaccinated and often to no time if they are boosted.

"With the sheer volume of new cases that we are having and that we expect to continue with Omicron, one of the things that we want to be careful of is that we don't have so many people out," Fauci told CNN's Jim Acosta.

"We want to get people back to the jobs, particularly the essential jobs, to keep society running smoothly," Fauci added.

One way to help slow the spread of Covid-19 is more testing, but tests are still hard to come by in the US, Fauci said, although the situation will get better soon.

“We don't have enough tests at this particular point in time to get everybody uniformly, have the availability of testing – that will change considerably as we get into January,” Fauci said.

The Biden administration has promised it will make 500 million tests available in the first couple of weeks of January with 200 to 500 million tests per month in the succeeding months.

“It would be great if we had it right now, but unfortunately, we don’t,” Fauci said.

What the country does have right now is vaccines, Fauci said as he encouraged everyone to get vaccinated, including children.

Fauci has said vaccine mandates are a good idea, including for people who fly domestically, but don’t expect that mandate to happen any time soon.

“But we never take anything off the table. We always keep things open for consideration,” Fauci said.

Fauci said public health leaders will be watching the Covid-19 numbers closely. The number he will be particularly focused on is hospitalizations. When there are so many infections, he explained, some can be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.

“What really counts is making sure people don't get sick,” Fauci said. “So, what we were saying as we go on further and we may be get more cases but less hospitalizations, it's important to focus on how well we're doing about keeping people well, if they're in the hospital taking good care of them, but trying to keep them out of the hospital by whatever means possible.”

Nearly 100 NFL players test positive for Covid-19 on Monday

The National Football League had 96 of its players test positive for Covid-19 on Monday, the league announced today.

With an additional 10 positive tests among players over the weekend, a total of 106 players have been placed on the league’s Reserve/Covid-19 list since Christmas.

The NFL postponed three games last week but has yet to cancel a game so far this season.

NBA shortens quarantine time for vaccinated players who test positive for Covid-19

The National Basketball Association (NBA) will now allow vaccinated players and coaches to clear quarantine after six days – if Covid-19 testing determines the individual is no longer infectious, according to a league memo obtained by CNN.

The updated NBA protocols were first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The adjustment to six days is a reduction from the previously instituted waiting period of 10 days to clear quarantine.

The changes to the health and safety protocols were made on the same day the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortened the recommended time that people should isolate after they’ve tested positive for Covid-19, from 10 days to five days if they don’t have symptoms – and if they wear a mask around others for at least five more days.

In an interview last week, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said 97% of NBA players are fully vaccinated and 65% have received a booster shot.

Apple makes all NYC stores pickup only as Covid-19 cases rise

Apple has closed all of its New York City store locations to in-person shoppers due to Covid-19, Monica Fernandez, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement.

All of the stores are still open for customers to buy a product online and pick it up at the store, Fernandez said.

Hospitalizations of kids at one hospital in Chicago have quadrupled, doctor says

The number of children testing positive for Covid-19 at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is “incredibly high,” Dr. Larry Kociolek, an attending physician and infectious disease specialist there, told CNN Monday.

Case numbers are three times as high as the hospital’s previous peak in December of 2020, Kociolek said.

Half of the hospitalizations were in children under the age of five, Kociolek said. Those children are not yet eligible to be vaccinated.

“I think we’re definitely seeing the impact of vaccines in kids older than 5. The kids that are hospitalized are essentially all unvaccinated,” Kociolek said.

Kociolek said about 7% of the kids who test positive don’t have any symptoms at all. The sharp rise in cases shows how contagious the Omicron variant is.

“Our community activity just shut up very, very quickly,” Kociolek said.

Kociolek said the hospital is also concerned about a surge in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, known as MIS-C, in the near future. MIS-C is a rare, but serious Covid-19 related condition that can affect kids. The condition typically occurs after there has been a surge of Covid-19 cases. Even children who have had mild Covid-19 cases can develop MIS-C, usually several weeks after infection.

Kociolek said it is also important for parents to keep in mind that even mild Covid-19 cases can be contagious. To keep schools open, parents have to remember to keep their sick children home from school or any other activity. He also suggested parents may want to get their children tested or use a home test before they return to school. “That way you can ensure that they’re not carrying Covid-19 back to the classroom,” Kociolek said.

Nearly a third of fully vaccinated people have received a booster dose, CDC data shows

Here's what the latest data on vaccination efforts in the United States, published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows:

Fully vaccinated: 61.8% of the total US population (all ages) – more than 205 million people.

Not vaccinated: 22.4% of the eligible population (age 5+) have not received any dose of Covid-19 vaccine – at least 66 million people.

Current pace of vaccinations (seven-day average): 1,034,442 doses are being administered each day.

An average of 793,160 million booster doses are being administered each day.

About 66 million people have received an additional dose, or booster

35.2% of fully vaccinated adults (18+) have received a booster.

47.1% of fully vaccinated people age 50 and older have received a booster.

57.3% of fully vaccinated seniors (65+) have received a booster.

