OMICRON.....should we worry?

 

When I was 8 years old my father gave me advice that I have continued to follow for the last 50 years. I have an anxiety disorder. I constantly fight to stay calm and not worry. Constantly. I started worrying at the dawn of my self-awareness which was around the age of eight. My father pulled me into scripture and although he was not a religious man, more of a philosopher he was, he knew scripture.

The verse he read to me goes like this: Matt 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?". I will never forget the moment when my father gave me a reason not to worry. That did not stop me from having a major breakdown in my 30's after the death of my mother but, with constant work, I did not breakdown when he died in the midst of a run of deaths and losses in 2013.

I know, this page is politically and religiously neutral......most of the time. But there are more verses in the Christian Bible about anxiety than any other topic. And right now, more of us are suffering from mental health problems than ever before.

So, from a woman of faith who has worked on anxiety and depression all her life, here is my take on our present situation:

Don't fret. There is a new COVID-19 variant out there. It is called Omicron. It was discovered by some smart scientists in South Africa. It did not come from South Africa, it was discovered there. The South African government did the right thing by sounding the alarm and now all of Southern Africa will pay a price; not a political post so I will stop there but the only light that should be shone on Africa is the light that reveals the inequity in the world and the fact that only 10 % of the population in Africa is fully vaccinated while countries like Canada reach 80 % vaccinated. We are working on it with millions of doses being donated to various African countries but it is not enough and until the entire human population is vaccinated, variants like Omicron will continue to evolve as the virus continues to be given opportunities to replicate among populations that do not have the resources to vaccinate. We as ordinary people have the power to make that happen.

Omicron is a variant of the COVID-19 virus that has 30 more mutations than the delta variant. Will these mutations make it more transmissible.....probably? More deadly? Maybe not. All of this remains to be seen as scientist scramble to learn as much as they can about this variant. I try to imagine teams of scientists working day and night on this thing since it was discovered on November 24/21. Day and night. And, they will find the answers. When people shrug off science and vaccines, it shows a total lack of knowledge about how hard these brilliant people work and how they are working together globally. Minimizing their credibility and the power of this virus is nonsense.

But, they are there. Working tirelessly. So far the countries where cases are spreading are countries that are under-vaccinated ( 60 % or less) which makes sense. The unvaccinated remain a large group of hosts that have no defence against any variant of COVID. It remains to be seen whether or not our tremendous work to crush the delta variant will protect us from Omicron.

I like the words of Dr. Isaac Bogoch. He tweets: "I hope we can approach the Omicron variant of concern with empiricism, caution, and humility, rather than some of the wild speculation we’ve seen over the past few days." Ah....a man of great wisdom. My father was a man of great wisdom too.

So here is our job as we watch and wait to see what Omicron will do: Stay calm. Do not be anxious. Get vaccinated. Wear a good quality mask in public even when those around you are vaccinated (hey, Guelph Storm fans, a small minority of you are not wearing masks during the games. Get them on). Wear a mask and keep your distance in public spaces where the vaccination status of those around you is not known. Limit indoor gathering to < 25. Keep a window open a crack to make the ventilation in the room in which you are gathering a place where the COVID-19 virus has difficulty landing in your nostrils. Make sure the vulnerable who are eligible have a third dose. Third doses are crushing COVID in eligible groups.

Should we all have access to third doses? I think so and I think we will. Let's get those kids vaccinated first. Will two or three doses protect against Omicron? Maybe. That remains to be seen but Canada is in good shape. There is a wall of protective vaccines around us. Almost 80 % of Ontario and Canada are fully vaccinated. That needs to be closer to 90 % but it is a great number.

So sit back and keep doing what you have been doing. We may have been a bit lax in the last several months. The threat of Omicron whether serious or not should remind us to get back on track.

We have got this.....too. But lets get vaccines to the world and stop the threat of variants.

Anne-Marie

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ON THIS NOTE, Lesotho is one to of the southern African countries on the list of travel bans. We ( Bracelet of Hope) fight for Lesotho. Help us do that. Help us get vaccines to this one African country. One country at a time. Ordinary people like you and me can do that and we will.

Help us as we assist in the roll out of COVID vaccines in Lesotho. If you would like to be apart of this vitally important work towards making sure that vaccines are distributed in resource poor countries like Lesotho, you can donate here:

https://www.braceletofhope.ca/ways-to-give/

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