Good morning from the far side of the Covid. Yes, after 27 months of successfully dodging Sars-CoV-2 infection, the mistake has finally caught on to me. It’s not a nice dose, so please forgive me as this column wanders through various stages of brain fog to get to you.
First, some thoughts on why now.
I’m pretty sure I caught the virus at the first face-to-face medical conference I attended since the pandemic started. My approach to Russian roulette to wear masks to the event was possibly a factor (note the reasoning of the brain fog in this statement). The decision to have a formal meeting outside under the sun seemed virtuous but, in fact, futile. And having chosen dinner next to a fully open restaurant window has convinced me that, as a precautionary measure, ventilation sucks. I am now silently an advocate of the theory that the new coronavirus is a Doppelgänger of this other single-wing, in-flow-enza virus.
All this means that, unlike a certain British politician, I have to do the honorable and leave myself on the sidelines of my poster role for the forthcoming Covid-19 prevention campaign of the Department of Health.
There are other issues that may be relevant. I am in the Covid high risk group and have had a booster shot. However, in the eyes of the National Immunization Advisory Committee (NIAC) it was not yet eligible for a second booster due to age. Questions for NIAC: When is High Risk Not High Risk? And isn’t it time to face the growing threat of edatism in epidemiology?
Sorry, I’m back again. I fell asleep: unplanned drowsiness episodes seem to be part of the experience. Surely he had another point to make to end the last paragraph; if there were any, I fear their evocation might be beyond my virus-laden brain.
However, if that’s what it’s like to be hit by the Omicron variant, and the latest figures suggest it’s a BA.4 or BA.5 subvariant, then my heart goes out to those of you who are infected with Alpha . or Delta variants. Omicron is highly transmissible, but earlier versions of Covid-19 made people sick more severely. I wonder, though, if Omicron has ruined us in a false sense of security. Both viral evolution and decreased immunity will be the main drivers of Covid-19 activity in the future. Omicron subvariants will fight for dominance, and new variants may still emerge. In the meantime, we rely on an outdated immunity from vaccines designed to fight the original virus.
If that’s what it’s like to be hit by the Omicron variant, then my heart is with those of you who are infected with the Alpha or Delta variants. Photography: iStock
I received my last dose of vaccine in November 2021. It was seven months ahead and my protection against the vaccine had clearly diminished. It seems that it is not so much the number of doses as the recent one that has been the last dose. Whatever antibodies I had left in the bloodstream of vaccination, they were not at the time of fighting the variant that was presented to them last weekend.
But, crossing my fingers, they will keep me out of the hospital. Maintaining as much pressure as possible outside the hospital system has been a driver of public health policy throughout the pandemic.
Could a better public health narrative have stopped the latest rise in Covid cases? With a cunning virus that makes fighting it, at best, an endless game of mole shots (with no idea where or when the next moles will emerge), it’s a debatable point.
What there is no doubt is the quality of the public health advice available to the Government. As we prepare to step down as chief physician in the coming days, we must acknowledge the leadership and professionalism of Dr. Tony Holohan. He has the right to claim, in Othello’s words, “I have done some service to the state.”
Readers can only wait for my brain cells to resume any kind of service before the next column.
mhouston@irishtimes.com