32.3% of the fully vaccinated population is boosted.

Note: CDC data on Covid-19 vaccinations are estimates. The agency notes that data on people who are fully vaccinated and those with a booster dose may be underestimated, while data on people with at least one dose may be overestimated.

This surge of Covid-19 patients is different from the others, health expert says

The latest surge of Covid-19 patients is different from previous surges, an emergency department expert on Long Island said Monday.

“During the first surge we saw majority of the patients were Covid. This surge, we're seeing a lot of sicker patients that had delayed care because of the different surges that went on,” Dr. Fred Davis, emergency department co-chair at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center Northwell Health, told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “And now we're also starting to see a number of patients presenting with very low acuity, or very minimal symptoms that are also coming into the emergency department to get tested.”

The majority of the more serious Covid-19 cases are unvaccinated, Davis said. There are some breakthrough cases, but those patients don’t tend to be as sick.

While the staff is tired after two years of managing patients in a pandemic, Davis said they have learned a lot through each wave in cases.

“While we fear that this is something that's just starting, we also know that we can get through it because we got through something just as bad, if not worse,” Davis said.

Alpha Omicron Pi Bid Day at TCU-140 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.

I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...

You can learn more about AOII here:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

Omicron 01 horizontal Nov 2006 by National Energy Technology Laboratory

Christopher Matranga, left, a researcher in the Office of Research and Development at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, and Neetha Khan, a research scientist at NETL, prepare an experiment in NETL’s Omicron Analysis and Surface Imaging System (OASIS). The OASIS system allows researchers to image individual atoms and determine the elemental composition of the first few atomic layers of surfaces relevant to fossil energy applications. The system incorporates such analytical and atomic imaging systems as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, ion scattering spectroscopy, low energy electron diffraction, electron energy loss spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, and atomic force microscopy into one single ultra-high vacuum system. It will give NETL onsite researchers a powerful new ability to do research into such areas as hydrogen membranes, surface chemistry, atomic scale studies of Fischer-Tropsch and catalytic reforming reactions, studies of membranes during heating and exposure to hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide, and many other applications. The new system also will be useful to university collaborators who work with NETL onsite scientists and engineers in an increasing number of projects of national importance.

Alpha Omicron Pi Bid Day at TCU-30 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.

I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...

You can learn more about AOII here:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Honor Society Fall 2015 Induction by SUNY Old Westbury

Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Honor Society Fall 2015 Induction

Alpha Omicron Pi Bid Day at TCU-268 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.

I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...

You can learn more about AOII here:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

20220531 by Guy M Wong

abc7news.com/coronavirus-omicron-vs-delta-covid-symtoms-c...

Study by SF researchers shows how COVID symptoms evolved between delta, omicron

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- After a year of collecting data from more than 63,000 people who got tested in San Francisco, researchers learned how the symptoms of the COVID-19 virus are evolving.

"It is not the same disease as we were seeing with delta and the previous variants," said Dr. John Swartzberg, U.C Berkeley Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology clinical professor emeritus.

U.C Berkeley infectious diseases expert Dr. Swartzberg said this study confirms what clinicians are seeing. Eye-opening characteristics of how the virus is infecting the human body with omicron versus delta.

"People who are infected with omicron tend to get more upper respiratory disease. Nose, throat, more congestion in the upper air ways. People who had delta in previous infections had more systemic symptoms like fever, body aches," said Dr. Swartzberg.

The study by UCSF researchers, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and the Latino Task Force found that the most common symptom during omicron were cough, followed by sore throat, congestion and very rarely loss of smell or taste.

"If you were boosted ironically you got more upper airway congestion like nose is stuffier. If you were boosted, you just had a couple of the mRNA jabs or if you weren't vaccinated at all you didn't get necessarily as much upper airway congestion, but you got more sick in terms of fever and bad body aches," said Dr. Swartzberg.

The Latino Task Force was key in gathering this data. They followed up with those who tested positive at their Mission test site and tracked their symptoms.

"One thing also that we found through the omicron is that at the end of the five days recommended isolation, most people still tested positive. So, the importance to continue to test is very high," said Susan Rojas with the Latino Task Force.

Their data also found that fevers were "less common among persons who had received boosters compared to unvaccinated people or those who received the primary series."

"What we can infer is that those who are boosted were presenting a lot more of the congestion symptoms. Which means that the immune system was recognizing the virus a lot quicker and making it harder to advance," said Rojas.

This study is pending peer-review.

www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2022/05/31/why-omicron-i...

Why Omicron Is About To Make Americans Act Immorally, Inappropriately"

A friend called me for medical advice two weeks ago. He’s single, in his thirties and generally healthy, but he’d developed a dry cough with mild congestion. After a self-administered Covid-19 test turned up negative results, he remained suspicious he could be infected.

He was set to fly west in a couple of days for a conference and dreaded the thought of infecting other passengers. I recommended a PCR test if he wanted to be more certain. When the lab results came back positive, he spent the next five days at home alone (per CDC guidance).

If you were in his shoes, chances are you, too, would make a reasonable effort to avoid infecting others. In the near future, that won’t be the case.

