For the past few months, we've seen the Delta strain of the SARS virus almost completely take over. Our vaccines, however, seem to be working quite well. Cases are dropping slowly, hospitalizations seem to be mostly (>70%) made up of the unvaccinated, and in BC, over 77% of the total population has been vaccinated. Kids from 5 to 11 years old will be getting their vaccinations starting this week, and life for many has started returning to something more like normal. The Canadian border has been open for several months now and PCR test requirements prior to returning from short trips (<72 hours) have been dropped. As of November 8th, the American land border crossings opened to fully vaccinated individuals.
Halloween passed with this cute little picture expressing a pretty accurate message.
This week, though, a new Variant of Concern emerged in Africa. It's been officially called the Omicron variant and has already shown up in Hong Kong, several places in Africa as well as Israel. This post from Your Local Epidemiologist lays out what is known at this time and, more significantly, what is NOT known. For instance, we don't know if this is more virulent than Delta. We don't know if our current crop of vaccines will be as effective against it.
In the meantime, "social media" has been running with the usual mix of misinformation, disinformation and lies.
From "freedom and personal choice":
Jan Gordon Did you know God gave us free will to make our own decisions?
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