December 22, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic looks quite different during the 2021 holiday season as omicron becomes the dominant variant in the United States. Increases in travel and changing protocols regarding the pandemic have left many of us confused and concerned about the state of coronavirus going into 2022. Here’s what you need to know.
The change in variants from the previously dominant delta strain to the more transmissible but less severe omicron means we have entered a new stage of the nearly two-year-long pandemic. Though reports of a highly contagious coronavirus likely caused panic for some, some experts say that the development is a good sign for the end of the pandemic. Though omicron seems to be resistant to the vaccine, the symptoms are far less severe, and the transmissibility means that it will replace all other variants. This means that Covid will likely never go away, but it will become a much less threatening presence resulting in far fewer deaths.
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President Biden announced a new plan to tackle the omicron variant, including military medical units to staff overburdened hospitals, free rapid tests, and new federal vaccination sites. The regulation of rapid tests has caused difficult access for some Americans, a fact which the Biden administration has received criticism for in the past. Building on his winter strategy from the beginning of the month, President Biden seems to hope to tackle the problem of access to testing throughout the holiday season. To check on testing locations near you, visit the Health & Human Services website to search by area. Similarly, you can check on vaccination locations at www.vaccines.gov.
While the government hopes to ensure a minimal spread of the new variant, and Americans are traveling around the country for the holiday season, it’s important to remember that a less threatening strain does not mean we should abandon standard precautionary measures. The pandemic is not over.
One good reason to remain vigilant is that even mild covid variants may exacerbate other health crises in a pandemic. Some experts are saying that the isolation and anxiety associated with living through a catastrophic health crisis have exacerbated other public health-related emergencies such as the opioid epidemic. During the past two years, Lockdowns and economic instability have caused an urgent opioid problem to worsen, especially within rural and Appalachian communities. The overall use of drugs like Fentanyl has increased along with overdose deaths, and more people are using alone. Recognizing the interconnected nature of parallel health crises will continue to be necessary as the variables in both continue to change.
Clear Impact supports health departments and nonprofits across the country which are on the front lines of fighting health crises. Our software is designed to provide the foundation on which data can be tracked and monitored to promote collaboration and better data tracking.
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