Americans are playing it safe—for now

Yet, there’s still one aspect of the pandemic Americans are taking very seriously.

As a society, we still expect people who test positive for Covid-19 to stay home and minimize contact with others. As a result of these expectations, 4 in 10 workers (including 6 in 10 low-income employees) have missed work in 2022. Overall, the nation’s No. 1 concern related to Omicron is “spreading the virus to people who are at higher risk of serious illness.”

Most Americans are eager to move on from the pandemic, but those who are sick continue to avoid actions that may potentially spread the virus.

Call it what you will—group think, peer pressure or the fear of violating cultural taboos—people don’t want to put others in harm’s way. That’s true, according to polls, regardless of one’s party affiliation or vaccination status.

What’s immoral today will be appropriate tomorrow

Don’t get used to these polite and socially conscious behaviors. All of it is about to change in the not-distant future. Let me paint a picture of tomorrow’s new normal:

■ A factory worker tests positive over the weekend for Covid-19 and comes to work on Monday without a mask, informing no one of his infection.

■ A vacationer with mild Covid-19 symptoms refuses to postpone her spa weekend, availing herself of massages, facials and group yoga classes.

■ A couple plans an indoor wedding for 200-plus, knowing the odds are likely that dozens of people will get infected and that some of those guests will be elderly and immunosuppressed.

These actions, which seem inappropriate and immoral now, will become typical. It’s not that people will suddenly become less empathetic or more callous. They’ll simply be adjusting to new social mores, brought about by a unique viral strain and an inevitable evolution in American culture.

A crash course in a unique virus

To understand why people will behave in ways that seem so unacceptable today, you must understand how the Omicron variant spreads compared to other viruses.

Scientists now know that Omicron (and its many decimal-laden strains: BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4, BA.5, etc.) is the most infectious, fastest-spreading respiratory virus in world history. The Mayo Clinic calls this Covid-19 variant “hyper-contagious.”

“A single case could give rise to six cases after four days, 36 cases after eight days, and 216 cases after 12 days,” according to a report in Scientific American. As a result, researchers predict that 100 million Americans will become infected with Omicron this year alone—via new infections, reinfections and vaccination breakthroughs.

In addition to Omicron’s high transmissibility, the virus is also season-less. Whereas influenza arrives each winter and exits in the spring, Americans will continue to experience high levels of Covid-19 infection year-round—at least for the foreseeable future.

With its 60-plus mutations, immense transmissibility and lack of seasonality, Omicron is an exceptional virus: one that will infect not only our respiratory systems but also our culture.

Over time, Omicron’s unique characteristics will drive Americans to deny and ignore the risks of infection. In the near future, they’ll make decisions and take actions that they’d presently deem wrong.

A culture shock is coming

Culture—which comprises the shared values, norms and beliefs of a group of people—doesn’t change because someone decides it should. It evolves because circumstances change.

The pandemic has no doubt been a culture-changing event and, as the circumstances of Covid-19 have changed, so too have our underlying values, beliefs and behaviors.

If 100 million Americans (one-third of the population) were to become infected with Omicron this year, we can expect that everyone will know someone with the disease. And when dozens of our friends or colleagues say they’ve had it, we will begin to see transmission as inevitable. And since, statistically, most Americans won’t die from Omicron, people will see infection as relatively harmless and they’ll be willing to drop their guard.

We’ll see more and more people going to work even when they’re infected. We’ll see more people on trains and planes, coughing and congested, having never taken a Covid-19 test. And we’ll see large, indoor celebrations taking place without any added safety measures, despite the risks to the most vulnerable attendees.

Amid these changes, health officials will continue to urge caution, just as they have for more than two years. But it won’t make a difference. Culture eats science for breakfast. Americans will increasingly follow the herd and stop heeding public-safety warnings.

The process of change has begun

Cultural shifts happen in steps. First, a few people break the rules and then others follow.

Recall my friend, the one who took two tests out of an abundance of caution. Next time, perhaps he’ll decide he’d rather not miss the conference. Perhaps when he returns home, he will tell his friends that he felt sick the whole trip. Perhaps they’ll ask, “Do you think you might have had Covid?” And perhaps he will reply: “What difference would it have made? I’m fully vaccinated and boosted.”

And so, it will go. The next time someone in his social circle feels under the weather, he or she won’t even bother to do the first test.

This change process has already begun. Take the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, for example. Last year, the event was cancelled. This year, guests had to show proof of vaccination or a negative same-day test. However, that rule didn’t apply to staff at the hotel who worked the event. Unsurprisingly, several high-profile attendees got Covid-19 but, so far, no reports of anyone being hospitalized. A year from now, assuming no major mutations cause the virus to become more lethal, we can expect all restrictions will be dropped.

Culture dictates how people behave. It influences their thoughts and actions. It alters their values and beliefs. The unique characteristics of Omicron will lead people to ignore the harm it inflicts. They won’t act with malicious intent. They’ll just be oblivious to the consequences of their actions. That’s how culture works.

