COVID and fear: just wondering…
…now that they have successfully taken away so many liberties because of COVID-fear, what would be the plan if a more lethal pandemic came down the pike? It’s a rhetorical question, because we all know the answer: take away even more.
COVID is a nasty illness, and people die. But as bad as it is, it doesn’t even begin to compare to the illnesses of yesteryear. I’ve written about that many times before, so I won’t go into it again here except to quote one of the first things I ever wrote about COVID:
It’s a wonderful thing that the incidence of most of those diseases has been remarkably reduced. Wonderful, fabulous, a great reduction in human suffering. But there’s been a cost, too, and it’s the increasing fragility of our psyches’ ability to withstand and endure even the prospect of an increase in disease and mortality that mirrors what my generation experienced…
There were so many illnesses around all the time that there was no way to escape. You might say we were fatalistic, you might say we were resigned, you might say we were stupid, you might say we assumed the risk, or you might say we understood that the drawbacks of that sort of reaction were immense as well.
Of course, I wasn’t around in 1918. I wasn’t around when smallpox and tuberculosis or the Black Death killed far far more of the people on earth than any of the plagues of my lifetime have come close to killing. I cannot even imagine how terrible those things were; I don’t even want to imagine. And I doubt that people took them in stride at all. And I think a good part of the dread and fear now is that in the back of our minds – or for some people, even the front of our minds – we know that such catastrophes are still possible. Human beings know they are intensely vulnerable.
But COVID-19 is not shaping up to be that sort of event, and there’s no reason to think it will be. However, although many measures are prudent – handwashing, increased testing, hospital preparedness, some measure of social distancing at least for a while – the degree of fear I see and hear is far greater than anything I can recall in my lifetime around a medical event.
That fear has been encouraged. What’s the endgame? As commenter Brian Lovely writes:
Covid is never going away — vaccine or no, it will always be out there, because you can’t vaccinate everyone with 100% success and 100% permanency. So the at-risk types (like my ex) can claim “OMG you’re trying to kill us” forever. So when do we get to stop and get our lives back?
It’s feeling like the answer is “never”, barring a revolution.
Actually, I’m not sure that COVID isn’t ever going away. If you vaccinate enough people with enough efficacy, you make such a large percentage of the population immune that the disease effectively (if not completely) disappears. But the point is the same, because it doesn’t have to be COVID that drives the assault on liberty. It can be any disease that we’re unaccustomed to – and certainly, other new diseases will arise.
Or it can even be something other than a disease. The m.o. is the same: control through fear.
The long awaited big and randomized Danish mask study released today. Masks don’t work.
I got into it on Twitter with the University of Nebraska Medicine. They won’t back down. I called them the Ministry of Truth. 2+2=5. They continue with their doublespeak.
I take no pleasure in this (other than the fact that I’m a Creighton grad), but this is really astounding. UNMC won’t tell the truth even when the numbers are out there for everyone to see.
I’m not unreasonable about this. Stay out of confined and congested places and practice social distancing. But masks are nearly worthless. Admit it! But they can’t. They are all too invested in the religion of masks.
UNMC gave me the old appeal to authority fallacy. “All of our doctors and scientists agree….”
Wash hands too.
Cornhead, if you read the actual paper they hedge their bets a bit, though I wonder if they were under pressure like the climate science side….you must in your paper admit global warming is real even though your data casts doubt. In this paper they show that the difference between the mask and control groups is statistically negligible, but then they say that the data MAY indicate a 20% reduction for the mask group just because there was a difference.
On fear and politicians: I’m sure the Harris administration will continue lockdowns and masking for at least 2-4 more years. After all, even with a vaccine “We must protect the 1% who are still vulnerable!!!” Given the fear and compliance I see in the majority of the population here in CT, I doubt there will be any outcry against it.
We are very used to seeing masked people whenever we see street scenes from the Orient. I was sure that is our destiny when the lockdowns began, and I am even more convinced now. If you are a regular subway rider in NYC why would you ever not wear a mask now? Walking at the intersection of State and Madison in Chicago during rush hour? Flying on an airplane?
