America Is Out Sick This Week

by: Jim Geraghty
2022-01-10
Source: National Pulse
01/10/2022

COVID Test Line by Mick Haupt is licensed under Unsplash unsplash.com

On the menu today: While Omicron isn’t living up to the apocalyptic predictions of some particularly fearful public-health experts, complications, headaches, and inconveniences are piling up, particularly in hospitals and schools; New York governor Kathy Hochul thinks the solution is to fire hospital workers who don’t have boosters; CDC director Rochelle Walensky bombs on the Sunday shows; and up in New York City, the city health department is running public-service announcements telling people to test themselves for Covid-19 “immediately if you have symptoms, and before and after travel and gatherings.” Hey, did anyone bother to tell the city health department about the shortage of tests?

A New Strain of Labor Shortage

Back on December 30, Tatiana Prowell, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins, offered a spectacularly dire warning about what Omicron would do to American life:

Life in the US in Jan-Feb 2022 is going to be almost unrecognizable to most Americans. Even the people who have managed to pretend Covid-19 wasn’t happening are about to get a major wakeup call. When we call 911 & no one comes, when we literally cannot enter the ER for crowds. . . .

When we go to grocery stores & find shelves empty, to pharmacies & find them closed because every single employee is out sick themselves or tending to a loved one. Please get what you need to look after your household. Fill prescriptions, get over the counter meds & staples. . . .