Omicron is Coming. How Will Princeton React?
All who would prefer an in-person experience should make that known sooner rather than later.
Making predictions is always a dangerous game, but effective planning necessitates that we attempt to divine future events. My prediction is this: We will see a meteoric increase in American COVID case counts in late January – right when we should be returning to campus to start the new semester. Hospitalizations will increase rapidly, and another wave of tragic, avoidable death will wash over the United States. The deaths will remain almost exclusively among the unvaccinated. Still, recent data shows that omicron is better at evading our immune system’s defenses than previous variants were. This means that most people who are relying on the protection of infection induced immunity or the protection of two doses of vaccine will likely be at high risk of contracting COVID. Breakthrough infections will become even more prevalent, on campus and across the nation. Recent data suggests that a three dose Pfizer regimen is about 70% effective at preventing omicron infection.
The news isn’t all bad though. While we know the ability of 2 doses to protect against infection fades with time and that omicron is even more adept than delta at infecting the vaccinated, it is still true that even with omicron twice vaccinated people enjoy solid protection against severe disease and death thanks to cell mediated immunity. What’s more Pfizer has reported that those with three doses are well protected from Omicron. What’s more, early indicators suggest that Omicron may be less likely to cause severe death than was delta.
The pharma giant has also reported that its anti-viral pill Paxlovid will work just as well against omicron as it does against any other variant. Preliminary data from Pfizer shows a nearly 90% reduction in hospitalizations. The FDA needs to approve this as soon as possible, every day of dithering costs many hundreds of lives.
The question on my mind is how will Princeton react to a worsening national situation? I fear that the university, faced with the news of rising case counts, hospitalization levels, and deaths will overreact. Hopefully that will only mean a continuation of the policies that limit the activities of the student body, but they may consider closing dining halls, forbidding clubs to meet or transitioning entirely to online learning. In the worst-case scenario they may tell us not to return from break.
The University may need to come to terms with the fact that minimizing covid cases will not be possible and does not maximize student well-being. Even with the recently imposed booster mandate numerous breakthrough omicron infections are likely. The numbers we ought to care about should track instances of severe disease. It would be helpful if the university shared the number of community members who were vaccinated and still developed severe disease. That is what matters most and what we must minimize. Cases are becoming less and less relevant.
We also need to rethink the University’s isolation policy. When a student contracts one of the myriad mysterious infections that constitute the Princeton Plague he or she is not forced to isolate. Isolation imposes severe costs on the sick student and the benefit to the community may not be worth it. What’s more we may not have the space available to isolate the number of students who may get omicron. If Covid is basically unavoidable, and almost always mild in young, triple vaccinated people should we really impose such costs in order to keep case numbers a bit lower. At the very least, students should be able to test out of isolation, like they can at Cornell, and have food delivered to the isolation dorm.
Due to the protection offered by a three-course regimen of the vaccine and the presence of effective anti-viral treatments the risk posed to most members of the Princeton community are manageable. Driving on the highway is far more dangerous than is a breakthrough case in the vaccinated. Elderly professors or any members of the community who have pre-existing conditions may wish to take a semester off and the University should make that as easy as possible. The insistence that the minimum leave of absence period lasts a full year is absurd. I’m glad that the university mandated boosters as a pre-requisite to return to campus, but these valuable tools won’t make for a zero covid environment. This virus isn’t going away any time soon and we need to learn to live with it. The threat it poses to thrice vaccinated people is not sufficient to justify another semester of online learning and the mental health consequences that accompany it.
I was not on campus last Spring but I’ve heard from many students that the environment was neither truly enjoyable nor amenable to academic success. All students, parents, and alumni should make clear to the University that a return to such a dismal experience will not be accepted.
very well written David
George Piegaro jr