“Omicron is mild” is more like a bhram a mirage if you will best to avoid this misconception… In fact in comparison Delta was not as contagious and people were not as callous at that time and yet we saw the sort of numbers that we did in India. Omicron is more contagious and the incubation time is much lower. What that means is that more, many more people will catch the infection. Most of the time these will be mild to asymptomatic infections. However the problem enters a different realm altogether when you introduce co-morbidity into the mix. People with pre-existing conditions like obesity, diabetes, heart and lung issues are high risk cases that might get hospitalized. The speed with which this variant spreads will overwhelm health services very fast, much more than what Delta ever managed to do. If Delta infected 100 people and 10 needed hospitalization this one looks like it would infect 100000 people out of which 100 might need hospitalization… lesser rate ( 0.1% as opposed to 10%) but higher numbers ergo hospitals over-flooded. Of these even if similarly lower rates of death are considered we may be looking at a comparable number of people who do not make it out alive.
In effect this is the return to basics for the human race. Survival of the fittest and natural selection. Those who are already living in a compromised health situation are going to need special caution. Others who live around such people need to be more careful for the sake of the at risk individuals. Vaccination and it’s importance cannot be stressed enough. However at the same time it is important to re-calibrate ones response to each variant that is emerging. Already there is a new variant in the wild discovered among people traveling to France from South Africa, Ihu, with 46 mutations. The speed with which mutations are occurring and the vaccine inequity in our ever increasingly-greedy world is cause for alarm. Imagine the sort of force multiplier that Delta meeting Omicron and Ihu over coffee would be. Unimaginable chaos, an extinction level event at worst. So yes while there is a case already being made for booster doses be a little more empathetic and fund the vaccinations for your staff and everyone you can possibly reach out to. Vaccines are effective to an extent and while there is no guarantee, they do come with the promise of a reasonable amount of protection. Get the booster when it is available for you and in the meanwhile make sure you talk to the people with lesser resources around you, fund their jabs and educate them about how and why a seemingly less powerful Covid19 variant is cause for greater concern than a much stronger Delta.
Omicron will possibly overwhelm the health system within the next 10 days. You have 10 days to get out there and lose a little bit of weight, start yoga, pranayam, free hand exercises. Most important fix your diet throw out all the sugar, carbs and maybe even reduce the meat… we humans eat way more than we need to… I have realized this over the past one month after I gave up sugar, carbs, reduced non-veg to once a week and reduced my portion sizes to around 1/4th… started walking 10+kms, running 3kms and losing 6kilos of weight… generally preparing for the coming storm… if anything we need to try and aim to stay out of hospitals, leave the beds for people who would really need them, that’s the least we can do for our fellow humans. For as we know if everyone started keeping their front porch clean then the whole world would be clean right?!…
I hope I am wrong about the coming storm and we would all collectively laugh at this write-up a few years down the line. However there is a chance that I am possibly correct. I had predicted 52L deaths in India related to Covid19 over the course of the pandemic, this was on 18th of March 2020 (you can read about it here). This was based upon my understanding of the material available about a virus which was not being taken too seriously at that time. The unofficial figures that the Government will never publish is 50L+ deaths over the interim 2 years since then. This is based upon statistical studies where total deaths in the preceding 25 years were compared to the deaths in these past 20 months and it was found out that there were 50L unexplained deaths, has to be Covid related. The Government figures are what they are, we may choose to believe them or do our own research and no it is not anti national to question and doubt your government in fact it is your duty as a citizen of one of the worlds largest democracies.
That being said I still hope I am wrong about an impending storm coming however I am someone who looks at data and extrapolates the future before trying to say it like it is in the most pacifying manner possible and present a solution, an alternative that could work. In the current scenario Omicron is not the end, Ihu is not the end either and vaccines are not impregnable. The only solution still remains greater compassion for your fellow human and better care of the self. Get everyone vaccinated to provide a first line of defense and then work on your own health to lead as an example so that hospitalization is not required. Equitability and self care will see us to the end of this crisis. Oh yes masks, physical distancing and judicious movement are other things that are absolutely important. The pandemic isn’t done yet because if you look around greed hasn’t really gone anywhere at all… we still have the poor getting poorer and the rich taking their moonshots. Feed the birds if nothing else :D…