Ignoring the realities of COVID

[firecat]

The Case for Wearing Masks Forever by Emma Green for The New Yorker

The title is clickbait but the article is interesting. It’s about the organization https://peoplescdc.org/ which argues that the sudden shift to “the pandemic is over” is bullshit, and provides alternative analysis of the data.

the People’s C.D.C. [is] a ragtag coalition of academics, doctors, activists, and artists who…have made it their mission to distribute information about the pandemic—what they see as real information
….
“the C.D.C.’s data and guidelines have been distorted by powerful forces with vested interests in keeping people at work.”
…
The People’s C.D.C. strongly supports mask mandates… arguing that “the vaccine-only strategy promoted by the CDC is insufficient.” The group has noted that resistance to masks is most common among white people.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I really appreciate them. I don't know what the balance is between feasibility and survival as a species—I mask now, when it's unpopular and I'm a tiny minority, but I can't imagine functioning like this forever. But. No one has the will to end this. And public health authorities can no longer be trusted.

[conuly]

Well... if it's just covid, we presumably could survive it as a species the same way we survived the plague - by enduring generations of misery and death until we eventually evolved a modicum of resistance and also a rudimentary understanding of hygiene.

Though with the antibiotic shortages I'm actually more worried about strep right now.

[sabotabby]

I'm concerned about the double punch of weakened immune systems from covid + strep. It's killed multiple kids here.

But yeah, short lives of misery and death is kind of the default for our species.

[conuly]

Mmm.

Strep is, of course, the bacteria ultimately responsible for scarlet fever. What's *really weird* is that scarlet fever mysteriously became a lot less serious sometime in the mid-20th century and we actually don't know why.

That's always been a little concerning in the back of my mind since I found it out (after the kids got scarlet fever for the first time) and now I'm wondering if our lack of understanding for why that happened has come back to bite us.

[sabotabby]

Well, in grim Today I Learned news...

I had no idea.

[firecat]

I have no doubt the species will survive. I just have this funny notion that if we can figure out how to diminish suffering we should act on it. Of course, then there’s the problem of defining suffering.