Biggest challenge now is the uncertain road ahead, says California health expert at Ro Khanna’s Town Hall
Dr Sara Cody, public health director of Santa Clara County in California, who has been closely involved with the Covid-19 situation ever since the outbreak of the pandemic, has sounded an ominous warning.
“The Omicron wave took us by the collar and sent us rapidly spinning up,” she said at a Covid-19 town hall organized by Indian Congressman Ro Khanna Jan 26, “We went through five waves locally. I imagine there will be more waves.”
Khanna, who represents California’s 17th Congressional district was in conversation with Cody, who on Dec 11 also confirmed the first case of Omicron to be detected in Santa Clara County in America.
Read: Omicron can lead to 64 times more cases in the third phase (January 17, 2022)
Dr Cody is among US health experts who sounded an early warning that Covid-19 may be here to stay with us indefinitely, giving a piercing reality of the new-world we must prep ourselves to live in.
The town hall did have some silver linings too with Dr Cody looking at the trends confirming that Omicron may be over its peak. She also said that there are early signs that US hospitals may be seeing a little bit of reprieve.
Calling the past few weeks, extraordinarily difficult, she confirmed that over 95 percent of the cases diagnosed are Omicron and the US may have a pair of cases that are a new sub-type of Omicron.
Read: No Need to panic over rising omicron cases: Dr. Ashish Jha (December 20, 2021)
While the health officials do not yet know what that would mean, Dr Cody said, “We’ll be learning more on it, in the days and weeks to come.”
Asked by Khanna if we know that the new sub-type may be more dangerous, Dr Cody said, “So far we don’t know. It has a different pattern, but so far we don’t really know how it behaves. My guess is that it will behave as the dominant Omicron, but we will see.”
On these past years as the pandemic continued to surge, she said, “The first year was extraordinarily difficult for everyone as we didn’t have a vaccine.
“Last year, when we had been working so hard to get everyone vaccinated was a relief for that we had effective vaccines,” she added.
Read: Omicron in California: State finds handful of cases of new ‘stealth’ version of omicron (January 25, 2022)
On the future and the challenges ahead, Dr Cody said while she is an optimistic person, “The biggest challenge now is that the road ahead is uncertain.
“We went through five waves locally. I imagine there will be more waves as it goes in peaks and valleys,” she said. “We don’t know what next wave would look like – whether it will be little or huge. So we have to be prepared.”
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