20220505 by Guy M Wong

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tNjUlVZiLw

New Covid-19 subvariants can reinfect Omicron-recovered patients, early studies find

www.cnn.com/2022/05/06/health/hepatitis-kids-cdc-update/i...

CDC investigating more than 100 cases of unexplained hepatitis in children, including 5 deaths

(CNN) The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that it's investigating 109 cases of severe and unexplained hepatitis in children in 25 states and territories that may be linked to a worldwide outbreak.

Among them, 14% needed transplants, and five children have died.

Nearly all the children -- more than 90% -- needed to be hospitalized.

Dr. Jay Butler, the CDC's deputy director of infectious diseases, stressed that the investigation -- a partnership between the CDC and state health departments -- is an evolving situation. Not all the hepatitis cases they are studying now may ultimately be caused by the same thing.

"It's important to note that this is an evolving situation, and we are casting a wide net to help broaden our understanding," Butler said.

Hepatitis, or swelling of the liver, can be caused by infections, autoimmune diseases, drugs and toxins. A family of viruses well known for attacking the liver causes hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

It's not clear what's driving these cases in young children. Butler said some of the common causes of viral hepatitis have been considered but were not found in any of the cases.

Adenovirus has been detected in more than 50% of cases, although its role isn't clear.

Early hepatitis reports

On April 21, the CDC alerted doctors to a cluster of unusual cases of hepatitis in nine children in Alabama.

It asked doctors and public health officials to notify the agency if they had similar cases of children under the age of 10 with elevated liver enzymes and no apparent explanation for their hepatitis going back to October.

Since then, health departments have been working with pediatric specialists in their states to identify possible cases. The numbers shared at Friday's news briefing are the first national look at cases.

Cases are under investigation in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.

The CDC's alert followed reports of children from England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland going to hospitals with unexplained hepatitis.

As of May 1, there are 228 probable cases linked to the outbreak in 20 countries, with more than 50 cases under investigation, Dr. Philippa Easterbrook, a senior scientist in the World Health Organization's Global Hepatitis Program, said in a briefing Wednesday. Among these cases, one child has died, and about 18 have needed liver transplants, she said.

Most of the children were healthy when they developed symptoms that included fatigue, loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, belly pain, dark urine, light-colored stools and yellowing of their skin and eyes -- a sign called jaundice.

Unusually severe liver inflammation

Pediatric gastroenterologist Dr. Heli Bhatt of M Health Fairview Masonic Children's Center in Minneapolis has treated two children who are part of the CDC's investigation. One, a 2-year-old from South Dakota, had a liver transplant this week.

Bhatt says liver failure in kids is "super rare." And even before scientists started tracking this outbreak, half of cases were never explained.

Doctors who have treated these children say their cases stood out.

"Even during the first case, I thought it was weird," says Dr. Markus Buchfellner, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where staffers started seeing cases in October.

"And then when the second one came in, that's when I said, 'OK, we need to talk to someone about this.' " He reached out to senior physicians in his department, who contacted the state health department and the CDC.

Buchfellner says the cases stood out because the liver inflammation was so severe.

Sometimes, common viruses like Epstein-Barr or even SARS-CoV-2 will raise a child's liver enzymes a little, indicating what Buchfellner calls "small bits of hepatitis," but the kids typically recover as their bodies fight off the infection.

"But it's very odd to see a child who's healthy come in with the amount of liver injury that these kids had," he said.

Initially, UAB saw nine kids with unexplained hepatitis, and all nine tested positive for adenovirus in their blood. None of them tested positive for Covid-19 during their hospitalization or had a documented history of Covid-19, Butler said at the news briefing.

Since those cases were reported, two more children in Alabama have been identified. Their cases are under investigation, bringing the state's total to 11, said Dr. Wes Stubblefield, medical officer for Alabama's Northern and Northeastern Districts.

There are about 100 kinds of adenoviruses. About 50 of them are known to infect humans, so experts needed a closer look at the virus to try to figure out if all the children had the same one.

When researchers tried to read the genes of the adenovirus in infected kids, only five had enough genetic material to get a full sequence. In all five, the virus was a particular kind called adenovirus 41. It typically causes diarrhea and vomiting in kids, sometimes with congestion or a cough, but has never before been associated with liver failure in otherwise healthy children.

Butler said Friday that adenovirus 40 and 41 have been linked to hepatitis but almost exclusively in immunocompromised children.

Clues from the UK

Also Friday, researchers with the UK Health Security Agency posted a new technical briefing with an update on its hepatitis investigation. Of 163 cases, 126 patients have been tested for adenovirus, and 91, or 72%, were positive for that pathogen.

Investigators have tried to sequence the entire genome of an adenovirus from one of the patients but have not been able to get a sample with enough of the virus to do that. There were 18 cases in which where they were able to partially sequence the genome, and all of them have been adenovirus 41F, the same one found in the US cases.

Many have wondered whether the cases may somehow be related to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

UK investigators say they're still looking at that possibility, but only 24 out of 132 patients tested -- 18% -- had SARS-CoV-2 detected.

