By Dr. Irwin Redlener
Having trouble keeping up with pandemic news? You’re in good company. Most of us are a bit overwhelmed by the proverbial firehose of new data, opinions and speculation that’s always headed our way.
As I’ve spoken with family, friends and many neighbors right here on the Upper West Side for almost two years about what’s happening with this vicious SARS-CoV-2 virus, the most common question is: When do we get back to normal?
That question is particularly fraught, in part because we don’t share a common sense of what a post-pandemic “normal” would actually look like. And a painful truth is that even the experts are mostly guessing when they speculate about when we’ll be done with all of this pandemic turmoil. Personally, I’d even be satisfied if we get to a state where the virus becomes endemic; just part of life.
Let’s do a lightning round to keep current with the latest Covid-19 news.
Are rapid in-home Covid tests less accurate than we hoped?
Yes – and this is especially true with false negatives. Here’s what happens: you’ve been exposed, you have the kind of upper respiratory symptoms consistent with the Omicron variant, including sore throat, low-grade fever and cough. Assuming you can get your hands on a few rapid home tests, you do the nasal swab routine on 2 or 3 consecutive days. Every test shows a negative result.
What to do? First, what not to do. Do not have contact with grandma or any vulnerable unvaccinated people. And stay out of public areas until you can confirm if you are or are not actually carrying Covid-19.
What you should do is get a PCR test. And wear a good (not cloth) mask. Under these circumstances, the PCR will help determine if you actually have or have had Covid-19. (And keep an eye out for new rapid tests manufactured by Siemens and Roche that the FDA says are far better than existing tests in detecting Omicron.)
Has the Omicron variant surge peaked?
If you live in New York or many other parts of the Northeast, it’s hard to ignore a potential leveling off or data suggesting the beginning of a real downturn. Johns Hopkins University reports daily Covid cases hit a peak of 85,000/day in our State on January 9, but are now down to an average of 51,500 cases/day as of last week.
And in the City? Cases of Covid-19 are down some 31%.
Even if the surge continues to abate and the pressures on our hospitals are truly relieved, outbreaks are still heading to other parts of the country and the world. And, yes, if we mirror the pattern observed in South Africa or the U.K, we could be headed in the right direction. But if our pattern tracks what is being observed in Brazil and other counties, we could be facing a longer surge of Omicron than we had hoped.
New York City schools will be allowing some remote learning; now what?
It is undoubtedly the Omicron variant that is responsible for the resurgence of classroom chaos in our schools. There are many opinions and proposed policies at play, but, truly, this is nobody’s fault. Mayor Adams has been calm and thoughtful, as have the teachers and staff desperately wanting to keep classrooms open. But they were foiled by Omicron! Parents and students, too, understand the need to keep kids in school. Still, everyone involved in this high-intensity education crisis also wants to make sure that children and all school staff remain healthy and safe.
That said, absenteeism in the City has been extraordinary. Last Friday some 25% – or 234,500 students stayed home. So if we are going to have some level of remote learning, let’s do it right! Meaning we must make sure that every at-home student has a working tablet or laptop, that lessons are clear, that the kids have access to teachers and a quiet place to learn.
These criteria may be doable for many UWS families. That’s good. But too many children in our city live at or near the poverty level and may not have access to the assets necessary to organize a decent remote-learning experience.
Let me know how you think we can best deal with this very serious challenge.
Dr. Redlener is founding director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia; professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine; cofounder of the Children’s Health Fund; MSNBC public health analyst; and Upper West Sider. Let him know in the comments what you think, and what you’d like him to address in next Tuesday’s column. Opinions are Dr. Redlener’s, not endorsed by the Rag.
Twitter: @IrwinRedlenerMD
The sane among us have already been back to “normal” for close to a year. I got the vaccine and booster, and there’s no other obligations to society on an individual level once that is fulfilled and they are widely available for free, which they are. Clearly the variant will spread anyways with or without the shot, but if you’re vaccinated it’s not particularly dangerous.
I was very interested in the back and forth among some readers regarding whether or not we are “back to normal” or what we even mean by normal these days. Personally, for all the reasons cited by NYC 10023, I certainly think we are far from normal if we think about our lives,say, in 2019. Even if Covid becomes endemic, there will be changes in certain aspects of our lives. Understanding what all of us would accept as normal would be helpful to policy makers. Meantime, Covid is still raging and we are not remotely ready to suggest that we have moved from “pandemic” to “endemic”. (And Josh rightly pointed out that we still need to do a lot more to protect the vaccinated, especially those at high risk, from getting infected. There certainly are still vaccinated people who get very sick and do not survive a breakthrough infection.)
