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Happy New Year Angry Bears

run75441 | January 1, 2022 2:04 am

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2022? Another year passed. Be safe, mask up, distance yourselves, get the shots, and just be safe.

3 Comments

Fred C. Dobbs says:

January 2, 2022 at 12:06 am

While Americans Went on Holiday Break, the Virus Kept Spreading
- As the year closed out, Omicron drove coronavirus cases to record highs,
- upended air travel and left staffing holes at hospitals.
- Uncertainty looms as the variant continues to spread, and as people return to workplaces and schools that vow to remain open.
With Omicron’s Rise, Americans Brace for Returning to School and
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  January 2, 2022 at 12:09 am
  
  With Omicron’s Rise, Americans Brace for Returning to School and Work
  
  The highly contagious variant has already contributed to flight cancellations and staffing shortages.
  
  In two short weeks, as the year closed out, the Omicron variant drove coronavirus case counts to record levels, upended air travel and left gaping staffing holes at police departments, firehouses and hospitals.
  
  And that was at a time many people were off for the holiday season. Now comes Monday, with millions of Americans having traveled back home to start school and work again, and no one is sure of what comes next.
  
  Most of the nation’s largest school districts have decided to forge ahead and remain open, at least for the time being, citing the toll that remote learning has taken on students’ mental health and academic success. And the rising number of cases has not yet been followed by a proportionate increase in hospitalizations and deaths, though hospitalizations have increased in recent days — a sign that the Omicron variant seems to cause fewer cases of severe illness.
  
  But the highly contagious variant is still racing across the country, and teachers, parents and workplaces are bracing for the impact. …
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    January 2, 2022 at 12:22 am
    
    ‘It’s just relentless’: Exhausted hospital workers battle another COVID surge
    
    A year ago around Christmas, Liz Mover began to feel some hope. The ICU nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital had received her first dose of COVID vaccine. Soon, she thought, everyone will be vaccinated and this terrible pandemic will end.
    
    But in the medical intensive care unit where Mover works treating the hospital’s sickest patients, 15 of the 18 beds were occupied last week by people critically ill with COVID. Almost all of them were unvaccinated.
    
    That fact is what is hardest for the ICU staff to understand. It wears on them as they return each day to help people who chose not to get the shots that could have stopped them from becoming so sick.
    
    Their illnesses were largely preventable. And yet, here they are.
    
    “They just keep coming,” Mover said. “Unvaccinated patients just keep coming in.”
    
    As the pandemic stretches on and cases climb again, a depleted battalion of health care workers is battling yet another big surge of COVID. Despite the widespread availability of vaccines, hospitalizations have approached last winter’s levels. And for many health care workers on the front lines still fighting COVID, hope has evaporated. …