The report says they are not ruling out some role for a Covid-19 infection in these cases. Perhaps a prior Covid-19 infection somehow primed the immune system to make these children unusually susceptible, or maybe a co-infection of the two viruses together overwhelms the liver.

Researchers also want to know if the hepatitis is part of some kind of syndrome that strikes kids after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, like the rare complication called multisystem inflammtory syndrome in children, or MIS-C.

Another working theory from UK investigators is that there's some kind of outsized or irregular immune response in these children, perhaps because they were sheltered more than usual during the pandemic.

Yet another theory is that the adenovirus may have always caused liver failure in a tiny percentage of children who were infected, and these rare cases are coming to light only because it is causing an exceptionally large wave of infections.

And investigators in the UK say they are still testing for drugs, toxins or perhaps an environmental exposure, even though some kind of infection is probably more likely to be the cause.

Sorting out the role of adenovirus 41

Another thing that's puzzled doctors, Buchfellner says, is that they found adenovirus in blood samples but not in samples of liver tissue taken during biopsies of the patients in Alabama.

"All nine of them have liver biopsies that were showing lots of inflammation and hepatitis. But we did not find the virus in the liver. We only found the virus in the blood," he said.

Bhatt's case, a child from South Dakota, was also positive for adenovirus in her blood but not in her liver.

If adenovirus 41 is somehow responsible in these cases -- and that's still a big if -- Buchfellner says he doesn't know why it would only show up in the blood but not in heavily damaged liver tissue. But he has some theories.

"Maybe the liver is clearing the virus before it's been cleared in the blood," he said. "And so by the time that the damage has been done to the liver and we do the biopsy, the immune system has already cleared the virus from the liver. And what's left over is just inflammation."

His second theory is that it's not the virus itself that's responsible for the liver damage, but perhaps the immune system overreacts when trying to fight off the virus and ends up damaging the liver.

Adenovirus infections are common, so maybe finding the virus in some of these patients is just a coincidence. "We are not 100% sure that this is just that adenovirus. There's still a lot to be known," Bhatt said.

Active investigation

In an April 29 statement on the cases, the CDC wrote, "we believe adenovirus may be the cause for these reported cases, but other potential environmental and situational factors are still being investigated."

Butler said Friday that experts are considering a range of possibilities, including exposure to animals.

"We really are casting a broad net and keeping an open mind in terms of whether the adenovirus data may reflect an innocent bystander or whether there may be cofactors that are making the adenovirus infections manifest in a way that's not been commonly seen before," he said.

Investigators say they know that this news may worry parents.

Butler says investigators still believe these cases are very rare. They have not seen an increase, for example, in children coming to emergency rooms with hepatitis.

"We are still telling at least our families here in Alabama -- and I would encourage other families the same way -- not to be too concerned about this just yet." Buchfellner said. "I mean, at the end of the day, this is still a pretty rare phenomenon."

Buchfellner says adenoviruses are commonly passed around day cares and schools. They typically cause nothing worse than something that feels like stomach flu for a few days.

"it's been around for a long time, and it's gonna continue to go around. And in total, we only have around 200 cases that have been reported across the globe. So this isn't a Covid pandemic-like situation where everybody needs to be really concerned about this," he said.

AOII Victory September 2014-3 by Raul Mosley

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The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi posed for portraits at TCU's Frog Fountain prior to attending a Victory event on September 26, 2014.. (I don't have the first clue what this event was, but I'm assuming it was a formal dance of some sort.) You can learn more about the chapter at the following sites:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

TCU AOII Big Little Reveal 2014-146 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.

Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....

You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

TCU AOII Big Little Reveal 2014-110 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.

Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....

You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

Job: Software-Entwickler bei ARS Omicron, Standort Techno-Z Salzburg by Techno-Z

www.omicron.jobs

www.techno-z.at

National Day Action — Providence St. John's Health Center by National Nurses United

Nurses hold national day of action Jan. 13 to demand employers, Biden administration protect RNs, health care workers

Registered nurse members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union of RNs, hold actions across the country on Thursday, Jan. 13 — including a candlelight vigil in Washington, D.C. for nurses who lost their lives to Covid-19, and a national virtual press conference — to demand the hospital industry invest in safe staffing, and to demand that President Biden follow through on his campaign promise to protect nurses and prioritize public health.

NNU nurses emphasize that in recent weeks, the Biden administration has ripped away critical protections from health care workers and the public, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) weakening Covid isolation guidelines and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announcing that it intends to withdraw critical Covid protections for health care workers—right when the Omicron variant is exploding across the country and hospitalizations are skyrocketing. Nurses emphasize that being left unprotected by the government and by their profit-driven hospital employers which have failed to invest in safe staffing and provide critical health and safety protections, has created such unsafe working conditions that nurses are being driven away from the profession.

#ProtectNurses

TCU AOII Big Little Reveal 2014-135 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.

Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....