I think the trend in the Orient began with the first SARS outbreak in ’02, but I’m not sure. It seems like any news item featuring street scenes from China, Japan, South Korea… always had folks in masks. My granddaughters won’t remember a time in this country when that wasn’t also the case here.
A co-worker told me one of his great uncles was so embarrassed when he received his first social security check (from payments taken out of his own paychecks) that he refused it and sent it back to Uncle Sam, “return to sender.” He tried this a few more times until it was explained to him that the government would not take the money back. I think he simply kept the uncashed checks in a drawer until his death. There was a time when most Americans would have done the same.
Step by step we become subjects of the government.
The most chilling part of this whole medical disaster is that taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) + zinc (or HCQ + zinc + azithromycin (AZ)) would likely have enabled public health services to control this.
And if one believes that HCQ is toxic (in spite of much experience to the contrary—or because it was suggested by Donald Trump), then it could easily have been replaced with quercetin.
This should have been done immediately.
But then I suppose a global crisis could have been averted, hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved (not to mention that the economy would have continued to expand by leaps and bounds), and Trump could not have been blamed for any of it. In fact, he would have touted his suggestion as being a lifesaver, which it is.
Can’t have that, though.
Now one would think that the media has enough confidence in itself and its talent for inventiveness and prevarication, manipulation and mud-slinging that they could easily have concocted all kinds of other disasters for which to blame him. I mean, what’s global warning for anyway?
But it was not to be.
And we see with the behavior of psychopathic state governors and municipal mayors and governing bodies that it was CRUCIAL to ensure that this crisis took off and that Trump could be blamed for it, with the media eagerly piling on, i.e., doing what they do best.
And they continue to do it….
Rufus T. Firefly:
My father, who was a lawyer, was very incensed when lawyers first began to advertise. Unprofessional behavior.
This will go on through 2022 so they can pull the same stunts with that election and consolidate power. The Republicans sans Trump appear to be reverting to Democrat lite. Looking at the sad events from yesterday in MI. The KKK party has dropped their masks and put on their robes and riding again.
But the resistance is rising. We are in the process of getting a recall on Whitmer. I hope we do the same with the other Soros backed Democracy Initiative supporters. The Democrats just took over the majority in the Supreme Court too. The people have spoken and now we are going to get it good and hard.
I never said this before but I will say to anyone that Biden is not my president. I will resist everything he and his party does. Just like the Democrats said about Bush and Trump. And I will shout the U of Michigan team name at the top of my lungs. WOLVERINES!!!!!
Rufus: “There was a time when most Americans would have [not accepted their social security check].”
Hindsight shows this to be an inaccurate assessment of human beings, even those of the American persuasion. The first few income tax collectors were sent home in body bags yet we now have standard payroll deductions. That some people adhere to principles of liberty and self-reliance means absolutely nothing in the medium and long terms, since most people – past and present – do not, given sufficient incentive. Apologies for the nitpick, and I wish I could agree.
Average annual flu deaths in the US the last 10 years – 40K a year.
We have a flu vaccine.
Number of Covid deaths in the US this year [so far] – 248K
We have not distributed a Covid vaccine yet.
And don’t forget hospitalizations. I have friends who work in hospitals and it’s not pretty at the moment.
I think once the vaccines roll out we will definitely begin to get back to normal. But it will still not be normal normal for maybe years.
Re the Danish study. Other experts were unconvinced. The incidence of infections in Denmark was lower than it is today in many places, meaning the effectiveness of masks for wearers may have been harder to detect, they noted.
Look to South Korea as an example of success. Not only masks and social distancing but contact tracing so people know who is sick and where. They did not close their economy. Many Americans are wary of contact tracing and its invasion of privacy. Except that almost all Americans have cell phones and are most definitely ‘on the grid’ and tracked hourly. The government already has the info on what we do. Let them use it.
neo,
My father was also an attorney and he was very opposed to his firm advertising anywhere. He was even opposed to an ad in the phone book but he grudgingly went along with it. He also despised lawyers who called themselves doctor (doctorate of jurisprudence) and was very pleased when I think it was the ABA moved to discourage this practice.
