Late last week, as I began thinking ahead to what New Year’s Eve would look like and began pondering the year ahead, I read a sobering article about the number of COVID-19 cases that had just been recorded.
According to CNN, just a day after the United States reported its highest average daily COVID-19 case number, we shattered that record. Per data from John Hopkins University, we have averaged 355,990 new infections every day for the last week.
And that’s just the set-up punch: the voice I trust the most on all things COVID, Dr. Anthony Fauci, delivered one to the gut, saying the worst is yet to come and positing that COVID-19 cases won’t reach a peak until “…probably by the end of January.”
It’s going to be a long, cold COVID winter. Baby New Year’s in for a fight.
It had already been a long month for me and my family. Just before Christmas, the youngest of us, my daughter Kristina, tested positive for COVID as she very quickly developed symptoms about which we’ve all heard far too much: sore throat, congestion, lethargy, low-grade headache. Tina’s vaccinated, but she’d delayed her booster as she worked a challenging pre-holiday schedule while socializing with her boyfriend and friends, all of whom are unvaccinated.
You recall your 20s, right? We thought we were invincible, remember?
Kristina brought us to our knees with her illness, even as she quickly altered her plans to spend Christmas with her mom in Detroit, and sequestered at home. As of this writing, she’s past the worst of it, we think, while symptoms, including recurring, extreme lethargy, linger…along with a pesky thought of mine that we’ve all been here before.
This Yuletide seemed more like Groundhog Day than Christmas, as different factions of our family hopped on Zoom for a Christmas Day gift-opening exchange and shared news of separate Tupperware-delivered dinners traded off at front doors, while exchanging smiles shrouded by face coverings.
As Grandma Coleman used to say, you do what you gotta do to get through!
But at least Kristina didn’t wind up in the hospital, as a sharply increasing number of our daughters and sons have over the last month or so. An overwhelming majority of new cases are among people quite a bit younger than my “little one,” and we’re at least six months away from a vaccine for children five years old and younger.
And with only 62% of the nation having been fully vaccinated, and just one-third of those having been boosted, our collective refusal to embrace COVID protocols, including getting our shots, has left our littlest ones to largely fend for themselves, as schools reopen for the new year.
According to data published by the CDC and the US Department of Health and Human Services, an average of 378 children with COVID-19 were admitted to hospitals on any given day during the week that ended December 28. That’s more than a 66% increase over the previous week, and a pandemic all-time record.
I don’t know about you, but as competitive as I am, that’s not the type of record that I’m proud of breaking. I’ve been blessed to have never spent a night in the hospital with either of my girls, so my heart goes out to those parents who are trying to keep their kids safe and praying for their children even as I write this.
And parents should know this: most of the children who’ve been hospitalized with COVID were co-infected with other ailments like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) or the flu.
This year, we’re trotting Baby New Year into the pediatric ICU.
Get your shots. Have your kids mask up in public. And avoid indoor, crowded events if you don’t know the vaccine status of everyone in attendance.
Lest you wonder why I’m on that soapbox so early in the new year, I’m vaccinated, boosted, doubled masked, socially distanced, and prayed up.
And also, lest you wonder, I’m not generally a vaccine guy. The words “Tuskegee Experiment” still make me shudder, and I’ve not had a flu shot in over 20 years. I’ve also not had a cold or flu in over 20 years, but you can read about all of that in one of the books that I’ll get around to finishing one of these days.
If you’re a parent, of if you love or care for anyone younger than yourself, you will probably get this next declaration: I have always said that I’d take a bullet for either of my girls. Earlier this year, I took three doses of a different kind of shot, largely for them. I want to be here for them as long as I can.
I know you do, too, so you do the same — for all of the kids in our lives. Get your shots…
And Happy New Year.
Michael's Mind's Eye 