Pandemic Lenses

 

I recently re-watched a movie I hadn’t seen in a while called “In the Land of Women.” I won’t bore you with the plot, but in one sequence in the film, the male protagonist accompanies a teenage girl to a high school party at her friend’s house. The kids were packed into a small space like sardines; most couldn’t even sit down. SUPERSPREADER was the first thought that came to mind.

Now, that word just didn’t exist, at least in common use, when this movie was released in 2007, and when I first saw it, I wasn’t thinking of cootie transmission. Now, of course, it’s a thing. The movie isn’t bad, by the way, and I recommend it, even though most critics panned it.

This is a clear example, though, of how COVID has changed the way we look at things – and other people. I personally hate the blame game. If someone tests positive for the Omicron variant, they will probably blame it on their Aunt Minnie, who had the sniffles during a recent visit. Because we don’t have much of a testing and tracing system, folks do their own amateur tracing.

The fact is, vaccines do a great job of keeping many of us out of hospitals. But they don’t keep us from getting the disease. Omicron blew down those doors long ago, and in some places, one in three people has it. If you look at the New York Times color chart of US disease hot spots, there are no colors anymore. The entire map of the United States is black. So, unless you live in a 1960s bomb shelter, you could get  it from almost anyone.

It seems a little silly to me that they do constant news stories about which athlete or movie star or member of Congress has tested positive. There is no reason to gasp anymore when we hear these accounts.

Nobody “deserves” to get COVID. Certainly, small children don’t, and there is yet no vaccine for the youngest. As for adult anti-vaxxers, many will survive, but could face big medical bills, for those of you into karma.

Is there any good news here? According to Mike’s Unscientific Virology Institute, or MUVI, Omicron is going to run out of gas in the US, as we will reach herd immunity whether we recognize it or not. We will likely have the first true breather in two years. What happens after that? I don’t know – but I’ve never been very comfortable in crowds anyway. it will be nice, though,  when the sniffles are just the sniffles again.

 

Sizing COVID Up - and Down

The COVID numbers are staggering, with hundreds of thousands of new cases, especially Omicron. But let’s be clear about that little word “case.” You can have a case and not be sick at all.

The percentage of cases needing hospitalization is much lower than with previous COVID strains, but since Omicron is infecting so many people so fast, those who do require it are hitting the hospitals all at once, stressing the system out. Even with mild infections – or fear of them – many are staying home. Nobody has to order any lockdowns – we seem to be locking ourselves down this time just f

If we look at the graphs, we see that while steep rises in COVID cases are scary, they are usually followed by almost equally steep – meaning rapid – declines on the other side of the peak. This is happening in South Africa now, and we will likely peak here in the US in relatively short order. There are just more of us for the disease to go through here.

It will sound cruel to say this, but no matter the numbers, it’s my belief that COVID is one of nature’s ways of thinning the herd, and we are just another herd of mammals. But Mother Nature is often cruel, and there is much evidence of that way beyond this pestilence. “Cruel” is a judgment word, and She doesn’t care a jot about judgment. What’s important is how we respond to this challenge.

Rain is a natural occurrence, but just because it’s raining, we are not obligated to stand outside and get wet. We humans are smarter than that, despite many recent indications to the contrary. Could it be that Omicron seems less severe because vaccines and boosters actually work, keeping most infected people out of the emergency room?

The big question is, when will it all be over? The Spanish Flu ended, as most of these plagues do, but “over” is not a bright line. As some observers have said, there may be two “overs” – the first when COVID ends, or is at least declared officially under control, and the second when it is “over” for us socially and emotionally. We may foresee an explosion of travel, commerce, and mask-burning parties, but then again, we have developed a lot of new behaviors over these years, and it may take time to let some of them go.

Some of us will gingerly put our toes in the water before jumping back into the pool.  But the day will come when we can watch a full hour of cable news without hearing the C word. For that, I can’t wait!

Let It Go

The time has come to let the Build Back Better bill go. It just isn’t going to happen in its present form.

With all of its good intentions and focus on gaps that need filling and things that need doing, it’s just too big, and that is its critical flaw. The complaint is made that there is too much focus on the number and that not enough has been done to sell the elements of BBB. But the number, in trillions, is the dominant note, and it’s just too much for many legislators to swallow. Maybe smaller bites - selected elements as standalone bills - would fare better.

The number issue, though, reminds us that this situation is all about math. Math is beautiful sometimes, cruel at others, but it has no political party, it just IS. The Democrats can complain that one or two of their number in the Senate are spoilers, but the shoe could just as easily be on the other foot – and has been. Remember how John McCain cast the final deciding vote that saved Obamacare from repeal?

Now it’s true that the current legislative math is apparently based on faulty formulas embedded in the Senate rules. These rules are either undemocratic or useful, depending on your point of view, but they are what they are until they’re changed. The loss of BBB, if that’s what happens here, is not totally because the Democratic Party failed, or because Joe Manchin is a squirrel. The math was simply against it.

There is no shame in shifting priorities. President Biden’s decision to focus on voting rights is an effort to change many faulty formulas related to elections. That may seem like an impossible task too. But this is where it has to start: changing the math in Congress and in state houses.

I personally am getting tired of hearing that the Democrats are going to lose in 2022 and 2024. It’s like deciding which team will win the World Series or the Super Bowl, or which horse will win the Kentucky Derby. We can say that future Republican wins are more likely, based on historical voting patterns or faulty rules. But as Yogi used to say – the original one, not the cartoon character – it ain’t over till it’s over, and in the case of elections, the game has barely begun. Sometimes underdogs beat impossible odds. So-called sure winners can have bad days. And as I often say, the next Civil War will be fought at the ballot box, and that’s exactly how seriously the fight has to be taken.