A New Year of COVID

Written by: Sam Bazzi
Edited by: Esther Melamed

At any other time, celebrating the advent of January 1st is a ritual that allows us to reflect on the past 12 months, find hope for the upcoming year, and make resolutions to improve our lives. Unfortunately, SARS-CoV-2 did not get the memo about the new year and its deadly second wave is still reverberating around the country and the world, making the annual transition feel rather arbitrary as we remain in lockdown. Nevertheless it is important to do our best to maintain our new year ritual and the feelings of renewal it would normally evoke, especially because so many of us have relied on maintaining our routines to keep going through the pandemic. To this end, I would like  to spend some time this week to remind myself and my readers that there are positive developments coming in the new year!

Last year, Dell Medical School announced that it is building a treatment center for people suffering from long-lasting health effects of COVID-19, also known as “long COVID” or “long-haul COVID”. Many of the symptoms of long COVID include psychiatric and neurological sequelae such as confusion, dementia, anxiety disorders, headaches, and insomnia. Hopefully, the development of this treatment center, and other centers around the country, will bring relief to many people suffering from long COVID and provide a better understanding of why there are persistent symptoms post-COVID. 

Another piece of good news is that in-ICU mortality rates for COVID-19 have dropped over the course of the pandemic in multiple countries, indicating that we are coping with this pandemic in a more efficient way. (Armstrong, Kane, and Cook)

Lastly, the new SARS-CoV-2 variant B1.1.7 found in the UK, despite having higher transmissibility, is not different enough that it escapes recognition by antibodies as a result of previous infection or immunization from the Pfizer vaccine, according to preprints. (Haynes, et al., 2020; Xie, et al., 2020)

A new year brings new possibilities. Even though 2020 has been a year to forget, we can at least look forward to positive developments in our ability to fight SARS-CoV-2. It may be hard to make new resolutions, as so many of us are already trying to cope as best we can, but perhaps one that we can all make is to be patient and kind to ourselves during this difficult time, and to remind ourselves that there are people around the world working tirelessly to alleviate the problems brought on by the pandemic.