| HN Mirror

My whole family got Omicron. For us it was no big deal. All of us were vaccinated, I was boosted about two weeks prior. Vaccination did not stop us from getting it but it may well have modified the course of the disease.

People had no idea the highly transmissible Omicron variant was going to come along. Against prior variants the mRNA vaccines really looked like a miracle in that you could really get people vaccinated before the disease got to them. Moderna said they could have an Omicron vaccine ready in 100 days but I (I think the median person) got it 45 days after it was discovered.

I am sick of the armchair quarterbacking. In our family we had our own model for how it was going to progress last summer and we thought that the seasonal effects would really drive it, the Delta and Omicron variants broke all our assumptions.

The new battle is over variants it's a global problem. China has kept the virus out with strict but targeted lockdowns. Even if they achieve "zero COVID" that won't stop variants from being bred in the rest of the world. Even if the US controls it will spread in Africa and other developing countries. Even if the blue states do everything right than the red states will breed new variants.

Stricter controls in better controlled areas are going to have a limited impact, what will make a different is stricter controls in less controlled areas.