You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

Half by Andrew Lee

5 2

That's right biatches. See more at Ry's photostream and here

Governor Hochul Updates New Yorkers on the Spread of Covid-19 and the Omicron Variant in New York City by Governor Kathy Hochul

December 20, 2021 - New York City - Governor Kathy Hochul, joined by Jackie Bray, Acting Commissioner of New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, and Director of State Operations Kathryn Garcia updates New Yorkers on the Covid-19 spread in New York State, particularly on the Omicron variant, during a press briefing Monday December 20, 2021 in New York City. (Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of the Governor)

Omicron Psi | 2022 by Sigma Nursing

2

Omicron Psi Chapter's induction took place on 28 March 2022, and 55 new members were inducted. Twenty-six of the inductees were at the live ceremony in person.

Omicron Delta Kappa Inductees by Shenandoah University

2-21-11 | SUN-e Picture of the Day: Shenandoah University’s chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership society, inducted its newest members in a ceremony yesterday. They are (from left) Micah Melton, Kyle Masson, Christine Young, Kyle Feldman, Hillary Zampelli, Rachel Maki, Michelle Barry, Brooke Over, Marjory Bishop, Kaitlin Sommer, Paola Aguilar, Jennifer Moxley and William Wilson Jr. (Not shown: Kevin Brashears, Thomas Matteson and Alia Rezek.) For 95 years, ODK members across the nation have been recognized as college juniors, seniors and graduate students who excel in both academics and leadership. (Photo by Cathy Kuehner)

Turma Omicron! by Jonathan Laverde

5 10

Samuel, Marcos, Jaqueline, Osvaldo, Stephanie, Cris, Gabriele, Lorena, Juliana, Ana, Daiane <3, Marisa!

Mecha Godzilla invades the Omicron Weekend by Andrew Becraft

4

Alpha Omicron Pi Bid Day at TCU-12 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.

I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...

You can learn more about AOII here:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

Omicron Xi 40th Anniversary Brunch at the Oswego Country Club.

06/11/22

AOII Victory September 2014-21 by Raul Mosley

1

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi posed for portraits at TCU's Frog Fountain prior to attending a Victory event on September 26, 2014.. (I don't have the first clue what this event was, but I'm assuming it was a formal dance of some sort.) You can learn more about the chapter at the following sites:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/

This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.

Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:

www.redeemedexpressions.com/be-part-of-the-project/

Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:

Omicron by André Ducci

2014

Omicron 03 horizontal Nov 2006 by National Energy Technology Laboratory

Christopher Matranga, left, a researcher in the Office of Research and Development at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, and Neetha Khan, a research scientist at NETL, prepare an experiment in NETL’s Omicron Analysis and Surface Imaging System (OASIS). The OASIS system allows researchers to image individual atoms and determine the elemental composition of the first few atomic layers of surfaces relevant to fossil energy applications. The system incorporates such analytical and atomic imaging systems as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, ion scattering spectroscopy, low energy electron diffraction, electron energy loss spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, and atomic force microscopy into one single ultra-high vacuum system. It will give NETL onsite researchers a powerful new ability to do research into such areas as hydrogen membranes, surface chemistry, atomic scale studies of Fischer-Tropsch and catalytic reforming reactions, studies of membranes during heating and exposure to hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide, and many other applications. The new system also will be useful to university collaborators who work with NETL onsite scientists and engineers in an increasing number of projects of national importance.

20220711 by Guy M Wong

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/07/ba5-omicron-va...

Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’?

The latest surge is a test of our pandemic priorities.

Well, here we go again. Once more, the ever-changing coronavirus behind COVID-19 is assaulting the United States in a new guise—BA.5, an offshoot of the Omicron variant that devastated the most recent winter. The new variant is spreading quickly, likely because it snakes past some of the immune defenses acquired by vaccinated people, or those infected by earlier variants. Those who have managed to avoid the virus for close to three years will find it a little harder to continue that streak, and some who recently caught COVID are getting it again. “People shouldn’t be surprised if they get infected, and they shouldn’t be surprised if it’s pretty unpleasant,” Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah, told me.

That doesn’t mean we’re about to have a surge on the scale of what we saw last winter, or that BA.5 (and its close cousin BA.4) will set us back to immunological square one. Goldstein told me that he takes “some level of comfort” in the knowledge that, based on how other countries have fared against BA.5, vaccines are still keeping a lot of people out of hospitals, intensive-care units, and morgues. The new variant is not an apocalyptic menace.

But it can’t be ignored, either. Infections (and reinfections) still matter, and by increasing both, BA.5 is extending and deepening the pandemic’s ongoing burden. “We will not prevent all transmission—that is not the goal—but we have to reduce the spread,” Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, told me. “It’s not over, and we are playing with fire by letting this virus circulate at such intense levels.”

The age of Omicron began shortly after Thanksgiving, as the new variant swept through the U.S., ousting its predecessor, Delta. That initial version of Omicron, now known as BA.1, was just the first of a mini-dynasty of related variants that have since competed against one another in a grim game of succession. BA.2 took over from BA.1, and caused a surge in the spring. BA.4 and BA.5 are spreading even more quickly: First detected in South Africa in January and February, they have since displaced BA.2 all over the world, leading to surges in both cases and hospitalizations. In the U.S., BA.5 now accounts for about 54 percent of all COVID infections, and BA.4, about another 17 percent. (Most of this article will deal with BA.5 alone because it already seems to be outcompeting its cousin.) Hospitalizations have risen to their highest level since March.

