I’m Done

Rant

This is a Covid rant.  We all have them, no matter what “side” of Covid you’re on.  And let’s think a bit about that sentence.  Here in the “modern world”, where we have made amazing progress and found vaccines for a killer disease in less than a year, we have made the “disease” a political issue.  No wonder the world looks at the United States with head shaking amazement.  The nation that thinks it’s the best – is still leading when it comes to Covid deaths.  The United States leads the world with over 860,000 deaths in the past two years.  Brazil comes in a far second with 620,000.

Remember the first few months of Covid?  Some said it was no worse than “the flu”.  In the worst year in the past decade, it’s estimated 50,000  died in the US from the flu.  Covid – averaged over eight times that number.  OK, so where do we stand now?  We are a Nation “sick and tired” of Covid.  As a whole, we seem to not care anymore.  800,000 gone, a million on the horizon, and why not?  Certainly our politics are so much more important than people’s lives.

What are the lies – and what do we do?

Vaccines

The Vaccines don’t work:  except they do.  The first area is in prevention of disease, protecting us from Covid.  For the original Covid variant here in the United States, the Beta version, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were 90% or better in preventing infection.  In the six months from the vaccine rollout to universal adult availability, we could have gotten control of Covid.  But, since only around 60% of American adults got vaccinated, we remained vulnerable to the next variant – the Delta variant.

The Delta was more than twice as infective as Beta, and the vaccines worked at about 80% effectiveness.  Not quite as good as against the Beta version, but still preventing a lot of disease.  And then the Omicron variant arrived, just in time for Christmas.  Omicron was even more infective than Delta, a “ten” to Delta’s “seven”. The vaccines showed diminished protection from Omicron, unless a third “booster” was included.  Then protection was back to 80% or better.

And, in the works, is a vaccine that could actually protect against all corona-viruses.  It may still be a year away, but is the next “best answer” to Covid variations.  So the bottom line is while the current vaccines aren’t perfect, they do provide increased protection from the current Covid variants.

Deaths

Covid deaths are exaggerated – but they aren’t.  What about those break-through infections, despite vaccination?  Vaccinated folks are much less likely to be hospitalized, or end up in an ICU, or dead.  The toll in the United States is averaging almost 2000 Covid deaths a day.  Of the 2000 dying from Covid, it’s estimated that more than 90% of them are unvaccinated.  

The unvaccinated are dying from Covid.  For the vast majority of those dying; they made a choice, “exercised their freedom”, and died as a result.  If that’s not the definition of…well, however you categorize that decision, it’s probably best not to go there.  

Just an aside.  Over 90% of Americans regularly wear their seatbelt in a car.  Statistics show that almost half the people killed in car accidents were not wearing their seat belts.  So of the more than 22,000 killed in car wrecks in 2019, the 10%  non-belt wearers made up half of the deaths.  The moral of the story, you have an astronomically better chance of surviving a wreck with a seat belt on –  you get it.

72% of Americans have at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.  Just like with seat belts, of the 2000 Americans dying each day from Covid, over 90% are unvaccinated.  That means that the vast majority of those who die from Covid are from the 18%.  The conclusion seems crystal clear.  You can refuse to wear a seatbelt.  You can refuse to get vaccinated.  I guess you are exercising your “freedom of choice”, to risk you own life.

Not Prepared

We weren’t ready for Omicron.   That’s not a lie, it’s true.  Why wasn’t the US government, read those “Democrats” in the Biden Administration, ready for Omicron?  Didn’t they realize that the next variation would be more infective (if less deadly)?  Why weren’t they ready with millions (or billions) of tests?

The answer to that is simple. They can’t solve a problem that they don’t know about.  It was Thanksgiving, less than two months ago, that the newest variant was detected in South Africa.  Now, with astonishing speed it is the dominant strain of Covid worldwide.  Before Thanksgiving, the Biden Administration strategy was sound:  vaccinate as many as possible.  With the Delta variant, vaccinations worked well, and kept people from getting Covid, or if they did, getting seriously ill.

But Omicron was more infective, so more people got sick.  It was different enough that the vaccines didn’t do as well in protecting from infection (through it still prevented serious disease).  If vaccinations aren’t the answer, then prevention of spread, through testing, is.  And that’s the pivot we are in now.  Vaccinations are still critically important, but testing will allow the economy to continue to boom.  Test negative, and get back to work.  Test negative, and go to school.  Or, test negative and go in the game.  All of that depends on the availability of tests. And they are coming.

Schools

Teachers are looking for excuses to stay home.  We hear national “commentators” condemning teachers, in Chicago and Cleveland and now in Columbus.  Teachers are concerned that the Omicron variant is so pervasive, that full classrooms will simply speed infection.  Most schools are at full capacity.  Mask mandates were dropped, either because of vaccinations, or because of the community threats in the Board meetings.  And, of course, we don’t test either the teachers of the children. So teachers are faced with classrooms literally full of infection.

Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot, herself sick with Covid, basically called the Chicago teachers cowards for not “doing their civic duty” and teaching in their classrooms.  I get the costs:  if schools aren’t in session, kids aren’t learning (even online), and more importantly, parents aren’t working.  They are at home with their kids.  No one is pretending that online teaching is a comparable experience to being in the classroom, but the real issue is childcare.

But how many teachers are in schools that are decades old, with poor ventilation, in packed classrooms?  In spite of the billions of dollars in Covid aid, a 1960’s building is still a 1960’s building.  Teachers, especially in the big cities, have a legitimate grievance.  And, unlike the universities, no one is being tested at the door to the school house. They are just being dropped into an “Omicron stew”.  

I’ll Do Me

You do you, I’ll do me, it doesn’t matter. But one problem:  your choice impacts others.  Our hospitals are filled with Covid patients, the vast majority of them unvaccinated. So filled, that it impacts care of “regular” emergency patients – heart attacks, strokes, accidents, even those who didn’t wear their seatbelts.  And others who are having “elective” surgery, can’t.  Those are postponed, waiting for a more “appropriate” time.  Let’s hope your heart pacemaker can wait.

And there’s one other issue.  As Omicron rips through, it thrives and gets the opportunity to mutate.  That’s what “successful” viruses do.  So the more infection there is, the more opportunity for the “next” variation to appear – creating a whole new set of problems, just like Omicron did.

 Many are ignoring the testing, ignoring the vaccines, ignoring the pandemic.  They live life without their “seatbelt” on, somehow assured that the laws of statistics will never confront them with Covid.  And for many, they’ll “get the ‘Vid’” and get over it.  Only a few (approaching a million) will go through the windshield and get smeared on the pavement.  Let’s hope they don’t take too many of the rest of us with them.

End of rant.