“This pandemic is nowhere near over,” World Health Organization (WHO) General Secretary Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated at a Jan. 18 press conference, and insisting, “Now is not the time to give up and wave the white flag.” Tedros’ warning is very much to the point: in many nations, a wave of pessimism about ever defeating the pandemic has led to a defeatist tolerance of Malthusian policies of re-labeling the COVID pandemic as an “epidemic,” and just letting it rip.
Another form such defeatism takes the form of wishfully proclaiming that Omicron is waning, and will be the last variant. “We’re hearing a lot of people suggest that Omicron is the last variant, that it’s over after this,” the WHO’s Dr. Maria van Kerkhove stated at the same press conference. “And that is not the case, because this virus is circulating at a very intense level around the world.” Tedros added, “In some countries, cases seem to have peaked, which gives hope that the worst of this latest wave is done with, but no country is out of the woods yet.”
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a leading example of such delusions. Last week, after being ravaged for months on end by both the Delta and Omicron variants, the U.K. finally experienced one week of decline of new official daily cases, dropping from over 180,000/day to around 100,000/day (or in U.S.-population equivalent, from over 900,000/day to around 500,000/day). Johnson proudly announced that the danger is over and he is canceling their “Plan B” restrictions—meaning, no longer will masking and proof of vaccination be required. This goes into effect next Thursday, Jan. 27. Further, there will “soon come a time” when self-isolation is no longer necessary, he promised. Those infected will simply need to be “careful and considerate of others.”
