Are We Being Manipulated to Ignore Covid?

Recently @LauraMiers wrote:

"When people finally realize they're being manipulated--that repeated Covid infections cause permanent organ damage and autoimmunity, dramatically shorten life spans, exacerbate all re-existing issues, and lead to a markedly decreased quality of life--they're going to be furious. The "Urgency of Normal' people are running out of arguments so they're attacking those of us who have been disabled by the virus, and accusing us of being on par with anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. Classy. At the same time, articles like this one by an 'Urgency of Normal' representative seeks to convince people their valid concerns about the brain shrinking,  organ destroying, bat virus are overblown. Back to work! This is really sick." 

In an article in The Irish Times, "'Living with Covid' is Empty Sloganeering in Need of a Plan," Anthony Staines and Daniel Carey take a similar stance when writing about the reality of living with few protective measures: many deaths, tandeming infections in families, repeated reinfections despite vaccinations, and a large number of people out of work at any given time, which will effect the economy both within families and in the country.

"Tracking of the intensity of government measures . . . puts Ireland above Mongolia (bottom of 185 countries) in terms of the intensity of protective measures in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Dr. David Nabarro from WHO described the Irish Government's removal of its citizens' Covid-19 protective measures as 'brutal.' We know that Covid-19 singles out poor people, older people, and people with existing illness for the worst outcomes. We have no plan for these people as we 'live with Covid.' Antiviral medications may be helpful, but their overall effect remains uncertain. It's very clear that transmission cannot be stemmed by appeals to individual responsibility. . . . Litigation is the inevitable response to the failures of this policy approach . . . and litigation over the desperately lonely deaths in nursing homes is expected. . . . The alternative is a simple and actionable one: keeping the proven protective measures that have served us very well--vaccines and masks--and investing the modest amount needed to maintain excellent air quality in indoor settings. . . . Specifically, this means pushing vaccine uptake as high as possible; wearing N95 masks in crowded indoor settings . . . including air filtration in schools, pubs, theatres . . . masks are cheap and surprisingly effective.

I've heard two conspiracy-sounding arguments for removing mandates: The nice one is that they think more people will shop and buy things, go to bars and concerts and restaurants more without a mandate, thus saving the economy. The nasty one is that they are improving the economy with a cull of the old, young, and disabled, closer to the Holodomor than the holocaust, but still shockingly grievous either way. But we really don't know that's the case. It's possible, I guess, that Ford and Moore really do believe we don't need to wear masks in indoor public spaces because the ICU isn't as full today as it was at some random and moveable baseline point.

Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine in the US, wrote of "The Covid Capitulation" with the subheading that sums it up: As the virus accelerates its evolution, humans retrogress. 

"The CDC propagates delusional thinking that community levels are very low (as my friend Peter Hotez called the 'field of greens') while the real and important data convey that transmission is very high throughout most of the country. . . . It is conveniently feeding the myth that the pandemic is over--precisely what everyone wants to believe."

Without mask mandates, just accepting we'll all get it, we have mutations that are evading immunity to the point that "multiple Omicron subvariants are outcompeting one another. . . . Based on its immunological profile, it [BA.2.12.1] should be called SARS-3." And the mutations are creating a greater reduction in vaccine effectiveness since they can't keep up. "We are seeing people with 4 shots who are getting breakthrough infections, even at 1-2 weeks from their most recent shot, when there should be the maximal level of neutralizing antibodies induced. That's not a good sign." But, even worse, reliance on vaccines as the only solution has left us without a safety net as they weaken and fail while we wait for better options. Topol is hoping a regular nasal spray will help, and he wants all hands on deck to create and distribute one.

My doodled rendition of the situation! 

He writes, 

"With that handwriting on the wall, how could our government legislators turn their backs on funding critical initiatives to get us through the pandemic? This is frankly absurd. . . . We're not just looking at running out of vaccines and antiviral medications [or watching them lead to rebound cases]. Congress should immediately allocate for an Operation Warp Speed (OWS)-like initiative to bring nasal vaccines over the goal line. . . . We absolutely need an aggressive stance to get ahead of the virus."

We can't get to zero Covid, but at the very least we need to aim for zero Covid deaths instead of the current rate of ten times the number of seasonal flu fatalities. We need to keep wearing N95s and hope for better, stronger vaccines. And we need governments everywhere to take more preventative action to save our lives.

ETA this thread by Dr. David Berger, an ER doctor in Australia, 

"The mood is changing rapidly in Australia. The dissonance between what people have been told ('It's over,' 'It's mild,' 'It's just a cold') and what they are actually experiencing (hospital collapse, schools closing, personal and family experiences of severe illness), combined with more and more evidence in the public domain of severe short and long-term effects (hepatitis in kids, long covid, etc.), means that the fiction that we are 'back to normal' and 'the pandemic is over' cannot be sustained. It will shortly collapse like the house of cards that it is and perhaps then, after the election on Saturday, we can start to rebuild public trust and take the measures to suppress transmission which this novel, sever and deadly infectious agent demands. 

One more thing - people presume that whichever state public mood is in at the time will be the permanent state in which it will remain. But that is not so. We have seen tremendous swings in the public mood during the pandemic, from one pole to the other, and we will again. What is happening now is not sustainable and people will not stand for it much longer. The minimisers know the mood is changing and that's why they have been back-pedalling furiously in the last couple of weeks. All I can say is they'd better speed up." 

Too bad we suck at looking at other countries for guidance and to develop a more prescient response!!