“We’re in deep trouble,” said William Haseltine, a virologist and former Harvard Medical School professor who is president of Access Health International, a nonprofit global health think tank. He urged Americans to cancel holiday party and travel plans, work from home and avoid public transportation if possible, and go out only when absolutely necessary — and then wear a mask.
“We should have learned our lesson, but we grossly underestimated this virus and were unprepared for Covid coming back in a newly transmissible and virulent form,” he said. “And we’re going to pay the price.”
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On Sunday, Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard, sent a memo to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director, outlining a plan to keep Omicron from breaking the hospital system.
“It is possible that uncontrolled spread of Omicron could quickly overwhelm hospital capacity, despite the existing immunity of the population,” they warned, proposing a plan that would automatically impose restrictions on indoor activities if hospital capacity in a state or city reached a certain threshold.
