As roughly 2,000 people a day in the US are dying from COVID-19, most of which is likely due to the new omicron variant, some have started questioning if it really is as mild as many prominent voices were saying.
In response to these concerns, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that when they determined the omicron variant to be mild, they were expecting a lot more people to die.
“Quite honestly, we are amazed at how few people have died of the omicron variant so far,” said a public representative from the CDC. “It really is a testament to the vaccine’s ability to limit the spread and severity of SARS-COV-2, not to mention how good we at the Centers for Disease Control are at controlling diseases. It really is a miracle that only two or so thousand people are dying every day.”
The CDC would not give a number for what their estimated omicron death toll was when they shortened the recommended quarantine time for those who test positive for COVID-19 from 10 days down to five. However, they noted that the American people should be incredibly proud. “Due to the safety practices we each adhere to on a daily basis,” they said, “our current trajectory is close to, if not the best-case scenario from their models of potential death tolls.”
This success has “emboldened greater risk-taking” in the CDC. They add that, because it happened once, it “only makes sense” for them to keep expecting things to turn out as best-case scenarios. They say the American people should expect much more communication from the CDC about COVID-19 and to have “full faith in things going incredibly well despite taking measures that make positive outcomes even less likely.”
Jeffrey Brown is a former Arts Editor for the Daily Cardinal. He writes for The Beet occasionally and does some drawing and photography too. He is a senior majoring in Sociology. Do not feed him after midnight.