Lisa, I must respectfully disagree with your disagreement! People do have different opinions of what they would accept as normal. Some folks do indeed think that full return to life in 2019 is the definition of post-pandemic normal. Many others just want to be able to travel freely and hug their grandchildren- even if other new rules about mandated vaccination and mask wearing become our new reality for the long haul.
Craig, as I think you indicated, anybody, scientist or not, who makes a statement that new variants will be “less virulent” should get used to swimming in frigid water, ’cause they’re on very thin ice! There is no way to predict the behavior of new variants that may already be brewing in highly unvaxxed regions of the world.
Finally, please reread what Kidsdoc wrote. We are in a time when we must think about controlling the pandemic as a collective mission for all of us. Yes, do what’s necessary to protect you and your loved ones. But protecting your tribe in a pandemic means making sure everybody is safe from Covid-19 wherever they live and no matter what form the virus takes.
Stay safe!
P.S. Let me know what secrets you’ve discovered to stay sane during this really long stretch of craziness. (But remember this is a family news source!) I’d like to cover some of your thoughts on this in a future column. Tweet what you think to @IrwinRedlenerMD.
so if the “sane” have been back to “normal” for close to a year, may I ask when it was previously “normal” to:
1. show proof of vaccination to enter a restaurant?
2. wear masks inside stores, shows, trains, airplanes, etc?
3. get tested in order to travel to other countries or across the border?
4. delay routine procedures at hospitals because of lack of resources due to lack of resources/space?
5. watching loved ones get sick and/or die?
I could go on, but if the above are your definition of “normal”, then I will happily consider myself “not sane”.
Most of the country is back to pre covid normal with the exception of airline requirements. I’ve traveled some in the past year. In many states the only time covid was mentioned was a news story about vaccine passports in big cities
Their hospitals and morgues are certainly not back to normal.
Only because you use yourself as the measure of sanity. While I am sure many will agree with you, many will also disagree with you. As is the nature of our country. But there are other responsibilities you have: besides getting vaccinated, you still should be wearing a mask. If you test positive, or have symptoms, or have been exposed, you have a responsibility to separate yourself from others until you are no longer contagious or potentially contagious. It is a myth that if you are vaccinated the virus is not particularly dangerous. If you are vaccinated, the virus is much less dangerous,but hospitalization and/or death are not completely ruled out. Roughly 1 in every 13 Covid deaths in the US are vaccinated individuals, according to the NYTimes.
I agree. These are very stressful times for all of us. I don’t think we will go back to the way is was for a long, long time. And it is such a deeply divided country now.
Respectfully, I must disagree that “we don’t share a common sense of what a post-pandemic “normal” would actually look like.” Normal means the way life was before Covid. No one wore masks, or worried they would catch a serious disease from someone who was symptom-free. That was normal. That is what people want to return to.
Most places have done that which is why people are leaving NY and CA.
The way to use a rapid test is to follow the instructions from the UK. Swab the back of your throat first, then your nostrils. Since Omicron virus tends to multiply more in the throat, this avoids false negatives. I did this, and the positive reading showed up instantly, no waiting 10 minutes. Given the cost of the test and, their unavailability, we cannot just keep trying day after day. (And if you live in an apartment house, as a few of us New Yorkers do, you cannot get the free tests from the federal government).
I live in an apartment building and I was able to sign up for the free tests and so were other people I know in my building and other apartment buildings.
You have to enter your address in the form including apartment number and format it properly.
There are a few glitches, it’s a new system, but please don’t just say that it’s not available.
I don’t think that one’s personal response to the virus that is going around can be a marker of one’s “sanity”. I do however think that one’s response is a choice.
UWS’er chooses to view the current virus (for vaccinated people) as not particularly dangerous (note the word “particularly, as in not more than other known and common dangers such as flu) whereas Josh describes the current virus as dangerous, this being defined as “hospitalization and/or death not completely ruled out”. That view is a choice as well.
As long as people think that once they get vaccinated and boosted, they’ve done their share in managing this pandemic, we will never get ahead of it. Public health is not about “I” it is about “we”. The job we all have now is to reduce the number of circulating infections so that those who cannot get vaccinated because they are too young or who did not respond well because they are immunocompromised are at lower risk, especially with a virus as infectious as Omicron. We can do this by wearing N-95 masks, avoiding large indoor crowds, testing and isolating when positive, and maintaining good hygiene.
That chugging sound you hear is the train leaving you behind.
Mask up? Avoid crowds? Go right ahead. Just stop yelling at the rest of us. We’re moving on with our lives, and letting our children be kids again.
Scientists are saying that future variants will be less virulent than Omicron. The next one will be as easy as Pi.
Maybe so, but there will soon be a nu one.