You might assume that a new variant gains dominance by being inherently more transmissible than its forerunners. Using that logic, buttressed by some back-of-the-envelope calculations, some commentators have claimed that BA.5 is as transmissible as measles, making it among the most contagious viral diseases in history. But those calculations are “fully wrong,” Trevor Bedford, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me. Variants can spread rapidly without being any better at finding new hosts, as long as they’re better at slipping past those hosts’ immune defenses. That property—immune evasion—likely enabled BA.1 to oust Delta last winter. It might also explain why BA.5 is rising now.

When people are vaccinated or infected, they develop antibodies that can neutralize the coronavirus by sticking to its spike proteins—the studs on its surface that the pathogen uses to recognize and infect our cells. But BA.4 and BA.5 have several mutations that change the shape of their spikes, which, like swords that no longer fit their sheaths, are now unrecognizable to many antibodies that would have disarmed older variants. That’s why, as many studies have now consistently shown, antibodies from triple-vaccinated people, or people who had breakthrough infections with earlier variants, are three to four times less potent at neutralizing BA.4 or BA.5 than BA.1 or BA.2. This means that most people are now less protected against infection than they were two months ago—and that some people who got COVID very recently are getting reinfected now. “I hear from a lot of people who just had COVID in February, March, or April and now have it again,” Anne Hahn, a virologist and immunologist at Yale, told me.

As my colleague Katherine J. Wu has reported, the consequences of reinfections are still unclear. It’s unlikely that each subsequent bout of COVID is worse for an individual than the previous one; this idea has proliferated because of a recent preprint, which really only showed that getting reinfected is worse than not being reinfected. Nor should people worry that, as one viral news article recently suggested, “it is now possible to be reinfected with one of Omicron’s variants every two to three weeks.” BA.5 is different from its forebears but not from itself; although someone could catch the new variant despite having recently had COVID, they’d be very unlikely to get infected again in the near future.

Though previous immunity has been dialed down a few notches, since BA.5 showed up, it hasn’t disappeared entirely. “We’re seeing that new infections are disproportionately people who haven’t been infected before,” Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the U.K. Health Security Agency, told me. About 70 percent of those who currently have COVID in England are first-timers, even though they account for just 15 percent of the country’s population. This clearly shows that although reinfections are a serious problem, the population still has some protection against catching even BA.5.

The degree to which the new variant escapes immunity is also a shadow of what we saw last winter, when Omicron first arrived. For comparison, antibodies in vaccinated people were 20 to 40 times worse at neutralizing BA.1 than the original coronavirus. BA.5 reduces their efficiency threefold again—a small gain of sneakiness on top of its predecessor’s dramatic flair for infiltration. “BA.5 is doing what Omicron does but with a marginally more effective immune evasion,” Kall told me. “I don’t believe that it represents a massive paradigm shift.”

Why, then, does it feel like we’re in a reinfection wave right now, with anecdotal reports being prominent in a way they weren’t seven months ago? It’s because Omicron completely changed our baseline. Before its arrival, only a third of Americans had ever experienced COVID. By the end of February, almost 60 percent had. We’re hearing more about reinfections now in part because the number of people who could possibly be reinfected has doubled.

BA.5’s impact on society will differ greatly around the world. Both South Africa and the U.K. have experienced only small rises in hospitalizations and deaths despite surging BA.5 cases, showing that “protection from vaccines against severe disease and death is still really strong,” Kall said. Portugal hasn’t been so lucky, with deaths climbing to levels that approach those of the first Omicron surge. These differences should be expected. On top of their demographic differences, countries are now complicated patchworks of immunity; citizens vary in how many times they’ve been infected or vaccinated, which vaccines they’ve gotten, and which variants they’ve encountered.

Still, it’s possible to predict what might happen as BA.5 ascends in the U.S. by looking at its effective reproduction number, or Rt—the average number of people whom each infected person then infects. The original version of Omicron, BA.1, “came in really hot,” Trevor Bedford told me. With an initial Rt of between 3 and 3.5, he estimates that it infected almost half the country in a few months, including 3 million to 4 million people a day at its peak. (These numbers are higher than the official counts, which have always been underestimates.) BA.2 was less ferocious: With an initial Rt of 1.6, it infected about one in 10 Americans in the spring, and peaked at roughly 500,000 daily infections. BA.4 and BA.5 have a slightly higher Rt but should “mostly mirror the BA.2 epidemic,” Bedford told me. It might not look that way on recent charts of new cases, where the close overlap between BA.4/BA.5’s rise and BA.2’s decline creates “the illusion of a plateau,” Bedford said, but the U.S. is nonetheless experiencing its third Omicron surge. He expects BA.5 to infect 10 to 15 percent of Americans over the next few months.

