<
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/newsletter/2024-01-06/opinion-newsletter-covid-still-here-mask-biden-opinion>
"Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Jan.6, 2024. Let’s look
back at the week in Opinion.
Readers who bristled at my assertion roughly a year ago — when the term
“post-pandemic” was used a lot more cautiously than it is now — that we should
still be masking really won’t like this: We should still be wearing masks
indoors, because the COVID-19 pandemic still rages. And, as a physician writing
on
The Times’ op-ed page makes clear, the Biden administration isn’t helping.
The numbers of new infections and hospital admissions are sobering: Wastewater
data indicate that the JN.1 variant of COVID-19 is infecting about 2 million
Americans every day, making this surge second in prevalence only to the Omicron
wave that hit in 2021 and 2022. Thanks to vaccines, the Omicron peak was less
deadly than the wave that hit in late 2020 and early 2021, when mask mandates
and social distancing were still our primary weapons against COVID-19 and
inoculation was only beginning.
Even though the Omicron wave for most people marks the beginning of the “living
with this disease” phase of COVID — where we forgo mitigation and accept the
risks of infection by a survivable virus — large groups of people fared worse
than ever. You know who did really poorly? Cancer patients, who died at a
higher rate than during any previous surge. With compromised immune systems,
they benefit more from mitigation measures such as masking than vaccination,
but by the time Omicron rolled around many of us had grown tired of covering
our faces and keeping our distance.
For most people, the price of an Omicron infection was mild illness and
possibly long COVID; for cancer patients, it was a higher likelihood of dying.
As for long COVID — when crippling symptoms persist for months or even years
after infection — it’s hard to quantify the price to society from millions of
people walking around with brain fog and fatigue for interminable periods, not
to mention the increased risk of heart disease and stroke long after infection.
Deciding to live with COVID doesn’t mean any of this goes away, if by “living
with COVID” you mean refusing to wear a high-quality mask."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: January 11, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-96291169
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
