WH: We Can No Longer Contain COVID; Vaccination The Only Option Left
The time to start treating COVID with a bit more respect is upon us. Here's how not to panic during the third wave.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. This is a line you have probably heard with regards to events overseas, but rarely — perhaps — with regards to world health.
CNBC reports today that the White House is warning Americans that the COVID-19 pandemic is effectively beyond the boundaries of the government’s ability to contain the disease:
The U.S. reported an all-time high single-day spike in cases on Friday, when the country reported 83,757 new cases, according to Hopkins data. Health officials have warned for months that cases would likely rise as parts of the country entered the fall and winter. That’s largely because people are spending more time indoors, where the virus can spread more easily. Epidemiologists also say the virus may be able to spread more easily in colder, drier air.
The latest COVID-19 threat matrix nationwide is not positive at all. With cooler temperatures comes more people indoors and the conditions which most coronaviruses (common colds) thrive — just in time for flu season.
In Virginia, the conditions on the ground are not at all positive. We are perhaps one week behind the rest of the country, and given that we are now above R(1) and have been consistently since the end of September, it raises questions as to why Governor Ralph Northam (D) and other state governors have refused to re-enact Phase 2 conditions just before the November elections.
Oh wait. November elections. Now I get it.
So we’re playing politics with the pandemic (again) in order to not jeopardize the outcome of the elections. Powers-that-be will claim otherwise after the election; powers-that-aren’t will claim this was the case from the get-go. C’est la vie…
Now I am not trying to scare a soul. Vice President Mike Pence (R) was spot on during the vice presidential debate vs. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) that the fact of the matter is the Trump administration prevented the worst case scenario of 2.2 million deaths.
Instead, we have the still-lamentable toll of 220,000 American deaths. Critics will claim that the flu still kills 80,000 during a flu season, yet one should be reminded that we are still in the middle of COVID season, and it still has killed 220,000 Americans.
Virginians should not be afraid of COVID-19, but we should still treat this with a great deal of respect. Think of it as a copperhead — you don’t have to be afraid of them, but you should still give them the distance they deserve.
Debunking the “only the death rate matters” argument should be easy enough. Antifa employed that very same argument to justify the burning of three dozen US cities nationwide. Non-lethal doesn’t mean non-violent.
While better treatments using steroids has driven down 8% case fatality ratios (CFRs) down to 2%, this still does not remove the fact that 10-15% of all cases still leave behind long-term effects. Death isn’t the only consequence of disease; this is not a binary switch after all.
The problem, of course, is this low-brow gnosticism over whether masks “work” — as if masks as well are an either/or proposition.
Facts are, even N95s only mitigate 95% of all particles… but you’d probably appreciate it if your dentist was wearing a mask rather than saying “masks don’t work” as you examined his lunch while the doctor is drilling holes in your teeth.
Mitigation is the entire ballgame, folks. Anything that drives the R(0) to below 1 is a positive good; anything that keeps it above 1 harms the economy, harms our businesses, and rolls the dice on whether someone else gets the disease and spreads it to someone who may not recover.
Even then, the fact that Fauci et al. effectively lied to the American public about the efficacy of masks in order to shepherd supplies of N95s remains an odious mark on his handling of the crisis. As Matthew Walther noted in The Week back in April 2020:
We must put an end to the idea that the best way to get through this crisis is to say things we know are not true in the hope of getting people to behave a certain way. This means not saying masks are useless when what you really mean is, "Masks are in short supply, please consider before you start hoarding them whether you really need them at present and if so how many."
Ditto the painfully relentless attempts to give young people the impression that they are horribly likely to die from the new virus. Even in Italy, the country with the worst measured fatality rate so far, around 86 percent of all the deceased have been aged 70 or older, and 50 percent were at least 80. We do not need to zero in on statistical anomalies or otherwise engage in scaremongering.
