1) Countries and jurisdictions around the world are rushing to lift a wide range of public health restrictions despite the fact that #COVID hospitalizations remain high and testing has dropped off. In this thread, I will survey what I’m calling the Great Resignation. 
2) In Germany, where #COVID ICU stays have been climbing for the past three weeks, several German states are loosening #pandemic requirements. Bavaria, for example, is opening up for sports and cultural events, while Brandenberg might allow the unvaccinated to shop with a mask.
3) In the United States in Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware, schoolchildren will no longer have to wear masks. On Tuesday, New York State announced businesses won't have to ask for proof of full vaccination. Meanwhile, #COVID deaths are still rising in the U.S. See below.
4) In Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan are ditching vaccine passports, too. In Alberta, #COVID intensive-care stays remain alarmingly high. In contrast, the province of Quebec is sticking with vaccine passports but will end most restrictions by March 14.
5) In Brazil, the country recorded 1,189 #COVID deaths in the past 24 hours alone. This latest wave of death in South America’s largest nation is being driven by #Omicron, but far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is downplaying the threat and is hostile toward any restrictions.
6) Of course, there are some exceptions to this general trend. In Japan, which is grappling with a 6th wave in the #pandemic, the government has decided to extend restrictions as it continues with a belated mass booster vaccination campaign. abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSto…
7) But for the most part, the world is witnessing a Great Resignation two long years into this #pandemic. As I wrote in a Twitter thread on Sunday, many nations have reduced their #COVID testing despite increases in deaths.
https://twitter.com/Aaron_Derfel/status/1490333949176041477
8) As Québec Premier François Legault acknowledged on Tuesday in announcing the relaxation of pandemic measures, the government is taking a “calculated risk” – with lives at stake and blind spots in testing in schools and the workplace. It’s the same story in much of the world.
9) But what if our politicians are wrong in their #pandemic gamble? Alexander Navarro, a University of Michigan professor specializing in the history of medicine, has studied how the United States rushed prematurely to pre-pandemic life during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.
10) “If we have anything to learn from the history of the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as our experience thus far with COVID-19…, it is that a premature return to pre-pandemic life risks more cases and more deaths,” Navarro warns. End of thread. healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-preve…
ADDENDUM: This is what Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove (@mvankerhove) of the World Health Organization had to say yesterday about the global #Omicron wave. "Not all countries have peaked in terms of their cases ...and the deaths are increasing as well."
https://twitter.com/mvankerkhove/status/1491167044766937090
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