In the Wall Street Journal Allysia Finley has some cheery advice:
Omicron will give much of the population what some scientists call “superimmunityâ€â€”stronger protection against new variants and even future coronaviruses. Normal life will be possible even as the virus continues to spread and mutate. Superimmunity won’t necessarily stop people from being infected or transmitting the virus. But most people who get infected, even with a more virulent variant, will experience mild or no symptoms.
That would be nice if true. Unfortunately, all of the studies she cites are incredibly small. Too small for anything except to encourage further study.
For good or ill we’ll have lots more data soon.
Most of the stuff I’ve read suggests Omicron won’t do that. So I’m very skeptical.
Way to soon to tell. Author graduated from Stanford in 2009 with a degree in American Studies. Even though she very clearly has a lot of expertise many years of covering and writing about science and health care issues still not sure that is the expert I would be citing.
Steve
“Unfortunately, all of the studies she cites are incredibly small.”
I’ll see your incredibly small studies and raise you micro-anecdotes.
All of us in proximity over the holiday. My sister in law – vaxed and boosted – Omicron. Mild. Me – vaxed and boosted – Omicron. A bad cold with inordinate fatigue; but fully recovered. My daughter – vaxed, boosted and prior covid infection – Omicron. A garden variety mild cold. My wife – vaxed but not boosted – nothing. (Heh)
Unscientific? Of course. But we live in a golf course community. Meaning, many social dinners, golf events, dinner parties. Many similar anecdotes. Many. The real point is we don’t have anything other than a tenuous grasp on this situation, as I have stated here many times. The arrogance of the public health community and their cock-sure pronouncements, and their slavish proponents in media have not served us well.
The backlash is on. Imagine if we really needed to do something drastic now, now that the boys who cried wolf have lost their voices…………
A failure of public policy and government of monumental proportions.
And you wonder why I’m not a Democrat, looking for solutions from government like Charlie Brown looks to Lucy………