Omicron is Coming for Our Hospitals but There's No Political Will to Do Anything About It
PLUS: The Raiders and Chargers did a dumb-dumb thing by trying to beat each other in a football game
We are living through a very confusing stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m even confused about what’s making the pandemic so confusing at the moment. Is it the nature of Omicron? Is it the government’s response to Omicron? Is it people’s reaction to Omicron? It’s also hard to read the mood right now. The emotion most people seem to be experiencing is some sort of weird combination of exasperation, frustration, helplessness, and indifference. Actually maybe that combination of feelings—“I’m tired, I’m mad, I can’t do anything about it, I don’t care”—isn’t actually that weird. It’s probably something a lot of people feel on a daily basis but try to avoid. Omicron has just shoved that feeling into our faces 24/7. We should just start calling that feeling Omicron.
I thought I’d take the time today to talk myself through this Omicron problem and hopefully put it some sort of perspective. So let’s start with what we know about the Omicron variant itself, which, as most people I assume know by now, is much more contagious but does not sicken people as severely as previous variations of COVID-19. It is also more resistant to vaccines, but vaccinated people infected by Omicron tend to experience only mild symptoms comparable to that of a cold.
In other words, Omicron is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because Omicron is less likely to seriously sicken or kill people. That’s true not only because there are a lot of people who have been vaccinated and are therefore able to better defend themselves against Omicron but also because even the unvaccinated seem to fare better against this variation than past variations. If I was unvaccinated, though, I still wouldn’t want to take my chances with Omicron , as it remains pretty dangerous if it does sicken someone who hasn’t gotten the shot. In fact, those who get seriously ill from Omicron tend to be unvaccinated.
The other reason Omicron can be considered a blessing is that because it’s so contagious it’s practically wiped the deadlier Delta variant off the map. Omicron may very well be this pandemic’s offramp. It may afflict a lot of people in a short period of time but leave behind a less dangerous version of the virus we can more easily live with.
Yet Omicron’s contagiousness is also its curse. Even if Omicron is less likely to seriously sicken those who catch it, the fact that so many more people are going to catch the variant means it has the potential to seriously sicken a lot of people. The following math isn’t representative of the way COVID variants work, but it’s an example of how this sort of scenario is possible. Imagine a more virulent Variant X and a more contagious Variant Y in a population of 1000 people. If 10% of the population catches Variant X and 10% of those who catch it become seriously ill, then in that population of 1000 people Variant X will seriously sicken 10 out of the 100 people who catch it. However, if Variant Y only seriously sickens 5% of those who catch it but 40% of the population catches it, then in that population of 1000 people Variant Y will seriously sicken 20 of the 400 people who catch it. Variant Y, like Omicron, may be less likely to result in serious illness for those who catch it but it retains the potential to produce more cases of serious illness overall.
So what does all this mean for the way we ought to be responding to the pandemic at this point in time? I guess it leaves me less worried about the pandemic at the individual level since vaccines and boosters have made people pretty resilient to the variant we’re now facing. In the days before vaccines, people could genuinely be worried about how well their bodies would respond to an infection. There’s still reason to be concerned about individuals with comorbidities, very young children, and unvaccinated children (if I was a public official, I would in no way oppose mandated vaccines for school-aged children and would welcome the inevitable lawsuit) but those who want to protect themselves from infection have pretty powerful tools at their disposal and should fare quite well if they use them.
As for those who have refused to get the vaccine? We know who those people tend to be. At this point, it’s clear cajoling, shaming, politely asking, rewarding, or reasoning with them isn’t going to convince them to get a shot. Nor is the fact that the New York Times reports that deaths from COVID among the unvaccinated this past fall were 13X higher than deaths among the vaccinated. While I pray no one need suffer anymore as a result of this pandemic, when it comes to COVID, I’ve resigned myself to no longer worrying about the well-being of those who are not interested in their own well-being. Given how politicized the vaccine debate in the United States has become, I have to say that downplaying the efficacy of vaccines to one’s own supporters and fellow party-members despite the effect that might have on one’s electoral aspirations is an odd way to stick it to the libs. At this point in the pandemic, all this lib can do is watch this absurd drama play out and shrug my shoulders.