It should be enough to say, "Even though you are very unlikely to die from coronavirus, remember that you could contract the disease and spread it to more vulnerable people without even experiencing symptoms, so please don't revel with 5000 strangers at the beach and then run home to give Grandma a hug."
This is how grown-ups talk to one another.
Unfortunately, this is not how most talking heads much less politicians have been discussing the current pandemic.
The endgame, of course, is a term that we have all heard before: herd immunity. There are many ways to get there. One could simply let a disease run rampant, but that comes at the cost of a great deal of dead Americans (see: Sweden). One could generate a vaccine, but that takes time. Masks are a part of herd immunity if they mitigate the disease, making it harder for communicable persons to spread illness. Social distancing is part of that equation.
For a quick video on how this works? Check this out:
Of course, one means of achieving herd immunity is to chain everyone up in their basements for four weeks and let the sick ones die off. Seems rather Malthusian… and of course, it’s the sort of thing that people living in fear might hyperbolically throw at folks who choose to live in realism.
The flip side to all of this is that part of life requires living. Going about our normal routines was precisely how London lived through the Battle of the Blitz in 1940, how Americans coped with 9/11 (despite the recession), and how most of us endure personal crisis.
But if you were to invent a low-cost, non-invasive method of getting people back to work and functioning in society? One that required little sacrifice beyond annoyance? One that would allow you to shop, dine, travel, attend church and get to work?
There is no more conservative and realist solution than a simple $3 mask.
In the meantime, the chicken-little approach to this pandemic is no solution at all. COVID-19 is not a flu; health care professionals are not faking this pandemic. Nor is outright panic any sort of solution. Asking people to social distance and stay at home works for so long, but people need to live, work, and function in society.
At some point, objections breed obstinacy. But making COVID run the obstacle course of masks, distancing, fewer opportunities for contact and common sense seems like the sensible thing to do. Some like to flout the rules and freeload… but that’s how we are where we are now.
Yet bear this in mind. One really should have a clear understanding as to how colds, flus, and COVID-19 spread — primarily through asymptomatic carriers who are sick and either do not know it or don’t yet know it.
Most will be fine; some will not. But if they are wearing masks? Even if they are mitigating that spread by 70% or even 50%? That plus distancing plus frequency of contact stacks up.
Mitigation is the most charitable act one could perform. Wearing a mask is the easiest way to mitigate the spread of contagious disease.
I’ll leave you with one last thought from the pages of Lapham’s Quarterly last edition regarding a short novel of a pandemic in Venice. The scene is set where the pandemic has arrived, yet has not engulfed the trading city:
At the beginning of June, the pesthouse of the Ospedale Civico had quietly filled…and a frightfully active commerce was kept up between the wharf of the Fondamenta Nuove and San Michele, the burial island. But there was the fear of a general drop in prosperity. The recently opened art exhibit in the public gardens was to be considered, along with the heavy losses that in case of panic or unfavorable rumors would threaten business, the hotels, the entire elaborate system for exploiting foreigners—and as these considerations evidently carried more weight than love of truth or respect for international agreements, the city authorities upheld obstinately their policy of silence and denial. The chief health officer had resigned from his post in indignation and been promptly replaced by a more tractable personality.
If this sounds familiar to the present day? That’s because there is nothing new under this sun. Wear a mask, do what you have to do, be aware of your surroundings and be sensible about what you do. Above all else, be an adult and not a freeloader about this one.
Freeloading isn’t conservatism. Leaning back into the hard work of others isn’t a conservative play. Conservatives by and large believe in self-reliance and self-sufficiency and have little respect for freeloading under any circumstances.
True, this doesn’t mean we tolerate panic… but it doesn’t mean we tolerate the nonchalance of demagogues, either. Those voices hurt people, and we should be brave enough — bold enough — to say as such.
Remember the example of the Venetians. They too pretended, wondered about the economy, and chose to ignore rather than respect the reality that was staring them right in the face. Is that who we are?
Those who forget history are indeed doomed to repeat it.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.