News of the omicron variant, both good and bad — The Super-Agers — Evening statistics
he omicron variant is spreading rapidly. The U.S. has several confirmed cases, California, Minnesota, and Colorado have one apiece and New York already has five. Cases have been confirmed in Brazil, Spain, Switzerland, Singapore, India, Greece, and France. The numbers in these countries are small, but in Norway a group of over 50 have come down with the variant on account of an office Christmas party. In Spain the cases are especially troubling, because none of the people involved have any link to Southern Africa, where the variant supposedly originated.
However, the cases recorded to late have been mild. Angelique Coetzee, a doctor with a private practice in Pretoria and chair of the South African Medical Association (SAMA), has been called in to treat several cases and she says that at this point they have been quite manageable, with none of them exhibiting the loss of smell and taste that other COVID patients have experienced and all of them recovering in a few days. This assessment must be qualified by the fact that the patients she treated will mostly healthy young people, who are more likely to recover from the COVID virus in any case. Coertzee admitted that the variant may prove to be a more serious matter for older, unvaccinated people, of whom we have a plentiful supply in this country. The majority of cases of the new variant have been among the unvaccinated. In addition, the omicron variant, unlike delta, appears to be able to infect persons who have previously come down with the virus and have since recovered.
There is encouraging news about so-called “Super-Agers,” or people who retain their cognitive abilities past the age of 65. The factors that aid in retaining mental abilities are: a body mass index of less than 30, continual mental stimulation (even a medium as lowly as crossword puzzles), and an occasional glass of alcoholic beverage. If these criteria are indeed valid, I amply qualify: my BMI is 21.5, I drink wine (in moderation) daily, and if writing a journal is not mental stimulation, I don’t know what is. So perhaps I may be able to evade the mental decline that I have seen overtake so many of my older relatives.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 264,400,142; # of deaths worldwide: 5,249,007; # of cases U.S.: 49,695,834; # of deaths; U.S.: 806,329.