But while I am no longer worried as much about the pandemic at an individual level, I am very worried about the effect Omicron is having on hospitals and other public services. By all accounts, hospitals in the United States are currently overwhelmed. There’s some debate about the validity of the hospitalization numbers, which count people in the hospital with COVID but not necessarily admitted to the hospital for COVID. (Omicron is so prevalent, many people who come to the hospital in need of routine surgery or medical care are testing positive upon arrival.) On-the-ground reporting, however, indicates hospitals are swamped with COVID patients. Making matters worse is that many doctors, nurses, and support staff have needed to take time off after contracting COVID themselves, leaving hospitals understaffed. This has ripple effects not only when it comes to being able to treat people with the virus but also those seeking both emergency and nonemergency medical services. If there is good news here, it is that hospitals in areas with high vaccination rates are generally able to get their patients on the mend more quickly and appear to be in a better position to weather Omicron’s storm. On the other hand, areas with low vaccination rates may be inundated with sicker patients dealing with potentially fatal cases of COVID who require longer-term care. This has the potential to cripple hospital systems in these areas.
Omicron is also hitting schools hard. It’s not just the high number of kids getting sick, but the teachers, staff, and bus drivers who are missing work after testing positive as well, leaving the basic operations of our schools understaffed. (Understandably, substitute teachers are not eager to fill in at the moment, and even if they were, there aren’t enough of them to go around.) Some schools have gone virtual, but other districts have tried to muddle through with decidedly mixed results. Students have reported showing up to school to find half their class absent and the teacher out; school administrators end up shuffling them off to an ad hoc study hall with other orphaned classes where, rather than receive a lesson, they merely gather with their peers, which is just about the worst way to conduct so-called in-person learning in the midst of a pandemic. Meanwhile, the teachers who are able to make it to school wonder if they should press ahead with instruction despite high absenteeism.
Fortunately, epidemiologists predict that once Omicron reaches an area, cases will quickly rise and then drop sharply in a little over a month’s time. It’s difficult to know what that means for the future course of the pandemic, but it leaves me hopeful that given the large number of people who will either be vaccinated or infected with COVID we could see a significant decline in cases and hospitalizations in the coming months and the beginnings of a post-pandemic planet (or at least one where COVID is a more manageable problem.) In fact, although case numbers and hospitalizations remain extremely high, it appears Omicron has already peaked in the New York City and Washington DC areas, two of the first places in the United States hit by the variant.
Yet this feature of Omicron also makes me wonder why public officials have been so hesitant to reimplement certain pandemic mitigation strategies. Any sort of closures or restrictions would have been of a short duration—maybe just a matter of weeks—and could have eased the burden shouldered by essential services like hospitals. That to me is a pretty standard pandemic rule of thumb: If your hospital system is on the brink of collapse, governments need to take steps to alleviate that crisis. The same is true if schools can’t staff classrooms, grocery stores can’t stock shelves, or there are too many firefighters and police officers out sick.
I get that neither the vaccinated nor the unvaccinated are all that eager to return to the days of isolation, and maybe if we had done so Omicron’s spike would have turned into a rounded peak indicative of a more prolonged outbreak, but it isn’t hard to see even without the lockdowns that many hospitals, schools, and stores are not open for regular business as is. I also understand it is the nature of crises to foment a certain amount of unmanageable chaos. But it is jarring to read articles about how hospitals with burnt-out doctors and nurses are struggling to get by while watching a televised NBA game being played in a sold-out arena. I often hear that those who fancy themselves the “engineers of society” have to be incredibly arrogant and blind to the workings of the world and human nature to believe their grand social schemes will play out just as they planned without going astray. I think it also takes incredibly arrogant and blind people to disregard a crisis unfolding before their very eyes.
With a few exceptions, governments everywhere seem to have thrown up their hands when it comes to dealing with the latest wave in the pandemic. There just isn’t the political will nor the political capital anymore to deal effectively with Omicron. I feel for politicians in the sense that Omicron arrived with the worst timing: Americans were not going to cancel their holiday plans, and most weren’t in the mood to listen to politicians and government medical experts dole out advice on how to safely gather for the holidays. But the mess we’re in now is also a mess that’s been a long time in the making. Even if we couldn’t anticipate Omicron, it wasn’t hard to see a potential Delta holiday wave coming that could have been a rerun of 2020’s holiday wave. Maybe that wouldn’t have panned out, but I don’t know why Biden didn’t prepare under the assumption it would. In fact, the Biden administration has been nothing but reactionary ever since Delta emerged this past summer: It dragged its feet on boosters (they should have made the general population eligible to be fortified by a third dose ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday) masks (the CDC is only now thinking about officially recommending that people wear higher-quality N95 or KN95 masks even though health experts have been advising that for months) and tests. It seems a lot of Americans now regard them as trying to plug a hole in a dike that’s already burst. Biden had been elected to end and move the country past the pandemic; due in part to turns of events both beyond and within his control (one can’t keep a new variant from emerging, but one can be better prepared to confront it) he’s squandered whatever credit he hoped to receive for that. Going forward, he just has to pray the national mood lightens as the pandemic and its negative economic consequences (hopefully) recede.
