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The Pandemic is Over
Before you demand that I share the source for my title, I suggest instead that my observation is obvious. The highly maligned term “common sense” would tell you that. In fact, if we look at the definition of pandemic, the truth becomes even clearer (unless you have no interest in the truth):
1: an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population: a pandemic outbreak of a disease; a global pandemic Influenza pandemics seem to strike every few decades and to kill by the million—at least 1m in 1968; perhaps 100m in the “Spanish” flu of 1918-19.— The Economist
2: an outbreak or product of sudden rapid spread, growth, or development.
Don’t you think it is fair to say that the outbreak has exhausted its “sudden rapid spread, growth or development?”
‘The question is not when do we eliminate the virus in the country,’ said Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center and an expert in virology and immunology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Rather, it’s when do we have the virus sufficiently under control? ‘We’ll have a much, much lower case count, hospitalization count, death count,’ Offit said. “What is that number that people are comfortable with?” In his view, ‘the doors will open’ when the country gets to fewer than 5,000 new cases a day, and fewer than 100 deaths.
We can debate how he knows that “people are comfortable with” that number and whether it is a fair assessment.
There are other data that show how far we’ve come in the past year:
The facts are undeniable: The seven-day average of new cases in the United States has fallen by 74 percent since their January peak, hospitalizations have gone down by 58 percent, and deaths have dropped by 42 percent. Meanwhile, more than 60 million doses of vaccine have gone into American arms.
But this post goes beyond the argument about whether the pandemic rages on or not. I’m much more interested in exploring if we should be treating Covid-19 as if it were still terrorizing our country, or if there is a more sensible way to understand and manage it that won’t destroy our children, everyone’s mental health, inflame fear or isolate people.
I’m not saying that we will ever be rid of this nasty virus. It’s become clear to me that it will be with us for the foreseeable future. That’s right: COVID-19 will likely never disappear :
‘It’s pretty unrealistic to think that we can eliminate a virus from both the human population and from its natural reservoirs,’ Dr. Anita McElroy of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine tells CBS News.
She adds that since many people will choose not to get vaccinated — either for medical reasons or out of personal opposition to the vaccine — the world will always have ‘pockets of the population where the virus continues to spread and be susceptible.’
But doctors say that just because COVID is here to stay doesn’t mean it will disrupt our lives as much as it has in the past year. Vaccination and containment measures will eventually get the pandemic under control, potentially turning COVID into another disease we simply learn to live with.
So, in many ways we will treat COVID-19 much like we treat the flu; it can be a serious illness, but we can vaccinate to protect ourselves and try to minimize its effect.
Given that likelihood, here are some ways to move forward:
- Acknowledge that the strategies for dealing with Covid-19 have become so politicized, particularly by government bureaucrats including university researchers, that we simply cannot rely on them to give us sensible, sound advice.
- Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins, emphasized the benefits, especially freedom, that comes with vaccinations:
‘An unpublished study conducted by the Israeli Health Ministry and Pfizer showed that vaccination reduced transmission by 89% to 94% and almost totally prevented hospitalization and death, according to press reports,’ Makary said. ‘Immunity kicks in fully about four weeks after the first vaccine dose, and then you are essentially bulletproof.’
- Makary also believes through his analysis of death rates, that many more people have had the virus than the estimates. He believes that 2/3 of the population has had the infection and that we will have reached herd immunity by the end of March.
- Start reading the work of scientists who are highly esteemed, yet condemned by the mainstream and their peers. Those who are attacking them are telling us unintentionally that they are threatened by these realistic messages. Scientists like Jay Battacharya, Scott Atlas, John Ioannidis, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Dr. Carl Heneghan have all been attacked, not only by the media but by mainstream scientific publications.
- Over the coming months, there may be occasional blips (what the “experts” like to call surges) that could be used to justify lockdowns. Rather than lockdowns, the proper response would be to study the numbers and track them for an agreed-upon period of time.
- Children rarely contract or transmit the virus. Insisting that they continue remote learning can be devastating to their learning and their mental health.
- The people who have been vaccinated should not be expected to wear masks; those who have not been vaccinated should make the mask decision for themselves.
- Businesses that continue to have mask requirements should be complied with.
This exchange between Senator Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci illustrates the struggle between the theater of masks and reality. In an additional discussion, the Senator points out that there is no data to show that the variants will respond differently to the vaccine.
I think that Dr. Makary has the most reasonable approach to viewing our current situation, as well as the months and years ahead:
The doctor argued that it is time to ‘liberate vaccinated people to restore their relationships and rebuild their lives,’ something he says would ‘encourage vaccination by giving hesitant people a vivid incentive to have the shots.’
