Winter Surge

Hoping for the best, but since this is the Stoopid Country, let's be prepared for the worst.

Financial Times:

Twenty months into a pandemic that has claimed almost 770,000 American lives and nearly a year after Covid-19 vaccinations became available, US health experts warn that a fifth wave of infections risks overwhelming health systems in the worst-affected states.

Fears of another surge in infections come on the cusp of the Thanksgiving holiday, when tens of millions of Americans will travel to reconnect with their families, some of them for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

But what was expected to be a celebration has become fraught with danger in some Midwestern states, where vaccination rates are low and Covid-19 cases are rising rapidly after a summer lull.

Even some northeastern states where vaccination rates are above 70 per cent, such as Maine and Vermont, are experiencing an uptick in case numbers, a trend that probably reflects breakthrough infections caused by waning immunity to Covid jabs, according to epidemiologists.

For now, at least, hospitalisation rates in these states are not rising as rapidly as in the Midwest, suggesting vaccines remain a vital tool to prevent serious illness.

“We are preparing for the absolute worst,” said Andrew Jameson, an infectious disease doctor at Mercy Health Saint Mary’s hospital in Michigan, a state where daily Covid-19 case numbers have almost doubled since the start of November.

Jameson added: “We are exhausted. It’s hard. The biggest burden is being borne by the nurses, frankly. We’ve lost so many critical care nurses who have just left the bedside completely.”

Over in Minnesota, state authorities this week called up 400 members of the National Guard to support nurses in long-term care facilities experiencing chronic staff shortages.

Nationally, cases have increased by nearly 30 per cent since the beginning of the month to a high of 28 cases per 100,000 people, below the January 2021 peak of about 75 cases per 100,000 people.

But the jump in infections is alarming health experts, who warn that a nation that has plentiful access to jabs is dangerously exposed, due to low vaccination rates, politicisation of mask wearing and social distancing, and rising public complacency.

“We are in the early stages of what will be a substantial fifth wave,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. He added that the US was in a “worse position than all countries in western Europe”, some of which are battling third waves.

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