I should be careful not to go too hard on Biden, though. Whatever mistakes he’s made, he’s at least trying and sincere about helping people. A low bar, yes, but not one a fair share of politicians clear. I tuned in to part of a Senate hearing Wednesday featuring testimony from the nation’s leading health experts. It’s impossible to listen to this stuff for long because while half of it is informative, the other half is just, well, moronic. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky once again used his presumed qualifications as a medical professional to gaslight the country when he told Dr. Anthony Fauci, “You are the lead architect responsible [for the government’s pandemic response], and now 800,000 people have died.” And just yesterday, when more people in the United States were in the hospital with COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic, the Supreme Court blocked OSHA’s vaccine mandate for large businesses. The Court did allow a rule requiring health care workers in federally-funded facilities to get vaccinated, but barely, so there’s that glimmer of hope to hold onto.
So how does all this leave me feeling? I’m relieved that Omicron isn’t as deadly as past variants and hopeful that once this wave passes that the public health emergency will wane (although I’m not ruling out the possibility that another variant will emerge and mess us all up again.) While I understand pandemic fatigue and have resigned myself to the fact that a fair portion of the public will forever resist vaccines, I am dismayed that people seem so resistant to collective action that could reduce the strain Omicron is placing on key social services during this particular phase of the pandemic. Americans just love their personal freedom, even when it comes at the expense of basic social functioning and the additional freedoms that flow from a well-maintained society.
Given that reality, maybe our leaders will finally conclude that those who insist on a maximum rather than reasonable amount of freedom in the midst of a social crisis like a pandemic should be held more personally accountable for paying for the consequences of their decisions, particularly when those decisions burden the rest of us. I suspect that would never fly, though. It’s just not that the compassionate couldn’t bring themselves to support such a measure. It’s that the die-hard freedom-loving individualists are probably too selfish to do so as well.
So we will continue to tempt fate by doing ridiculous things. I worry fate may one day have something worse in store for us than Omicron.
PSA: If you’re in the market for high-quality KN95 masks, I would recommend shopping online at Bona Fide Masks. There is concern about counterfeit KN95s, but Bona Fide Masks sells Powecom masks, which the CDC had approved for emergency use in hospitals two years ago. Subsequent tests have demonstrated they work well. They come in both adult and children’s sizes and ship reasonably fast.
A Meme for Kyrsten Sinema…
Garbage Time: The Raiders and the Chargers Defied All Logic By Trying to Beat Each Other Last Sunday
(Garbage Time theme song here)
Let’s play Let’s Make a Deal! Here’s how this is going to work. You have been selected to face off against someone else in a game. There is no limitation to your ability to communicate with this other individual. If you choose to play this game, I will randomly assign each of you one of two boxes. You will then open your box to discover its contents.
The contents of these boxes are as follows. One of the boxes contains $10 million. The other box contains a Manumala noxhydria, a parasitic form of the species xenomorph more popularly known as a “facehugger,” which will leap out of the box, wrap its tentacles tightly around your head, and inject a mutagenic fluid into your body via your mouth that will then develop inside your torso into an infant xenomorph, burst violently from your chest upon maturation, and proceed to hunt down and kill all your friends except for Sigourney Weaver and your cat. (Do you really want to click on those YouTube links in that paragraph? Do you?)
On the other hand, if you choose not to play this game, I will give both you and person you are facing off against $10 million each. What would you do?
It’s obvious right? You would choose not to play the game. Sure, the other guy is going to get $10 million out of the deal, but so will you and you won’t ever have to worry about an alien creature latching onto your face and exploding out of your rib cage. Like, that’s a really good deal. I’d take it every day and twice on Sundays.
Last Sunday, however, in the last NFL game of the season, the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers chose to play the game. They chose to open those boxes. What happened to the Chargers was not pretty. (Again, I do not recommend that link.)
Here’s what happened. Going into the last week of the season, five teams were still in the running for the two remaining playoff spots in the AFC. As it happened, four of those teams were playing one another: The Pittsburgh Steelers were facing off against the Baltimore Ravens, and the Los Angeles Chargers were taking on the Las Vegas Raiders. The game with the highest direct stakes was the Chargers-Raiders match-up, as the winner of that game would make the playoffs while the loser would be eliminated (only in the event of both a Colts loss and a Steelers loss would the Raiders have been able to make the playoffs without winning their game.) Given those stakes, the NFL flexed that game to the marquee Sunday Night Football slot on NBC.
