<
https://newrepublic.com/article/177849/biden-democrats-covid-pandemic-2024>
"My holiday experience probably resembled that of many others: waiting in line
at the airport, listening to the hacks of people coughing all around me, mostly
unmasked. The cognitive dissonance feels hard to overstate. We are still
officially in a pandemic, even now, four years since the novel coronavirus
first emerged. We know that Covid-19 is airborne and that wearing a mask is the
most effective way to prevent airborne particles from being transmitted. We
know that 1,600 people a week are currently dying from Covid-19 (and more than
2,000 last week), and that it’s no ordinary flu, with tens of millions of
Americans and counting experiencing long-term debilitating symptoms.
Despite all we could have learned about how a broken system left us vulnerable
to this virus, despite the clear fixes that might protect us against future
calamity, and despite the sense of solidarity toward helping others stay well
that accompanied the early pandemic, it feels as though we’ve learned nothing
from the experience.
The dissonance perhaps hits harder for me, because I’ve struggled with long
Covid symptoms for over three and a half years, as I first recounted in
The
New Republic in June 2020, in an article naïvely titled, “Will My Long Covid
Symptoms Ever End?” Today, symptoms like exercise intolerance, tingling,
circulation problems, overactive allergic responses, and shortness of breath
have persisted. Though I’m able to manage most of my symptoms through a
combination of about 15 daily medications and supplements, physical therapy,
and avoiding strenuous activities, my quality of life and ability to work have
diminished greatly. (And I’m far better off than some long Covid patients, who
are bedbound.) I don’t have the luxury of ignoring Covid, as much of society
has, following the lead of the Biden administration, which pledged to take a
different approach than his predecessor did.
This didn’t have to be an all-or-nothing choice. By framing Covid precautions
as either “lockdown” or “a free for all,” the Biden administration has missed
an opportunity to better protect its citizens and send clearer messages around
Covid and the risk of long Covid, and promote the kind of commonsense
mitigations that create no significant disruptions to “normal” life. With the
2024 election coming up, it must do better."
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
