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Abstract

At this writing, the news media has been full of stories about the emergence of a new corona virus variant named "omicron," not the least of which has been how to pronounce it. That said, the fact that we are still in a pandemic and things may potentially worsen should certainly eclipse the need to learn how to pronounce omicron. COVID-19 has turned the world sideways impacting almost every person and facet of human activity in multiple ways that were heretofore unimagined by most people. Despite humanity's concerted efforts the virus continues to mutate and infect people at alarming rates across different regions of the world. Certainly, we have become more cognizant of the inequities that persist around the world with access to vaccines, and the significant numbers of folks not getting vaccinated, and the ongoing race to track and analyze new variants. Yet, with all that the virus has done around the world many folks continue to try and aim their actions and life toward some kind of normal. But what seems to becoming abundantly clear is that it is not possible to return to some perceived normal that was imagined prepandemic; we seem to be decidedly in transition toward a quickly changing new reality.