Omicron isn’t on its way; it’s here. And from a look at our COVID vaccination numbers, our region isn’t ready, but what else is new?
We weren’t ready for delta, either, had several weeks of surge back in the late summer and early fall, so you can guess what’s on the horizon with winter approaching.
According to the Virginia Department of Health, Augusta County’s fully vaccinated rate is 54.9 percent . Waynesboro is at 58.9 percent, and Staunton leads our immediate area at 63.2 percent.
The state is at 66.8 percent in terms of full vaccinations.
One of our neighbors, Albemarle County, is above that mark, at 74.4 percent.
Harrisonburg (51.4 percent) and Rockingham County (52.2 percent) bring up the rear.
By the early indications, omicron spreads at a much faster rate than previous strains of COVID, which is the bad news.
The good news, sorta, kinda: it’s not as severe.
The caveat there being, it’s not as severe for the relatively healthy, and those who are fully vaxxed.
The fear from public health officials is that because omicron spreads rapidly, it will get to folks who are vulnerable and also not vaxxed, those folks will end up in hospitals, and their numbers could overwhelm some hospitals.
This would almost certainly be immaterial if scores of people hadn’t let themselves get hoodwinked by something their friend’s uncle posted on Facebook that was on Tucker Carlson about how the vaccines are going to make them glow in the dark in a couple of months.
This thing should be over as a pandemic; we’ve got vaccines, plural.
And yet here we are, in our second winter of discontent, basketball games are getting postponed, businesses are closing.
But hey, you’re owning the libs.
Congrats on that.
Story by Chris Graham
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