‘We cannot exaggerate the public-health threat, as we did with hospital visitation rules, and keep crushing the human spirit with overly restrictive policies for vaccinated Americans.’
We’ve been trapped in this insanity long enough. It’s time to move on.
Published in Healthcare
I am giving a talk tomorrow at the Lone Star Flight Museum. I sent an e-mail to friends informing them about it.
Several said they are coming. From one? I got an e-mail offering regrets – that he didn’t think it was safe, so he was going to skip it “for health reasons.”
The most delicious part of this? He is a member of MENSA. Very smart people seem the ones most terrified by this so-called crisis.
Oh my gosh, Seawriter! Isn’t that sad. Maybe there is so much stuffed into his brain that there’s no room for common sense. And it is also very sad.
The next method of control will be restricting the freedom of those who for whatever reason don’t want to get a vaccine. The social shaming aspect has already been established by the label “anti-vaxxer.” In Illinois, the governor determined that he couldn’t keep things locked down forever, so he has now come up with a “bridge” scheme where the level of opening will be dependent on the percentage of people who have taken the jab. Oh, and masks are still required.
I’m not so keen on any opinion from Dr. Makarov. His bio features this tidbit right off the bat:
Creating measures of appropriateness starts to get into Ezekiel Emmanuel and Richard Lamm (“We have a duty to die and get out of the way.”) territory. Only now, it may become get the jab, or get out of the way.
I didn’t read the purpose of that organization as you read it, @9thdistrictneighbor. I checked their website, and they appear to be trying to eliminate wasteful health care, such as unnecessary procedures, incorrect medications, wasteful use of funds. We all know that these poor decisions happen all the time for all ages and in all practices.
Since Fascists have ruined epidemiology in 2020, you have to go back to pre-2020 definitions and science. Back in B.C. (Before Covid) times, an pandemic was a multiple countries/regions with a cause of death >15% for a disease. We are not below that number yet, but of course, our data is tainted since “death with Covid” is all that is available.
Susan, you are dashing the hopes of millions of lefties who dream to be able to fight on against the pandemic for the rest of eternity. Their hearts will be broken to learn that the danger is over. They are condemned to wandering the streets looking for a new cause.
I am not surprised. I think it is fairly common that very smart people lose track of some of the practical details, especially if the very smart person works in a very abstract area.
One of the smartest people I knew as a young adult could solve all kinds of complicated mathematical mysteries, could not figure out how to change his child’s diaper.
Very smart people often concentrate on fine points (leaves on one branch on a tree), and so the big picture (the forest) escapes their notice.
My nuclear engineer (i.e., very smart) son-in-law is generally pretty good at keeping sight of the big picture, but on Covid-19 he keeps focusing on isolated instances.
I work in an environment that is saturated with the very peak of some highly intelligent folks, however I typically find that this knowledge is very much siloed to their professional interests, and have poor predictive capability in other areas of knowledge, even in other fields of science/physics. I find that for many they are even more soft on “common sense” because of their internal compass that says that there is an equation for everything, even human behavior, and all should be forced to conform to what others of scientific bent think they have proved with their evaluations.
I think it is a bit of intellectual chauvinism. Think of the Tom Nichols syndrome.
I remember years ago reading in Omni Magazine, an amusing author said he called the MENSA organization and said that his IQ was not high enough to join their organization. He asked the phone operator, “However, if I added my IQ and my wife’s IQ scores together and the total was high enough, would we be eligible for membership?” The operator told him “I’m going to have to ask about that. Can you please wait on the line?”
One of the definitions for a Covid death in Virginia is (from the DOH website):
(emphasis added)
White people.
I sure hope so!!
This makes sense, @gldiii! Unfortunately they miss so much, as @fullsizetabby has pointed out.
But look what Dr. Fauci did to save us from the HIV-AIDS epidemic https://wearechange.org/saint-anthony-fauci-the-hidden-history/ , oh wait…..
Keep an eye on NY NJ MA and CT. This is exactly the time of year cases broke out there last year. The number of cases may even be comparable to then because of much higher testing rates and high PCL settings for those tests but deaths will continue to be a steady trickle and not anything like the 2020 death rate. But be advised that this likely uptick (a last hurrah for the pandemic) will be seized upon by the viro-fascists as proof that we to wear three masks and close everything that can be closed without causing a rebellion.
And for those still innumerate enough not to know that COVID-19 has an almost rigid adherence to regional patterns (presumably dictated by climate, humidity, and seasonal social behavior) completely impervious to NPIs, behold:
The pandemic as a lethal event is dropping down to more of an endemic. But my prediction is that that weasel Fauci will tell us that any observable decreases in cases and deaths are solely due to the wonderfulness of applied CDC guidelines, lockdowns, and masks and that we will all die if we let up on these highly effective measures. As long as anyone is positive anywhere, we are all at risk and it is not over, even if we are 99% vaccinated. It is not over as long as any major media outlet wants to interview him.