The other team in the playoff hunt was the Indianapolis Colts, whose opponent, the Jacksonville Jaguars, was so bad many of their fans showed up to Sunday’s game dressed as clowns. All the Colts had to do to land themselves in the postseason was win their game, which also would have had the effect of eliminating the Steelers and Ravens from contention. ESPN reported Indianapolis had an 81% chance of making the playoffs; alas, they blew it, and after the Steelers won in overtime, the Colts were officially eliminated.
At that point, ESPN was reporting the Steelers had a 99% chance of making the playoffs. What accounted for that other 1%? Well, because the Steelers had only managed to tie the lowly Detroit Lions way back in Week 10 of the regular season, and given the way the NFL seeds teams with identical records for the playoffs, if the Sunday night Chargers-Raiders game somehow finished in a tie, both the Chargers and Raiders would crack the postseason and the Steelers would be on the outs.
Unlikely scenario, right? Um…it shouldn’t have been. In truth, a tie should have been the most likely scenario in that situation. Because their game got bumped to Sunday night after every other game in the league that week had been played, there was no way the outcome of any other game could have affected the Chargers’ and Raiders’ playoff chances. Their fate was tied up entirely in what was about to happen on that field. No other team could have interfered with the outcome. And because any given team can win on any given Sunday, of course they should have played for a tie. That’s the optimal strategy for both teams since it guarantees each team a spot in the playoffs without the possibility of missing the playoffs, and the result of a tie is the same as winning the game but without the risk of losing. The alternative was playing a game one could have potentially lost, thus dashing their playoff hopes. The alternative was essentially picking a box that potentially contained a lethal facehugging alien when you could have guaranteed yourself a $10 million payday.
You may find it preposterous that two teams could manage to play themselves into a tie but it’s actually an easy result to generate if both sides desire that outcome: Following an onside kick to open the game, each team simply takes a knee on every down, turning the ball over to the other team every four downs. The clock would only ever stop for the two-minute warning and in between possessions. Both teams would agree not to attempt field goals. Repeat in the second half. End result: A 0-0 tie, with both the Chargers and Raiders playoff bound.
Some people may find two teams working together to play to a 0-0 tie by refusing to contest a game objectionable. Allow me to address those objections.
1. “It’s not honorable to play to a tie.” OK, fair enough. But…
Teams do a lot of dishonorable things in sports that are completely within the rules of the game. Are intentional walks or defensive shifts in baseball really “honorable”? Is fouling at the end of games to stop the clock in basketball really honorable? Is pulling the goalie in hockey really honorable? Is running the clock down at the end of games when a team is ahead in football really honorable? If that’s not dishonorable, then teams should be able to run an entire game clock out if it’s to their advantage. I will admit football would be terrible to watch if teams regularly played to 0-0 ties, but this is pretty much a one-off situation and there are ways the NFL could schedule games going forward to prevent it from happening again (i.e., by having all five teams in playoff contention play at the same time.)
2. “Such an outcome would violate the spirit of competition.” A truly competitive team competes in order to make the playoffs, during which they compete for their chance to win the Super Bowl. Playing to a tie guarantees each team a playoff spot, which gives them a chance to win the Super Bowl. Playing the game reduces those odds to a 50-50 proposition. A wise competitor would play to a tie.
3. “No, I’m talking about the ‘spirit’ of competition, not the stone-cold calculus of competition.” Yet there are teams out there that tank entire seasons just so they can obtain a high draft pick. They field uncompetitive teams—at times for years—as part of the rebuilding process. When that happens, team executives hope their teams do not win games. They want to stay as far away from the playoffs as possible. Why then get mad at a team for doing what they need to do in one stinking game to guarantee themselves a spot in the playoffs? After all, it is not uncommon for teams who have clinched playoff spots not to play their star athletes in meaningless post-clinch games. The Green Bay Packers, for instance, barely played Aaron Rodgers last Sunday because the game meant nothing to them, as they had already clinched the #1 seed in the NFC. The Raiders and Chargers were basically in the same situation Sunday night: When that game started and the score was 0-0, both teams at that point were in the playoffs. They just needed to ensure that result held for sixty minutes. Not playing that game also would have meant their players would have been well-rested for their games this weekend, which is one of the main reasons playoff-bound teams often don’t play their starters in their final games of the season. Why shouldn’t LA and Vegas, two teams that worked hard all season to reach this point, be able to avail themselves of that same luxury? If the league has no problem with playoff-bound teams not contesting the last game of the season, then they shouldn’t have any problem with the Raiders and Chargers doing the same.
