2022 arrives soon. I’d like to give you a prediction about what you will know about COVID by next Christmas. 1st you’re looking for a comparison & keep hearing about flu. By next Christmas you will realize that the correct comparison is “tuberculosis before antibiotics existed.”
Omicron is going to change our whole theory of adaptation and force fatalism. Pandemic fatigue will force some of it, but basically the more informed you are the more fatalistic you will likely be by next Christmas.
Several factors are going to push this. Primarily it’s going to become that the best masks attenuate but are unable to provide enduring protection under many scenarios. Vaccine boosters will help but the circulation will be so constant that breakthroughs will just be given.
Tuberculosis will become the proper comparison. We will have to create specialist COVID care facilities. These will be like sanatoriums of old. We won’t start building them next year or even the year after but this is now inevitable specialized care.
By next Christmas you are going to start to realize that omicron sets back our medical progress incredibly. You are used to thinking of yourself and people you love as reasonably healthy. But more and more journalists are going to write a new story….
The story is going to be about someone with a formerly treatable cancer who died of COVID or about someone who has bi-pass surgery who died of COVID. The implications are going to become clearer and clearer that treatable conditions that lower resistance are now riskier.
By next Christmas you are also going to realize that everyone you know is getting older. And suddenly there are going to be sharper lines about mortality. It will be your 50th birthday or the 50th birthday of someone you love. And the fact of what omicron means will hit you.
The epidemiology is going to reflect this globally in decreasing lifespan. Where before we could all easily imagine living to our 80s and thinking of ourselves as robbed of something when we die slowly at a younger age, death in our 60s is going to seem more normal.
Death in our 70s will be considered very normal.
As this all takes shape, several effects are going to start to show up. One is that cities are going to again start to seem like unhealthy places.
Another is that careers in hospital medicine are going to become less attractive. Specialized services and clinics will help, but infection will simply uncontrollable often in hospitals.
Work from home is going to be highly desirable.
And lastly if you are a certain age, none of this will seem normal. But to your kids, this will be the way everything always was. That’s adaptation.
Of course this is just a prediction. Right?
Update: reuters.com/world/us/cdc-c…
Note that between my Boxing Day prediction and today nothing changes for the better. Fatalism commences in decisions like these.
Update: nytimes.com/live/2021/12/2…
For those without access, the headline suggests fatalism grows. 
Update: propublica.org/article/they-w…
Update: a global health expert explains how the pandemic ends.
https://twitter.com/timcolbourn/status/1473425295319384064
Update: A psychiatrist thoughtfully critiques the above thread.
https://twitter.com/HZiauddeen/status/1477450384075636739
Update: UCSF infectious disease expert argues case counts don't make sense. theguardian.com/us-news/2022/j…
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