Is the COVID Pandemic Over? No and it’s Scary

The last four years were a combination of strength and courage for all of us as we battled through the COVID pandemic. Our lives changed in the blink of an eye from going to work to working from home. Our kids went to school one day and studied from home the next. We didn't go out to eat, see a movie, go to a concert, nothing. And we all walked around wearing masks.

We are a very resilient country and we slowly fought through it to where things have pretty much returned to normal.

But what about the disease itself? Did it go away? Nope, and it keeps reinventing itself. The WHO, World Health Organization, says even though we are getting out now, COVID is here to stay.

The scary thing is that the WHO says the pandemic is “far from over” and, after doing extensive water testing, they estimate the number of new infections is between two and 19 times what is being reported.

In the last few weeks news has come out about new infections, maybe because of the holidays, and the number keeps rising. So what's up? Are there zombie like sub-humans walking around biting people to infect them?

Hardly. It's likely there are millions of people with some level of natural immunity, and immunity from the COVID vaccine jabs people have gotten. They are getting a protection. However, there probably are far more asymptomatic cases of the virus out there we don't know about. Unlike 2020 and 2021, we all stayed home if ill, but now asymptomatic folks are out and about spreading the virus.

The New York Times published an article saying that the latest variant, JN.1, is considered to be far more deadly than previous versions of the virus. So if an asymptomatic person ends up passing that variant on to someone who ends up getting sick, it could kill them.

Oh, that's certainly uplifting.

On top of that, the World Health Organization is worried about long-term affects of repeated COVID-19 infections. They wonder what heart or lung issues we could see in 10, 15, or 20 years. And, what about "long COVID?"

So now what? It's a scary thought, but should we go back to past COVID restrictions?