Covid: The Long Goodbye



26 months ago, when I first wrote about Covid-19 in this column, I would never have suspected that I would still be writing about the virus in 2022, except maybe in recounting past events. Unfortunately, however, I was wrong.

I’ll start with a personal story. Last week, I attended an event in Manhattan for about 60 people. The event was indoors, but the venue was pretty spacious. Virtually no one, including me, wore a mask.

As it turned out, two of the guests at the event ended up testing positive for Covid, including someone I spent a considerable amount of time with during the evening. Thankfully, the two individuals who did test positive have had relatively mild cases of Covid with cold-like symptoms and are on the road to recovery. I don’t know the vaccination status of one of the individuals, but the other one was vaccinated twice plus a booster.

As for me, I feel fine a few days after the event and very much doubt I have Covid. If it helps, I, too, have been vaccinated twice plus a booster. Nevertheless, despite my belief that infection is unlikely, I was sufficiently exposed to one of the individuals at the event that I felt I had to go for a test, which proved negative. As this is written, I will be working from home for one more day, and get an additional test, before returning to the office.

I recount this story because it seems to epitomize life in the late COVID age. Most of us have been vaccinated and/or developed natural immunity and deaths and hospitalizations are far below peak levels. At least among people I know, cases of the virus are generally annoying but not serious.

But on the other hand, we have not nearly put the virus completely behind us.

While we are not at the contagion levels reached during the Omicron wave of last December, the number of cases still seems pretty high, both in health statistics (Nassau County, for example, just raised the virus alert level to high) and among people I know. I’m not interested in debating how effective vaccines are at preventing the disease (as opposed to lessening its severity), but at least anecdotally, I’m hearing about many, many cases among fully vaccinated and boosted individuals.

This of course leads to the issue of what can we do against Covid.

Clearly we are well past the era of lockdowns and shuttered schools. There is a serious debate as to how effective these measures were (and conversely how much harm was inflicted on schoolchildren) and the public is not at all willing to go back to 2020. Moreover, in these inflationary times, we probably can’t afford the massive government outlays needed to keep a locked down economy afloat.

Nor, short of a massive spike in hospitalization rates, is there much of a case for the return of mandates. Mandatory vaccine requirements probably do have the effect of coercing individuals to gain more protection for themselves against the virus. On the other hand, in light of the high prevalence of breakthrough viruses among vaccinated people, you wonder how much good it does to restrict gatherings or workplaces to the vaccinated. As for masks, they may do some good at times, but many people regard them as intrusive and others are unwilling to wear the more effective N-95 ventilators.

None of this means there is nothing individuals or government can do to minimize the impact of the recurrent virus. Required or not, individuals, particularly at risk ones, can use common sense, which, depending on the circumstances, may involve improving ventilation, moving events outdoors, deciding to wear a mask, or even skipping an event. Government certainly can encourage the distribution or production of vaccines against newly emerging variants, as well as therapeutics, which have already improved the prognosis for many Covid patients. Like it or not, we are going to have to live with the virus for a considerable time.

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