Daytime TV serials are often called “soap operas” because laundry and dish detergent manufacturers have long been sponsors. The “opera” part is full of drama, passion, a plot where pressure is applied to force a decision, one which the victim was sorry to have agreed to in the first place. Just as “soap operas” use persuasive words, exaggerated statements, and even threats, to cancel out sound judgment or scientific principles...

According to USA Today, “A substantial increase in coronavirus infections was expected when this week's numbers came out, but nothing like this.”

The intensely rapid spread of the omicron variant and a backlog of cases from the New Year's weekend has resulted in U.S. health authorities tallying more than three times as many new cases as in any previous wave of the coronavirus -- over 1 million reported cases on Monday alone. About 1 in every 100 Americans will have been reported as a positive case in just the last week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta

Now Omicron has arrived!

“The sky is not falling”, says Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of Tropical Medicine at Baylor. But just when we thought that the pandemic was behind us, scientists are now racing to understand the consequences of the Omicron COVID-19 variant that unexpectedly showed up in South Africa only days ago and has already become the current Variant of Concern. And we’re learning more, in the time between writing this week’s blog and posting it we now know that the Omicron COVID-19 variant has fifty or more mutations and is currently identified in 20 countries.

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