Of course, it doesn’t have to. The Biden administration, other political leaders, and many media figures have promoted laxer COVID policies, on the grounds that vaccines are still reducing the risk of death and hospitalization. But this stance is foolish for several reasons.

Even if the infection-fatality ratio for COVID—the risk that an infected person will die—falls to the level of seasonal flu, rare events stack up when the virus is allowed to spread unchecked. Bedford estimates that in such a scenario, COVID could still plausibly kill 100,000 Americans every year, “which is a lot!” he said. “It’s not like in the peak of the pandemic, but it’s a major health burden.” That burden is still mainly borne by the elderly; low-income workers; Black, Latino, and Indigenous Americans; and immunocompromised people. The entire Omicron dynasty may well have arisen from chronic infections in immunocompromised patients, in whose bodies the virus can evolve more rapidly, which suggests a self-interested case for preventing infections in this group, along with the more obvious moral rationale.

Death isn’t the only outcome that matters, either. Even without sending people to the hospital, infections can lead to the persistent and in many cases disabling symptoms of long COVID—a risk that vaccines seem to lower but not fully avert. “I’m not worried about dying from COVID, but I’m personally cautious because of worries about long COVID,” Bedford told me. “I’m not a hermit, but I’m taking mitigation measures to try not to get sick.” And even “mild” infections can still be awful. Dan Barouch, an infectious-disease specialist at Harvard Medical School, told me that friends and colleagues have “felt pretty terrible at home, sometimes for weeks, but weren’t sick enough to go to the ICU and get intubated. There’s a lot of time missed from school and work.” Waves of sick employees are still disrupting sectors that were already reeling from the Great Resignation—including the health-care system. An exodus of experienced colleagues and untenable levels of burnout have trapped health-care workers in a chronic state of crisis, which persists even when hospitalization numbers are low, and deepens whenever the numbers climb.

Preventing infections still matters, and vaccines are still a crucial means of doing so. After a frustrating delay, Omicron-specific boosters are on the way, and the FDA has recommended that these include components of BA.4 and BA.5. The updated shots won’t be ready until October at the earliest, by which time new variants could have arisen. But “even if we don’t nail the match exactly,” Goldstein said, these boosters should expand people’s antibody repertoire, leaving them better defended against not just the Omicron dynasty but also other variants that could follow. Still, “it’s important not to overpromise the efficacy of Omicron-specific boosters,” Barouch said. In terms of preventing infections, clinical data suggest that they’ll be modestly better than current vaccines, but not substantially so. And even if we get the long-desired shots that protect against all coronaviruses, it may be difficult to persuade Americans to get them.

Vaccines were never going to end the pandemic on their own. They needed to be complemented by other protective measures such as masks, better ventilation, rapid tests, and social support like paid sick leave, which were either insufficiently deployed or rolled back. And with stalled COVID funding jeopardizing supplies of tests, treatments, and vaccines, the U.S. will continue its long streak of being underprepared for new variants.

Consider BA.2.75, another member of the Omicron family, which has many spike mutations not seen in its cousins. In India, where that subvariant was first identified, it seems to be spreading at a rate double that of BA.5 and comparable to that of BA.1, Bedford told me. This worrying picture is based on a small number of samples, and BA.2.75’s actual pace may be slower. It may also struggle to spread in places like the U.S., where BA.5 already rules. But no matter what happens, this round of variants won’t be the last we contend with.

The belief that viruses inevitably evolve into milder versions is a myth: Such futures are possible but in no way guaranteed. The coronavirus could yet evolve into more severe variants, although vaccines would still be expected to blunt their sting. It could become even more contagious, although the traits that would give it a speed boost, such as higher viral loads or tighter attachments to human cells, can’t ratchet up forever. “It’s already super-transmissible, and there’s not much to gain there,” Anne Hahn told me.

Immune evasion is another matter. The virus is likely now locked with the human immune system in a perpetual evolutionary arms race. A variant emerges to circumvent our existing immunity, then vaccines and infections gradually rebuild our defenses … until another variant emerges. This is exactly what happens with flu, but the coronavirus seems to be changing even more quickly. The big uncertainty is whether the next variants will erode immunity to the small degrees that scientists expect (as BA.5 is doing) or whether they’ll do something dramatic and unexpected (as BA.1 did). This is what “living with COVID” means—a continual cat-and-mouse game that we can choose to play seriously or repeatedly forfeit.

The stakes of that game depend on a very simple question: Should we still care about preventing infections? If the answer is “not so much,” which is the implicit and sometimes explicit posture that America’s leaders have adopted, then BA.5 changes little. But if the answer is “yes,” as I and most of the experts I talk to still believe, then BA.5 is a problem.

Omicron Xi 40th Anniversary Brunch at the Oswego Country Club.

06/11/22

ODK_Breakfast_01 by Florida Southern

Omicron Delta Kappa breakfast (3/15/14); Homecoming 2014; Florida Southern College

Mecha Godzilla invades the Omicron Weekend by Andrew Becraft

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Alpha Omicron Pi Bid Day at TCU-177 by Raul Mosley

The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.

I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...

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