End-of-the-Year Blues

 

Winter chills by dbolan_wir

During the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the last full week of the year is when I struggle the most as I naturally reflect on what happened and what may be coming. In 2020, a survey of the American Nurses Association—the largest such association in the United States—provided demoralizing results in regards to their “nurses’ knowledge of and attitude toward COVID-19 vaccine development.” Only 34% of their nurses said they would voluntarily vaccinate themselves against COVID-19. Around that time, similar polls with disheartening results for long-term care facility workers were also being reported. A few articles had already been written about how we have never been able to gain durable immunity against a coronavirus. Then, on December 30, 2020, a then-record 125,220 hospitalizations and 3,903 COVID-19 deaths had been reported in the United States. Meanwhile, on my Instagram feed, many of my friends and family members were outwardly pumped and looking forward to getting past 2020 but I thought, for what? This coronavirus pandemic wouldn’t magically end at the turning of the calendar. Instead of optimism for the year to come, all these pandemic-related metrics just made me downright depressed.

At the end of 2020, with the rollout of Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines, there was a glimmer of hope that the pandemic could end. Herd immunity still seemed achievable. But by the end of 2021, with the Omicron variant generating a record number of infections globally—including reinfections at a far higher rate than previous iterations of the virus—it seemed clear to those who were paying attention to the pandemic instead of those who were buying a truckload of sand to bury their heads in that it would likely never end. Or at least not any time in the near future.

As 2022 winds down, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that SARS-CoV-2 infections deplete our immune system. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that SARS-CoV-2 reinfections are detrimental to our overall health. Each week and month, more and more ominous studies and papers about the devastating impacts of SARS-CoV-2 infections are being published in journals such as Nature Medicine, The Lancet, and Science. In year three of this pandemic, with an ever-growing number of people with multiple SARS-CoV-2 infections, I fear that the worst is yet to come—and coming soon. I fear many will be in for the rudest awakening in the coming two years. People are going to realize that the CDC and our government has purposely downplayed the detrimental effects of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Many will suffer from Long COVID after having too many infections. And I’m afraid we’re going to see an uptick in sudden deaths resulting from prior SARS-CoV-2 infections. Perhaps worst, I’m fearful many children and adolescents with multiple SARS-CoV-2 infections will suffer and be disabled from Long COVID—or flat out die from complications of immune dysregulation caused by SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Next year, I fear we’ll have a Pandemic of Sudden Deaths. By 2024, the way we’re trending, we’ll have a Pandemic of Mass Disablement (and a pandemic of people saying, Oh Shit! It wasn’t mild!) and a Pandemic of Kids Dying from Common Childhood Illnesses.

And then, a Pandemic of Regret.