Isn’t it fascinating that they all show essentially the same pattern? Thanks for posting the graphs, @oldbathos!
And notice that despite Gov. Cuomo’s brilliant pandemic stewardship, the timing and pattern is not all that different from Sweden
Or Italy:
If you group the states from FL and GA to CA, the identity is not as tight but the regional timing is still extremely similar. Same with the midwest. Once COVD-19 is out and it has the right conditions, COVID’s gonna COVID. Mass lockdowns (CA, MN, NY) nor mass gatherings (Sturgis) have much impact.
Susan, thank you for this excellent post; I wish it could be spread as far and wide as possible as it is my opinion, and here I’m trying hard not to sound like some “elite” talking about how the “masses” should let us take care of them, etc., that citizens have an obligation to inform themselves of this very kind of material and if they did, they would know of writings like The Great Barrington Declaration back in, I think, last October and other findings coming out about that time about the uselessness of mask mandates and 6 foot social distancing and more and more studies like the WSJ opinion piece you cite in your post by Dr. Makary. As you know, our governor, Gov. DeSantis, lifted most restrictions last September, and not long after he did, I started a mostly very frustrating and eventually unsuccessful dialogue with our Mayor and City Council and City Attorney, urging them to let the citizens of this area know that, despite all of their public pronouncements to the contrary and signs all over the Pensacola-Gulf Breeze area urging citizens to “obey” the “mask mandate”, there could be, legally speaking, no such thing in the State of Florida, unless someone could show how a city government could override an Executive Order of the Governor and that any such statements were merely a suggestion, not a mandate. My pleading for the local government to proceed on the basis of common sense rather than scare tactics went nowhere and there are still the same signs, six months later, all over the area, assuring that citizens will remain terrified if they dare appear in public “maskless”!
This part of your superb post touches on something which is very personal to me, a “mask denier” for a very long time now, and that is the feeling of sadness or perhaps pity, for want of better words, I feel when I see very, very elderly people (I have obvious immunity in saying that based on the fact that I’m probably older than all of those I’m talking about) who won’t dare go out without their masks and show obvious fear if anyone gets anywhere close to the magic 6 foot circle, especially galling now that we know this fact was plucked out of thin air based on a study done by a German scientist in 1897 (!), and it is obvious that the propaganda apparatus has been very successful in scaring so many people out of their wits.
Thanks for this fine discussion.
Sincerely, Jim
Decrying the death of expertise while rarely being recognized as one?
There’s a lot of that going around, Tommy. Suck it up.
Thank you for your kind words, @jimgeorge. I empathize with your reaction. I have three dear friends, all a little older than I am, who hardly go anywhere and are still afraid. That 5% chance of getting Covid after getting the vaccine terrifies them. I’ve held my tongue, since there’s no having a rational conversation about the topic. When I asked two of them when they thought they would let up restrictions on themselves, they both said in the summer, maybe a little travel. Nothing scientific about the date, obviously.
The real problem is that we are not using 6.2134 feet as the correct distance and 1.53 masks at all times. #science
I am still looking for a documented case of an actual instance of outdoor transmission of COVID-19. I am sure it must have happened a lot or else people on jogging trails, parks, and in parking lots during high winds would not be wearing masks. #science
The fear of the asymptomatic transmitter is the ultimate witchhunt. The mask catches that infected cough or sneeze (#science) and so we are safe but what about sustained leakage from that sneaky asymptomatic SOB pumping his evil output into the A/C streams? Kind of like worrying about commie agents from back when we were kids. Hard to spot but you know they’re out there… slipping that mask off when nobody’s looking…
This post is a perfect example of how the Left has succeeded in moving the Overton Window. It is taken for granted that “…fewer than 5,000 new cases a day, and fewer than 100 deaths” is an appropriate benchmark for allowing people to exercise their constitutional right of free movement. It is also taken as a good that people are coerced into getting vaccinated: “…giving hesitant people a vivid incentive to have the shots.”
In essence, the managerial class is saying that you can have most of your freedoms back in ‘the new normal’ so long as you get the jab. You might need a vaccine passport to go to work or travel. And, in the meantime, be sure to wear your mask!
It’s not even strictly a left/right issue. The divide is better characterized as technocratic/managerial versus populist. The pandemic has enabled the former to advance their agenda far beyond their wildest dreams.