I’m sure Dr Jill Biden disagreed with that though.
Dennis Prager has been consistently correct on this from the beginning. He made the point that it is hard for government to do some unprecedented thing (lockdown) the first time but much easier the second, third, fourth time, etc. That is now being proven correct and I fear will be in the future for all kinds of things like climate change and who knows what else.
It’s a nasty illness and people die? That is almost every virus for a certain sector of the population. This virus has been blown up precisely to infringe on our rights.
Montage —
South Korea had a second wave and is working on a third. So no, they didn’t really succeed in controlling the disease.
Now, it is true that they have a low deaths/million rate, but all the East Asian nations have a low rate, and they didn’t all have the same contact tracing that South Korea did, so I think that means something else is going on.
I think it’s very possible that the strain in East Asia just isn’t as deadly as the one that hit Europe. (Which also would predict why the US west coast fatalities aren’t as bad as the US east coast.)
Montage:
The flu is not COVID-19, but not much worse for most. COVID-19 is new though, forgot that? I’ll take you predictions with as much credence as any progressive’s predictions (none). Your modelers predicted millions of fatalities in the US IIRC.
Look to Sweden for success, forgot them?
I turned off those nanny state functions on my cell phone, but you are good with Nurse Ratched. Enjoy your lockdown under Emperor Nuisance.
Hospitals are where they treat sick people, they have never been “pretty” places.
The moralizing and lecturing from healthcare workers is beginning to get to me. I heard a commercial on the radio this morning with a nurse going on and on and crying(literally) about how we all need to listen to them and so on. Yes, I agree that they have a tough job right now in some places but that is always true and they lack perspective on the bigger picture.
We should not be making Covid response policy solely based on emergency room healthcare workers any more than we should make gun policy solely based on emergency room healthcare workers. They are seeing only a slice of the world right now. They aren’t crying about the man who missed his prostate cancer screening or the woman who missed her mammogram because of the cancellation of so many cancer screenings nor are they crying about the children whose educations and emotional well beings have been greatly harmed by the cancellation (online learning is NOT school) of school for what is going to be over a year.
How our leaders and too many of the citizenry are swayed by appeals to emotion is a sad sign of the decline of our society.
See: https://laurencejarvikonline.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-grinch-who-stole-thanksgiving-and.html
I’m not convinced the various vaccines are going to be the panacea everyone is anticipating. Michelle Malkin’s column today highlights a fear I have, that corners have and will be cut in getting a vaccine out.
https://www.creators.com/read/michelle-malkin
Griffin:
Not to mention that ER doctors and nurses knew what they were getting into when they signed up for it. It’s not like they were drafted and then oh the horror — ERs are always crazy, and get overloaded every Saturday night and every flu season.
It pays do a terrible job … at least in NY it does.
Disgusting … especially with all that is going on.
Now of course this was passed in 2019 but I’d give odds that Cuomo will take the money. Like he needs it!
The most chilling part of this whole medical disaster is that taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) + zinc (or HCQ + zinc + azithromycin (AZ)) would likely have enabled public health services to control this.
My wife had it in June. Her tests were negative but she had loss of taste and smell and other symptoms. She has chronic lung trouble but was in the hospital only 5 days because she takes HCQ for rheumatoid arthritis. I did not get it, probably because I was taking HCQ too. She is 75 and I am 82.
Very glad to hear that excellent news, Mike. With regard to your wife, I hope she was able to recover fully. (Sorry that she had it to begin with, of course.)
As far as I understand this issue, though, HCQ is NOT all that effective UNLESS taken TOGETHER with zinc and AZ (though some say at least zinc). Is this what she—and you—did?
That is, it’s the combination that’s the key.
Here’s a high-irony link that may have fallen under the radar (since the person who recovered using a HCQ cocktail was a Democratic Party Councilman in NYC):
https://nypost.com/2020/08/08/nyc-councilman-credits-hydroxychloroquine-for-covid-19-recovery/
Related (FWIW):
“Mortality dropped 8-fold with use of those two drugs’:
Yale Professor Harvey Risch and Dr. Vladimir Zelenko challenge assumptions of health officials with science, facts, and evidence.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/288940
I find the new era of fear, to be most disturbing. We must now live in fear of things that are not even happening. There is no climate change. During the Medieval Warm Period, when grapes were growing in Scotland, there was no Arctic Ice Cap. But we are to fear Climate Change, because it makes money, and generates power over others, for some people.
