Omicron spreading in US could bring wave as soon as January, CDC warns | Hacker News Reader

Omicron spreading in US could bring wave as soon as January, CDC warns

washingtonpost.com

13 pointsharambae6 comments

By now new variants should be expected. Why on earth do governments seem to be caught off guard every time a new variant comes out? And why on earth can't they lay out consistent general guidelines for how they will react to new variants in the first, second and third weeks of its emergence as and when the data comes out? The apparent lack of imagination of our governments seems to be a dismal failure. The whole world dropped the ball the first time round, many countries the second time, but to be surprised a third and fourth time is outrageous. I'm not advocating for any particular policy, but consistency is key, that way people can actually plan ahead and not get the carpet pulled out from under their feet.

Governments are not "caught off guard" in the sense that they know variants are expected. All major countries perform routine sequencing for exactly that reason, some more than others, but they all do. They also have plans for apocalypse-class variants that we will hopefully never see.

Where you can say they are caught off guard is that they obviously can't plan in advance what the next mutation will be in the wild. The virus doesn't send advance notices. Even knowing how bad a variant is can take weeks because we don't know what makes it spread. Is it vaccine resistance, pre-infection resistance, high infectivity, does it evade testing, does it target a different population. And how deadly is it? Does it have different symptoms? All these questions call for different answers.

It is even harder for policymakers who have to care about more than just health. They can't just say "hey, new variant, let's lock down everything", it will tank the economy and make people unhappy, maybe for no reason. But if you don't do anything, you may end up with overwhelmed hospitals and lots of people dying. So what are you going to push? Vaccination (including making vaccination mandatory)? Contact tracing (including surveillance)? Mass testing and quarantines? Masks? Event closure? Movement restriction? You can't be consistent because the virus is not.

And of course there are long term solutions being studied too. New vaccines and drugs are being researched. Increasing hospital capacity is also on the menu, but that takes time. We already made a lot of progress, and I think the much lower mortality of the delta variant despite the virus itself being more deadly other things being equal (no vaccines, ...), is proof of that.

What do you think is lacking in the responses happening right now that suggests governments are being caught off guard? I might agree the response might seem lacking, but I don't really know what else should be done.

Write up a policy in advance, display it for public scrutiny "if and when a new variant is discovered, exhibiting x/y/z characteristics, when it presents itself in a manner similar to mannerisms a or b or c based on the variety of possible circumstances such as time of year, infection rates etc etc etc, we shall adopt the following corresponding measures <insert measures> (etc etc etc), reevaluating and adjusting our policy as prescribed as the data inevitably becomes clearer."

I missed out some stuff but i think you get the picture. This way, everyone is onboard, no one gets the feeling that politicians are making this stuff up as they go along and consistency is acheived. But crucially, policy won't get decided by people panicking and rushing around afraid they'll lose their job if they don't look like they are doing anything.

I had to use the last of my Reynolds Wrap for this, but governments might favor being caught off guard if it means they can adopt measures that are more extreme than would otherwise be tolerated. You lay out a situation where government officials actively invite input from the populace and form their opinion based off extended consideration of a policy. Bureaucracy and willful ineptitude are likely the real culprits.

Is there a wave pattern, yet? So that they can stop reporting on it...

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