Omicron arrives
18/12/21 02:07
I’ve long enjoyed looking at the news for different perspectives. I scan several different news sources each day and read articles from a wide variety of news organizations. I often read through the headlines of the BBC before writing my morning journal entry. Lately I’ve taken to listening to Canadian Broadcast Service radio when I’m driving around the area. Living so close to Vancouver, British Columbia, we get strong, clear radio signals from the radio towers that we can clearly see when we go for a walk along Drayton Harbor.
I’m not the only one around here who listens to CBC radio. Living near the border has reminded me once again of how love and family are not confined by political boundaries. We have acquired a lot of new friends since moving here who have family members who live across the border. It is very common for a family to have a son, daughter, sister or brother who lives in Canada. We know several couples where one partner grew up in Canada and the other in the United States.
The big news in British Columbia, as well as in most of the rest of the world, is the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. BC’s Covid-19 case rate has nearly doubled in the past week. As of yesterday, they were reporting 135 cases of the Omicron variant and numbers are expected to rise rapidly. The provincial health officer held a press conference yesterday and announced new measures and restrictions aimed at slowing the rate of transmission of the illness. Among the measures put in place were limiting indoor personal gatherings to no more than 10 guests, requiring the Vaccine Card for organized events, limiting many venues to no more than 50% of the seating capacity, requiring face masks, and pausing all sports tournaments.
The restriction that caught my attention, however, was the order that all New Year’s Eve gatherings and events be restricted to seated-only events, with no mingling or dancing allowed. That’s right, there’ll be no dancing on New Years Eve in British Columbia.
While I hope that people around the world do what they can to avoid the spread of the pandemic, and I hope that the folks of British Columbia remain safe, I can’t help but wonder whose job it might be to make sure that there is no dancing on New Year’s Eve. Maybe that is based on the sensibilities of US Citizens. I suspect that if a similar order were to be issued around here, there would already be protest dances scheduled.
When they announced that the latest variant of the disease would be called Omicron, I briefly thought that the pandemic might offer a chance for more people to learn the names of the letters of the Greek Alphabet. Because Greek is the language of our Christian scriptures, it seemed like a good idea for folks to at least learn the alphabet. Upon reflection, however, it doesn’t seem likely that the pandemic will be a good teaching tool. After all, I wasn’t aware that they were using Greek letters to name the variants until Delta came along. They I read that they didn’t start with Greek letters. The Alpha, Beta, and Gamma variants only got their names after the Delta variant became the most transmissible version of the virus. Then, after Delta, the next variant I was aware of was Omicron. That’s a big skip from the fourth letter of the alphabet to the fifteenth. It turns out that there really aren’t quite that many named variants because officials of the World Health organization decided to skip two letters, Nu and Xi. Nu was skipped because it is too easily confused with the English word “new,” and Xi was not used because it is a common name in China.
And before we get too concerned, although there have been 13 variants of the virus that have been given the names of Greek letters, only seven have become “variants of interest” or “variants of concern.” That means that we won’t be reading about many of the letters of the Greek alphabet. Furthermore, the Greek alphabet only has 24 letters, so it seems possible that if they’ve already reached Omicron after using the system for less than a year, they might run out of letters before the pandemic is over.
it turns out that naming diseases is a challenging process and that the World Health Organization has developed best practices for the assignment of names. There is a conscious attempt to avoid causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.
The letter names for the variants are much easier to remember than the system of letters and numbers that scientists use. I know these numbers mean something to trained researchers, but names like B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, don’t stick in my memory at all.
The former practice of naming viruses for regions ended up being misleading. It turns out that Ebola, for example, is named for a river that is actually a long distance from where the virus was first detected. The Spanish flu didn’t come from Spain. Scientists don’t know where it first appeared, but there is a good possibility that it emerged from the United States.
Whatever names are assigned and whether or not we learn all of the technicalities of the disease caused by the virus, the reality is that we are entering into a fourth wave of rapid increase in the transmission of the virus, with an attendant spike in serious illness, hospitalizations and death. Medical services, which are already overwhelmed by the first three waves, will fall short of capacity to be available to all of those who fall ill. Resources will once again run thin. Already overworked and tired health care workers will once again be pushed to the limits of human endurance. This pandemic is no joke.