4. “Seeding was at stake.” Exactly. Win the game and you get a playoff seed; lose the game and you don’t get a playoff seed because you won’t be in the playoffs. That’s the risk, but it’s an unnecessary risk, because if you tie the game, you’re guaranteed a playoff seed. And as far as seeds go, the best those two teams could have hoped for was a seed somewhere in the bottom half of the draw. They could hope a higher seed gave them an easier first round match-up, but if they have Super Bowl aspirations, it’s not as though they’re going to be able to avoid tough teams in subsequent rounds. Just get yourself into the tournament!
5. “But what about the poor fans!” What about them? Play to a draw, and their teams make the playoffs! Isn’t that what they want?
6. “No, their fans want to see their teams play a game.” A tie wouldn’t take a game away from them. It would give fans a playoff game!
7. “But their fans paid money for tickets to the game.” By buying a ticket, one is not guaranteed an aesthetically pleasing game. By buying a ticket, one is not guaranteed a competitive game. By buying a ticket, one is not guaranteed to see a team’s star players take the field. But what exactly are you whining about? Your team made the playoffs!
8. “By playing the game, the Chargers and Raiders would be able to eliminate their opponent from the playoffs with a win.” Or by tying, both teams would be able to eliminate the Pittsburgh Steelers from the playoffs (and in hilarious fashion to boot.)
9. “But that wouldn’t be a fair way to eliminate the Pittsburgh Steelers and end Ben Roethlisberger’s career.” A.) The easiest way for the Pittsburgh Steelers to have avoided this situation would have been by not tying the Detroit Lions back in Week 10, so that’s on them. Also on them: Losing to both the Raiders and the Chargers this season. B.) Tell me why I should care about Ben Roethlisberger again?
10. “An uncontested game would really mess up everyone who had bets on the game.” Oh, I feel so sorry for gamblers. Regardless, the smart money should have been on a tie.
11. “No one would have wanted to watch that game, which would have upset NBC.” NBC does not have feelings. Besides, I would have watched the hell out of that game. Must-See TV.
12. “It would have looked so bad for the NFL.” Yeah, talk to me about Aaron Rodger’s health regimen, Antonio Brown’s sense of team loyalty, Deflategate, Bountygate, the blacklisting of Colin Kaepernick, CTE, Ray Rice, Aaron Hernandez, everything in the vicinity of Dan Snyder. Up until two seasons ago, the league used to have a team in the nation’s capital nicknamed the Washington R*******! The NFL has way more image problems than this.
Yet despite how (mostly) baseless all these objections are, the Raiders and Chargers still decided to play the game! I couldn’t believe it! With a playoff spot in each of their hands, both teams decided to court doom. These are definitely not analytics-driven organizations.
And it was a wild game! The Chargers were down two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but God knows how many 4th and longs they converted to come back and actually tie the game at the very end of regulation. The game went to overtime! And even then, it almost ended in a tie! It was like the football gods were trying to teach these two teams a basic lesson in game theory.
But then, with two seconds left, the Raiders kicked the game-winning field goal. As soon as time expired, the cutest little xenomorph burst forth from the chest cavity of Los Angeles Chargers head coach Brandon Staley. In my book, though, both teams deserved the Bad Box.
Exit music: “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes (Before Cardi B and Amy Winehouse and the Pussycat Dolls, before Rihanna and Beyonce, before Janet Jackson and Chaka Khan, before Belinda Carlisle and Cyndi Lauper, before Chrissie Hynde and Deborah Harry, before Madonna, before Donna Summer, before the Ramones [who, according to Joey Ramone, aspired to be the Ronettes] before Dusty Springfield...there was Ronnie Bennett, lead singer of the Ronettes. How great were the Ronettes? When they took the UK by storm in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania, the Rolling Stones opened for them [after which the Stones became kind of a big deal.] There are girl groups, and then there are the Ronettes. They recorded catchy, enduring music. But that wasn’t the only secret to their success. “We weren’t afraid to be hot. That was our gimmick,” Bennett once wrote. In a style of music often associated with sex (and that would later often objectify women as sexual objects) the Ronettes were the first widely-popular female rock and roll performers to assert their sexuality.
Ronnie Bennett passed away this week. I wonder how she reacted when she learned the song that plays upon entering rock and roll heaven (see below) is sung in her voice? Probably with a wink and a coquettish grin.