<
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/10/31/Physicist-COVID-Seriously-Enough/>
"If you think the COVID pandemic is done and ever-evolving variants pose no
significant threat, consider these two realities.
The first is a recent U.S. study published in the
Journal of the American
Medical Association. It tracked 150 million workers and their absences in the
workplace in the United States since the end of the so-called public health
emergency in 2023.
Its central conclusion: “Health-related absences from work continued to track
COVID-19 circulation and were 12.9 per cent higher in the post-pandemic period
compared with before the pandemic (140,000 monthly absences).” Absences were
highest in occupations with the greatest exposure to the public.
The study added that continuing circulation of COVID variants has created “a
new year-round baseline for work absences” that amounts to adding an additional
flu-like season in the workplace.
Reality No. 2: excess deaths. That’s the level of mortality above what it was
before the pandemic. This metric has not returned to normal and remains
significantly elevated.
Just last month Swiss Re, a global insurance firm that analyzes mortality risk
by forecasting future life expectancy trends, pegged that number of excess
deaths at two per cent above the pre-pandemic annual mortality rate. When you
extrapolate that number to North America’s population of 617 million, that
works out to be 120,000 unanticipated dead people per year. That’s roughly the
equivalent of two fully loaded standard commercial jets crashing and killing
everyone aboard every day.
Last month Neil Sprackling, a CEO with Swiss Re, cited long COVID as a
significant factor contributing to that two per cent jump in excess deaths,
particularly in people over the age of 65. He also projected that this excess
mortality could last until 2030, or longer.
These two realities underscore a fact that is scarcely mentioned in the media
and has become politically unpopular to say. Nearly six years after the arrival
of the COVID pandemic, the virus continues to undermine public health, rattle
politics and unsettle the economy.
This state of affairs remains an abiding concern to Yaneer Bar-Yam, a
complexity scientist and one of the founders of the World Health Network, a
sort of people’s version of the World Health Organization dedicated to
protecting health through community action. The U.S. physicist has been
studying and fighting the dynamics of pandemics from Ebola to COVID for 15
years."
Via Violet Blue’s
Threat Model - Covid: November 6, 2025
https://www.patreon.com/posts/covid-november-6-142954399
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