So, my friends, be careful out there. Make sure your vaccination is up to date. Practice social distancing. Wear your mask. And even if you don’t live in British Columbia, stay home from the New Year’s Eve dance.
I’m not the only one around here who listens to CBC radio. Living near the border has reminded me once again of how love and family are not confined by political boundaries. We have acquired a lot of new friends since moving here who have family members who live across the border. It is very common for a family to have a son, daughter, sister or brother who lives in Canada. We know several couples where one partner grew up in Canada and the other in the United States.
The big news in British Columbia, as well as in most of the rest of the world, is the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. BC’s Covid-19 case rate has nearly doubled in the past week. As of yesterday, they were reporting 135 cases of the Omicron variant and numbers are expected to rise rapidly. The provincial health officer held a press conference yesterday and announced new measures and restrictions aimed at slowing the rate of transmission of the illness. Among the measures put in place were limiting indoor personal gatherings to no more than 10 guests, requiring the Vaccine Card for organized events, limiting many venues to no more than 50% of the seating capacity, requiring face masks, and pausing all sports tournaments.
The restriction that caught my attention, however, was the order that all New Year’s Eve gatherings and events be restricted to seated-only events, with no mingling or dancing allowed. That’s right, there’ll be no dancing on New Years Eve in British Columbia.
While I hope that people around the world do what they can to avoid the spread of the pandemic, and I hope that the folks of British Columbia remain safe, I can’t help but wonder whose job it might be to make sure that there is no dancing on New Year’s Eve. Maybe that is based on the sensibilities of US Citizens. I suspect that if a similar order were to be issued around here, there would already be protest dances scheduled.
When they announced that the latest variant of the disease would be called Omicron, I briefly thought that the pandemic might offer a chance for more people to learn the names of the letters of the Greek Alphabet. Because Greek is the language of our Christian scriptures, it seemed like a good idea for folks to at least learn the alphabet. Upon reflection, however, it doesn’t seem likely that the pandemic will be a good teaching tool. After all, I wasn’t aware that they were using Greek letters to name the variants until Delta came along. They I read that they didn’t start with Greek letters. The Alpha, Beta, and Gamma variants only got their names after the Delta variant became the most transmissible version of the virus. Then, after Delta, the next variant I was aware of was Omicron. That’s a big skip from the fourth letter of the alphabet to the fifteenth. It turns out that there really aren’t quite that many named variants because officials of the World Health organization decided to skip two letters, Nu and Xi. Nu was skipped because it is too easily confused with the English word “new,” and Xi was not used because it is a common name in China.
And before we get too concerned, although there have been 13 variants of the virus that have been given the names of Greek letters, only seven have become “variants of interest” or “variants of concern.” That means that we won’t be reading about many of the letters of the Greek alphabet. Furthermore, the Greek alphabet only has 24 letters, so it seems possible that if they’ve already reached Omicron after using the system for less than a year, they might run out of letters before the pandemic is over.
it turns out that naming diseases is a challenging process and that the World Health Organization has developed best practices for the assignment of names. There is a conscious attempt to avoid causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.
The letter names for the variants are much easier to remember than the system of letters and numbers that scientists use. I know these numbers mean something to trained researchers, but names like B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, don’t stick in my memory at all.
The former practice of naming viruses for regions ended up being misleading. It turns out that Ebola, for example, is named for a river that is actually a long distance from where the virus was first detected. The Spanish flu didn’t come from Spain. Scientists don’t know where it first appeared, but there is a good possibility that it emerged from the United States.
Whatever names are assigned and whether or not we learn all of the technicalities of the disease caused by the virus, the reality is that we are entering into a fourth wave of rapid increase in the transmission of the virus, with an attendant spike in serious illness, hospitalizations and death. Medical services, which are already overwhelmed by the first three waves, will fall short of capacity to be available to all of those who fall ill. Resources will once again run thin. Already overworked and tired health care workers will once again be pushed to the limits of human endurance. This pandemic is no joke.
So, my friends, be careful out there. Make sure your vaccination is up to date. Practice social distancing. Wear your mask. And even if you don’t live in British Columbia, stay home from the New Year’s Eve dance.
