Analysis: a Pandemic-Scarred Year Ends in Darkness -- But With Hope on the Horizon

upstart writes:

Analysis: A pandemic-scarred year [2021]ends in darkness -- but with hope on the horizon:

The year [2021] dawned in a blaze of hope that new, effective Covid-19 vaccines -- free and available to all -- would deliver the country from the worst public health emergency in 100 years, in which 350,000 Americans had already died. The promise of a new President, Joe Biden, to shut down the virus rang in the nation's ears after his predecessor had lied about Covid-19's severity, botched the government response and prized his political goals over its health.

But the year ends in a dark place. Hospitals are flooded with Covid-19 patients, the transportation network is seizing up, and a new coronavirus variant -- Omicron -- is finding even the most careful citizens.

[...] "I think that right now we're in the public health crisis of our lifetimes," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, told CNN on Thursday.

It won't be a pandemic forever. Here's what could be next:

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