Sternberg on COVID this week: Getting better?

We've been hearing reports that the spike in cases and deaths from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has peaked and is decreasing. This is certainly true in metropolitan New York. Epidemiologists have estimated that greater than 40 percent of the City’s population has been infected with Omicron even though the confirmed case rate is much lower. Most people infected there probably experienced mild or no symptoms and didn’t even bother to get tested.

In my experience among my friends, many have told me they or a member of their family had mild or moderate symptoms of a flu-like illness and those who bothered to be tested almost all came back as COVID-positive. When their asymptomatic family members were also tested at about the same time, they too were positive.

In my mind, COVID variant Omicron BA.1 probably has reached a herd immunity level in NYC. This would explain the decreasing case curve.

I  looked at our numbers in Otsego County. The most recent report that I have comes from February 3, 2022. You might want to go online and look at the Otsego County Department of Health COVID-19 Information Center while you read through this. The easiest way to get there is to Google Otsego County Department of Health and follow the links.

You might notice two graphs near the midportion of the page. The first shows the cases reported per month, and you will see a giant spike for January 2022 -- much higher than any