COVID-19 Updates from Dr. Smith: 12/21/21

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Dr. Craig Smith, Chair of the Department of Surgery, sends updates to faculty and staff about pandemic response and priorities. Stay up to date with us.

Dear Colleagues,

No one wants to hear from me again about the Covid pandemic! A cheery, uplifting holiday message would be nice. But by several metrics the last few days show an explosive new surge linked to the Omicron variant that has the potential to exceed our first surge in the spring of 2020, when we became the world’s epicenter. Subsequent waves impacted our region much less than elsewhere, making it possible to feel just a bit smug about the combination of high vaccination rates, natural immunity, and sensible anti-transmission policies that probably deserve credit for sparing us. Did I mention moral superiority? Those things may not save us in this wave. As we learned in early March of 2020, this is a very fluid phase in an outbreak, and specific data I might share risks being invalidated by nightfall. Suffice it to say I wouldn’t be writing again if I wasn’t genuinely alarmed.

We can expect rapid return of sadly familiar policies on testing, isolation, masks, and distancing. Restrictions on hospital visitors were ratcheted up yesterday. In March 2020 we had plenty of staff but almost ran out of the PPE necessary to protect them. This surge follows many months of serious staff shortages, especially in nursing. At least now we have plenty of PPE, but we risk running out of people to wear it. Our staffing shortage forces us to develop testing protocols that return people to work as fast as possible consistent with safety. An NYP/CUIMC task force is already working on that.

This afternoon President Biden asserted “this is not March of 2020!” He placed great emphasis on vaccination, stating that fully vaccinated “people with booster shots are highly protected,” and if infected will have an illness “mostly similar to common respiratory viruses.” I sincerely hope he’s right on both counts. But note that Omicron has taken off much faster than Delta, at a time when much larger numbers of people are fully vaccinated. That makes me worry about Omicron’s vaccine resistance, and a small amount of preliminary data supports that concern. Regarding severity of illness, it is simply too soon to be confident that Omicron produces less serious illness than its predecessors.

Today is the winter solstice. First day of winter. Longest night of the year. How perfect—cold, darkness, and gloom! White walkers. But it is also the moment we turn towards the light as it increases in length every day. I hope we’re at the equivalent of winter solstice for the Covid pandemic. We have the miracle of mRNA vaccines that can be re-engineered rapidly to combat vaccine resistance. There are now at least three promising therapeutics. And we have our hard-won muscle-memory earned grappling with this thing. I’ve never seen a night so long the sun refused to rise.

 

Craig R. Smith, MD
Chair, Department of Surgery
Surgeon-in-Chief, NYP/CUIMC

Previously:

Past COVID-19 Updates From Dr. Smith