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Inside Out

It must be COVID

Jeanne Sager
Posted 1/4/22

Has the deja vu settled in yet?

That unsettling feeling that each person you pass could be the one pass along COVID-19 has been here before? It’s how we felt before the vaccines, before we …

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Inside Out

It must be COVID

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Has the deja vu settled in yet?

That unsettling feeling that each person you pass could be the one pass along COVID-19 has been here before? It’s how we felt before the vaccines, before we started to work our way back to our new “normal.”

But Omicron has pushed us backward with the lightning speed at which it spreads and its disregard for the vaccination status of those it infects.

To be clear, the studies have already shown the vaccinated are far less likely to be hospitalized or suffer from severe illness with Omicron than those who haven’t gotten the shot. And new data from the UK shows that getting a booster shot raises the effectiveness of the vaccines to as much as 70 to 75 percent against Omicron.

The vaccines are working.

And yet even with three shots in the arm and the knowledge that severe illness is decidedly less likely, it’s as easy now as it was a year-and-a-half ago to convince yourself that you must have COVID.

You wake up with a slight cough — oh dear, it must be COVID.

You hit that afternoon wall of exhaustion — oh dear, it must be COVID.

Your nose runs in the cold — oh dear, it must be COVID.

It’s a feeling not unlike one we’ve had before.

There goes that deja vu again.

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