We are to fear COVID, but we don’t even know how many people have had it, not how many died, as most who died had comorbidities. This is something I am a very cynical Badger about. This whole thing smells to high heaven.
Related – a very recent study currently making the rounds is that “mouthwashes containing at least 0.07% cetypyridinium chloride (CPC) were able to kill the coronavirus”:
https://disrn.com/news/study-finds-mouthwash-can-kill-coronavirus-in-30-seconds
}}} It’s feeling like the answer is “never”, barring a revolution.
We are within 5y — possibly ONE year — of a French Revolution.
It will not be pretty.
And will the American Republic be restored, or… American Empire?
It all depends on those who remain. We do see some positive signs in the post-911 kids, who I hope and believe will turn the term “Millennial” and “Gen Z” into curse words…
Thirteen days ago, I started a fever that lasted 3 days. After that, I had a cough. I checked my temps and O2 and emailed the info to my doctor. She recommended a cough syrup, stay home and continue updating her. She did not recommend a covid test because I was already getting better and she didn’t want to expose me to any active cases. I’ll take the blood test in about a month.
If I had C19, I had a mild case. But, I’ve been taking supplements that may have helped. At least, that’s my story. I’ve been taking high dose of Vit D for a while (10,000iu/day but my levels get checked every 4 months or so). I take a general vitamin and Occuvite which should have given me enough zinc, but I added more zinc, quercetin, extra C, melatonin, and famotidine. All of these supplements are mentioned in various articles and on MedCram videos. This is a good link to keep handy – https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf
My doctor was concerned about the additional zinc, but I mentioned that my skin had greatly improved – my skin was softer, excema on my hands/feet and other cuts healed up. She did a bit of research and then told another patient with persistent skin issues to increase zinc and she also experienced rapid improvement. There is a lab test to measure zinc levels and I am still on the low side. So, that’s a positive side to this madness.
Griffin:
Yes, I recall my father going through the phone book yellow pages at “lawyers” and pointing derisively at each ad.
He was also very against billing by the hour. My father charged a fee for a service, and if you didn’t like his fee you could go elsewhere. He also had a sliding scale (in his head, anyway; I don’t think it was written down). If you were rich, he charged you more, and if you were poor, he charged you less.
From the link that Barry Mieslin @5:35pm provided:
Dr. Risch, “Hydroxychloroquine is an important component of that. It’s not the only one; there are other medications, as well. But the important thing is to be aggressive about treating early the people who need to be treated, and that does not seem to be happening. And so that’s what is the problem right now.”
Yep, that’s the problem. They don’t believe there are therapeutics. Therapeutics have been politicized. When Trump was cured with monoclinal anti-bodies I thought everyone would be joyous that there was a demonstrated effective therapeutic. Instead, crickets. I called the County Health Director’s office about this yesterday wanting to know if the monoclinal anti-bodies weren’t a bridge that would decrease hospitalizations and deaths until we can get the vaccine. They didn’t return my call. It’s like a conspiracy. No, there are no therapeutics. Anyone who says there are is spreading lies. So, shut up! It’s frustrating.
My wife and I both contracted it recently, don’t know how. We both lost sense of smell & taste and had coughs and cold-like symptoms. My wife had it worse than me, with severe back pain for a few days (apparently this is common, according to the tele-nurse); I wasn’t feeling 100% but felt well enough to keep on painting the house.
The point is, with advances in treatment and care, and recognizing that COVID-19 can be a serious affliction, why is it that we struggle to come to terms with this on a policy level? Obviously it has far lower fatality rates than past pandemics. Obviously there are sector demographics that require more intensive practical measures to keep them safe. Why are we spending so much time cooking the books on deaths where COVID is only a second or third order factor, or otherwise obscuring what should be straight-forward data collection, and trying to terrorize the general population into submission? Autocratic demands don’t work on behavioral terms – persuasion with good evidence does.