I know young healthy people who are deathly afraid to go anywhere. Someone in my neighborhood just said publicly that she will not participate in a small neighborhood outdoor parade down our short block (which is requiring all to wear masks, even two year-old children) because she says there are Covid case spikes in Spain and Italy. Aside from the fact that there is no such spike in Spain, this reasoning is almost comical. I just marvel at the frightened masses who huddle up in the fetal position in their homes. I used to think that Americans were tough pioneers. The pandemic has taught us that many are just bowls of jello resting on wet noodles.
Excellent thinking and explanations for how you arrived at that thinking.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that perhaps one of the reasons it was so essential that Trump be removed from the Oval Office is that he may well have shared most of your viewpoint on this. Hew was also a major impediment in having a re-structuring of our society around the Magnificent Goals of the Planet Savers, that is, the “We Must Stop the Global Climate Crisis” crowd.
With that crowd now in control, our successful implementation of making the USA independent of other nations in terms of energy production has been reversed. The drilling and fracking has been stopped overnight, although officials in 17 states are now suing the Biden administration for this stoppage.
Oil was at around 25 bucks a gallon the day Trump left office. It is now over 65 bucks a gallon. Already in Calif gas stations have signs indicating we are approaching gas at 7 dollars a gallon.
No doubt the socialists are applauding all this. After all, they believe expensive gas means the world will be greener that much sooner. But with people out of work here in Calif, it is less likely they will put solar installations on their rooftops. The socialists also know so little about the economy they will not realize the escalating energy prices mean skyrocketing food prices as well.
Anyway, as many of us have been saying for 9 months now, unfortunately this was never about a pandemic. The virus is only the means to the end, which is a New World Order and a new way of life.
We have transferred an incalcuable amount of money, time and resources to COVID. That transfer means that all the big players are now on board with Bill Gates idea of having to mandate COVID vaxes for at least the next three years. Although a person’s chances of getting through the two jab protocol currently involve a 0.2% death paralysis or other serious outcome, such as a miscarriage, if we have to have ten to fifteen vaxxes like this in the near future, well, go on and do the math.
I’m glad you brought this up. It’s a race now: getting people vaccinated against the speed of the virus.
This is exactly the time of year and the weather conditions that Cape Cod saw last year at this time and that caused a spike in case numbers.
I’m in a newly identified “hot zone.” :-) But, for the sake of perspective, we went from 30 to 60 active cases over last weekend, and the town’s population is 23,000. So it could be a lot worse. :-)
My husband got his first vaccine yesterday; I will be getting mine next Thursday.
I don’t think the states you’ve listed are out of the woods yet. But they will be soon. The vaccinations will see an end to this by the end of April, I think. :-)
This virus is like the flu in that it thrives in certain weather conditions, in this case, weather between 40 and 55 degrees.
I agree. The virus has now joined the rest of the family of flu bugs that will continue to be a seasonal concern. However, the politicians – particularly on the left – are going to keep milking the COVID cow until its udders dry up . . .
It’s hard to imagine that data or any logical argument will make a difference on policy since those variables never drove it in the first place. Last year plenty of sources pointed out that the models weren’t based in facts but rather on speculation and fear (if not some more insidious motivation). Then the data on infection rates and deaths were exposed as compromised and monetarily driven. The preventative measures were at best parroted moronic drivel from public policy advisors in over their heads. They still are. So much plexiglass. Face shields? Come on people.
Until we get courageous governors willing to fire their Covidiot advisors and tell the Feds to, “(CoC) off!” and reopen their states unconditionally this will persist, because it was never based on science or logic in the first place.
The stats provided in one study comparing outcome in Florida which had minimal restrictions, (especially in more rural areas where local officials were R’s), and then looking at California with its over the top restrictions showed the public the same outcomes the Swedes showed us. More minimal restrictions empower a society to be more economically prosperous, psychologically prosperous, while maximum restrictions destroy the economy and create mental illness. Yet the “savings” for all the restrictions faced in Calif in terms of COVID fatalities have been minimal. (With suicides also almost equal to deaths by COVID, the minimal savings are made pointless.)
Wrong. There will be a surge in a couple of weeks. At our southern border, hordes of Covid-positive poor people from Mexico and Central America are being released into the US population with no testing and no controls. No ID, no jobs, cannot speak our language. The government that is letting them in employs Fauci, with malice and forethought. Do you think the new illegals will bother to wear a mask? For some reason, I doubt it. I wonder how fast they can spread the Wuhan Coronavirus.
Here in Michigan the most recent peak for weekly deaths (877) was early December. The most recent week with reliable data, about seven days ago (90), a nearly 90% decline. At some point I hope people will stop listening to the dictators, but it hasn’t happened yet.