Today is Wednesday, April 27, 2022. An article in today’s New York Times talks about what percentage of the American public has already contracted the coronavirus as of this past February, and the statistic is quite astonishing, I think. The article, written by Apoorva Mandavilli, is entitled “60% of Nation Has Had Virus, C.D.C. Reports.” The piece provides serious reflection here, given that the world has been in the throes of this pandemic for more than two years already. The major finding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC) is that as much as sixty percent of Americans, including 75 percent of children, had been infected with the coronavirus as of February, as federal health officials reported yesterday. This seems to be “another remarkable milestone of the pandemic that continues to confound expectations.”

As for what is responsible for such an infection rate in many Americans, you can thank the highly contagious Omicron variant as being liable for much of the toll. This fact is very illuminating: “In December 2021, as the variant began spreading, only half as many people had antibodies indicating prior infection,” according to new research from the CDC. This statistic might shock many Americans, but in reality, some scientists had expected the figure to be even higher.

All is not sour news here; some experts say that the data indicate that a gain in populationwide immunity could offer at least a partial bulwark against future waves of infection.

This high percentage of previous infections may also mean that there are now fewer cases of life-threatening illness or death relative to infections. Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said, “We will see less and less severe disease, and more and more a shift toward clinically mild disease.” He added, “It will be more more and more difficult for the virus to do serious damage.” This has to be good news then.

Thus we may be entering a new phase of the pandemic at this time, according to most indications. The average number of confirmed new cases per day in the country stands at more than 49,000 as of Monday, according to a New York Times database, and is comparable to levels last seen in late July, even as cases have risen by over 50 percent over the past two weeks, a trend infectious disease experts have attributed to new Omicron subvariants.

I am comforted with this finding from the CDC data: that prior infections increased least [my italics] among adults aged 65 and older, since they have the highest rates of vaccination and may be most likely to take precautions. Hell, yes, we do. We don’t fool around, not like many younger scalawags out there who are too busy quaffing their beer and getting high and most repugnicans who still think the pandemic is a hoax.

According to Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, there are still tens of millions of Americans with no immunity to the virus, and they remain vulnerable to both the short- and long-term consequences of infection. He recommends that those people who have avoided getting vaccinated and boosted up to now stop playing chicken with the virus, betting that they won’t “catch” it, to get inoculated and boosted right away.

The CDC’s own Rochelle Walensky, director of the agency, has pointed out the positive signs associated with this new phase of the pandemic, in that even among those who are hospitalized, “we’re seeing less oxygen use, less I.C.U. stays, and we haven’t, fortunately, seen any increase in deaths associated with them.”

Even among children, it was discovered that by February, three of four children and adolescents in the country had already been infected with the virus, compared with one-third of older adults, according to the new study. Health experts encourage parents then to immunize their children who qualify as soon as regulators approve a vaccine for them, regardless of their prior infection. This statistic should worry parents now: “Among children who are hospitalized with the virus, up to 30 percent may need intensive care,” Dr. Kristie Clarke, the agency researcher who led the new study, noted. This alarming situation among the youngest coronavirus victims has led health experts to register their concern with the long-term consequences of the virus.

“To measure the percentage of the population infected with the virus, the study relied on the presence of antibodies produced in response to an infection.” The data were then broken down among age samples reported at 10 sites in the country early on in the pandemic. The investigators looked specifically for a type of antibody produced after infection but not after vaccination. The age group with the highest percentage of antibodies found in their systems was adults aged 18 to 49, followed by 50 percent in those adults aged 50 to 64 years, and then 33 percent in those older adults ready to be put out to pasture. Just kidding here, folks.

There is one caveat with this new study: “Despite the record high cases during the Omicron surge, the reported statistics may not have captured all infections, because some people have few to no symptoms, may not have opted for testing, or may have tested themselves at home.”

So there you have it: some reason for feeling a little less worried about the virus, unless something weird happens in a few months, which we will have had no ability to foresee. As for me, I will still continue to take precautions like wearing my mask indoors and on planes. I’m still waiting to see if anything transpires with my attending the TCM Film Festival over five days of crowded screenings and being next to a whole flock of strangers in auditoriums and elsewhere. I’ll let you know.

An article right under the last one details the fight for survival of one 47-year-old police sergeant living in Pennsauken, New Jersey, as he almost succumbed to the virus. He was in the hospital 49 days and was not expected to survive. One big factor here in this man’s struggle was that he was not vaccinated against the coronavirus; he did not believe in the vaccine’s merits, it’s mentioned. That is how far I will go with this story. All I can say is that I’m happy he’s alive to learn the lesson of his misguided ways regarding the measures needed to combat the virus. There are, regretfully, many people out there just like him littering the landscape with their misinformed views.

I won’t get into the latest example of Trumpian absurdity just announced on the Rachel Maddow program tonight. It will result in a raft of comedic blasts directed at the latest musings of the former president toward tomatoes that should disqualify him now for any kind of elected office until perpetuity! It is that damning of his current mental state! It should make the rounds in tomorrow’s newscasts and newspapers, making him the laughingstock of the world!

On that “fruitful” note, I take my bow.

Stay safe and be well.