Surging Into 2022 With Omicron, “Deltacron” And The Chinese New Year

10.01.2022 - 11:15 / deadline.com

“I think for the next two weeks, we’re going to continue to see our case rates rise,” said Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer on Thursday. That statement was made more ominous by the fact that, on that very day, the county recorded a record number of new daily cases for the pandemic. At 37,000, the new tally was 10,000 cases higher than the previous record. It’s hard to imagine where two more weeks of increases will lead.

The rising numbers over the past week have led to a slew of event cancelations, adaptations, postponements and pauses impacting the Grammys, Sundance, production on NCIS and the release of Marvel’s Morbius.

The latter is a case study in the vicissitudes of pandemic planning. It’s been scheduled for July 31, 2020, March 19, 2021, October 8, 2021, January 2022 and now April. In fact, trying to predict the ebbs and flows of Covid has become a bit like early weather forecasting: We have a few days’ visibility, but after that it’s anyone’e guess.

“No one knows for how long the Covid-19 pandemic will endure or the enormity of its impact on California for years to come,” said President & CEO of the California Hospital Association Carmela Coyle on Saturday.

The one thing that does seem clear, however, is that Omicron will be driving infections for some weeks to come.

With an eye to that, California Governor Gavin Newsom called out the National Guard to support testing operations across the state. On Saturday, Newsom loosened the state’s purse strings and announced a $2.7 billion emergency Covid spending package which is two parts prevention and one part intervention.

“Our proposed Covid-19 Emergency Response Package will support our testing capacity, accelerate vaccination and booster efforts,