Our so-called policy leaders could do themselves a huge credibility favor by characterizing the people who are most at-risk and devoting their energies to keeping them safe, rather than these heavy-handed attempts to make political hay. The newly-release Danish study and others like it are proving the point.
In the case of Covid-19, fear isn’t just irrational, its anti-rational. By design of course.
I am Sparticus,
“The Democrats just took over the majority in the Supreme Court too.”
??? splain please. What have I missed?
Dunque on November 18, 2020 at 4:37 pm has a link to a Michelle Malkin article on vaccines which raises some questions.
One question is whether the antibodies your body produces in response to these vaccines will last for some substantial period of time. I have read one recent article where the author stated that for SARS-CoV-2, those people who have recovered in the March to April time frame still have a strong retention of antibodies.
The author also looked at the antibodies produced from the original SARS outbreak in 2003. The author claimed that this infection is as close to the current COVID-19 as a researcher can get, in virology terms, in an older outbreak. He claimed that those 17 year old antibodies were still perfectly strong.
Probably we need to worry more about SARS-CoV-2 mutations over the long term, rather than a diminution of the antibodies over time.
______
I’ll mention that my bias is that I intend to get a vaccine even though I crossed into retirement age not too long ago. If I was over 80, I would probably be more worried.
One of the many interesting things I’ve read recently about vaccines is the fact that many or most of them include a chemical called an adjuvant. This is apparently an old technique, though companies like Moderna have a new chemical composition they are using.
The purpose of the adjuvant is to amplify the antibody generation effect when exposing a person’s body to the core substance of the vaccine. So perhaps much less of the core vaccine is needed per dose.
But the actual medical action of the adjuvant is to induce an inflammatory response in the body complete with cytokine production. I wonder if it also induces a fever, since a modest fever is known to enhance the immune response. In rough terms the function of the adjuvant seems to be the opposite of a corticosteroid like dexamethasone which has become an effective treatment for COVID-19.
So I wonder if getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 around the same time as being vaccinated could be very bad combination. The antibodies won’t develop for 2 or more weeks. Maybe, we should be extremely careful to avoid potentially infecting contacts in the week before and the week after vaccination.
We could just trust in our healthcare professionals and their advice, but that doesn’t cut it for me. They will likely want all of us to get vaccinated with few to zero exceptions.
Aggie:
Glad you and your wife have recovered uneventfully.
TommyJay,
The great majority of the health care profession has demonstrated that their advice is worthless. Where that not so, the medical profession would be screaming for Dr. Fauci’s medical license to be revoked for medical malpractice. Instead, all we hear is the sound of crickets. Among others, the AMA, CDC, APA are as corrupt as the FBI, DOJ and IRS.
neo,
Your dad sounds like a stand up guy!
Rufus T. Firefly:
My father was formidable.
Neo:
Second Rufus T, Firefly’s comment. You seldom mention your father, our loss until now.
I’ve been contemplating something, particularly as I read the raving “Butbutbut Asia … and masks!” rejoinders to the Danish mask study. Does anyone know if other countries are running PCR tests at 40+ cycles?
Geoffrey Britain said
“I am Sparticus,
“The Democrats just took over the majority in the Supreme Court too.”
??? splain please. What have I missed?”
That threw me too, but I think he was talking about the Michigan S.C.
jack on November 18, 2020 at 4:49 pm said:
“It pays [to] do a terrible job … at least in NY it does….”
The question is not that $250K is so high for a public official responsible for executing the laws of a whole state, but that when university presidents are making $700K+ at largish institutions, medical specialists are making $500K, and other private sector corporate CEO’s are making multi-millions, just how high should/ could the salary levels of governors, presidents, et al. be to attract the true “Cincinatus” type “dictator” or executive, who is fully competent and able and willing to take on the job for 4 to 8 years and then return to the private sector, having completed his/her “public service”??
But instead we get the Biden (an Ryan?) like situations where someone completes law school and jumps right into “public service” without gaining any meaningful real world experience in running a business, meeting payroll, responding to legislation and regulations, tracking profit and loss, etc. Even AOC and Omar get re-elected – it is to weep.
