2022 Covid Outlook

For just over 2 years I’ve checked Covid statistics almost daily to manage expectations. I’ve watched infections counts peak and valley, derivatives curve and flatten, with resulting government guidance/restrictions before/after vaccine release. As 2022 is a midterm election year, with the majority of governors up for re-election, politicians tend to avoid unpopular issues. Therefore, I expect the following:

• Government won’t return to lockdowns but will increase restrictions for unvaccinated.
• Covid infections continue to increase with decreasing severity.
• 2021-2022 Flu season worse than 2020-2021.
• Omicron not the last variant, future variant severity decreasing.
• Supply chain will remain broken.
• World will continue turning.
• AIS will continue growing strong.

?AIS adapted, innovated, and succeeded through three recessions and a pandemic. The resilience shown by the team during the 2020 lockdown and continually changing restrictions was proved by resulting record growth. Covid should be viewed as a vulnerability to be managed using common sense and proper judgement. In the age of misinformation, strong Google-fu finds truth in a sea of answers because being accurate is more important than being right. As with any vulnerability, the better you understand it the better you can mitigate it.

Thus far, I’ve learned the following:

• Covid death rate in the United States was 0.09% for 2019-2020 - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm#:~:text=(91.5%20deaths%20per%20100%2C000).
• Heart Disease and Cancer combined killed 3.7x more Americans than Covid in 2020 - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/Leading-Causes-of-Death-for-2015-2020.pdf
• Antigen-based Rapid Tests provides true positive results 46% of the time - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm695152a3.htm#:~:text=Virus%20was%20recovered%20from%2034%20(46.6%)%20of%2073%20positive%20specimens
• Covid restrictions suppressed 2020 flu season, weakening immunity - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6937a6.htm
• Cloth masks intended to stop viruses within outbound respiratory droplets - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
• Covid virus size 100nm - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7224694/ - Equivalent to one of the 125 Million transistors inside a Pentium 4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4
• N95 Masks filter 95% of Covid-sized particles (100nm = 0.1micron) - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9487666/#:~:text=N95%20respirators%20made%20by%20different,that%20size%20for%20NaCl%20particles.
• Copper kills viruses - https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-registers-copper-surfaces-residual-use-against-coronavirus

Therefore, I recommend, but do not mandate the following:

• Keep calm, continue using common sense.
• Get the vaccine, booster, and flu shot. (The government already has our DNA, Bill Gates already has us microchipped and the virus doesn’t care how we vote.)
• If feeling sick, avoid elderly or immune-compromised people. (We didn’t visit grandma when feeling sick before Covid.)
• When mask protection makes sense, use an N95.
• When not wearing a mask, cover your mouth when coughing/sneezing. (I’m fortunate that my worst pandemic experience thus far was sneezing while wearing a mask.)
• When getting tested makes sense, use a PCR test.
• Avoid crowds and socially distance, at least the next few weeks.

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