Now that we know Covid-19 is *not* “certain death”, WHY are we quarantining healthy people? The whole idea of quarantine, as I understand it, is to keep the sick from infecting the healthy. Typhoid Mary comes to mind.
What justification does The State (at whatever level) have for interfering with our “right to assemble”, our “right to worship”, and our not-specifically-enumerated right to engage in normal commerce? To exercise our rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?
These B.S. restrictions are against the law. But, who has “standing” to sue, … and more important, who’s got the money?
I have seen some argue that the prevalence of the use of masks in Asia shows that this should be the new normal for the U.S. What is missing from this argument is that the use of masks there is not primarily for protection against pathogens. It is for protection against air pollution. China, in particular, suffers from the worst air pollution in the world.
A_Nonny_Mouse @ 4:51am,
You’ve summed it up succinctly and wisely. The fact that most of our States’ Governors do not understand this is beyond tragic. As someone who has lost his job because of this ignorance I can assure you their mishandling of this is having very real, very detrimental effects on many. I especially feel bad for High School students (especially those who were Seniors last year and this year) and the elderly who are forced to isolate; especially those who have died alone, or suffered through illnesses removed from family and loved ones.
“I have seen some argue that the prevalence of the use of masks in Asia shows that this should be the new normal for the U.S. What is missing from this argument is that the use of masks there is not primarily for protection against pathogens. It is for protection against air pollution. China, in particular, suffers from the worst air pollution in the world.”
Roy, I’ve mentioned this before: my nephew has worked in China, Taiwan, and the general Asian area for 20 years as a correspondent, mainly WSJ. He is fluent in Mandarin. He told us that the main reason that mask wearing is so prevalent there is for people to hide their facial expressions. It’s more of cultural thing about not letting emotions play out in public.
physicsguy, that’s one of the things that’s so irksome to me about the masks! – I feel that I use my face to communicate often, and if I can’t do that, except maybe with the eyes (as it were, disembodied or disconnected from the rest of my face), I feel socially kneecapped, even dehumanized. It’s part of my intermittent resentment against our authorities that I have to fight, thinking that they want us to live like East Asians with whatever social motivations they have, and they don’t like to show emotion most of the time anyway.
Philip Sells on November 19, 2020 at 8:41 am said:
Learn how to use hand and body language then.
Wave. Thumbs up. Be like a kid.
physicsguy —
Your nephew says “that the main reason that mask wearing is so prevalent there is for people to hide their facial expressions. It’s more of cultural thing about not letting emotions play out in public.”
It is likely more complex than just culture.
Every emotion comes with genetic loading. And the Minnesota Twins Raised Apart study shows that conformism is a human emotion and that East Asians rate highest in this heritable emotion set.
Larger lesson: some cultural stereotypes do have a foundation in genes.
========
Bryan Lovely on November 18, 2020 at 4:09 pm said:
Montage —
South Korea had a second wave and is working on a third. So no, they didn’t really succeed in controlling the disease…
==========
Perhaps in S Korea, Bryan.
But this Saturday night walk through of Tokyo’s Red Light district with mid November (Third wave?) video compared to the same night video in mid April (First wave), shows not far from normal night life in Japan!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BbXPhPnuWU
No lockdowns; only official “suggestions” which people tend to obey. Open for business and vastly far fewer deaths. Why?
This is very easy to eradicate infection with coefficient of transmission only marginally higher than 1. To achieve herd immunity having only 25% of the population immune would do the trick. Remember, there are NO new cases of COVID in China, of all places!
I have to say one thing about this… if the Republic survives through the next 10 years after this blatant election theft — if it reforms after the French Revolution I personally expect to see happen — there is going to be an entire generation of kids raised to seriously question authority at the heart of it. Gen-9 (after 911) may not be conservative, but they are likely to be fucking damned as libertarian as any generation in a century…
If there is any chance that the Ameri-french Revolution is not to be followed by an American Empire but a new American Republic, it’ll be because those kids rose to the challenge.