If you’re hoping to go back to normal, it’s not going to happen. The normal of November 2019, before SARS-CoV-2 got a foothold in the human population, will not return. There will be a time when COVID-19 is no longer one of the top causes of death in the United States and a primary topic of concern around the world. But we can’t know when that will be. I’m guessing it’s at least two years away.
Because of negligence by leaders, particularly President Donald Trump, the virus is everywhere. It will take serious effort to bring it under control. The United States has handled the pandemic almost uniquely badly, but even countries that have minimized cases continue to be affected as well. Vigilance must be constant to keep the virus from returning with travelers. Where there are outbreaks, they will have to be tamped down with isolation, testing, and tracing.
After the long, hard slog to where virus cases and deaths are few, repercussions will continue. Some people continue to have symptoms for months. Because we have only seven months’ experience with the virus, we don’t know how many people will suffer virus-related disabilities, how long they will last or if they will flare up again later.
The virus is now distributed across the United States. Hospitals are strained in a number of hot spots. Other hot spots are likely to appear unless stronger measures are taken.
We are in this situation because of an incapable president, news outlets that support him at all costs, others that don’t care to learn the most elementary science, and citizens who don’t want to be inconvenienced. What they all have in common is glossing over the hard stuff and hoping the virus will magically disappear. We’ve done some experiments now, referred to as “opening up the country,” and it should be obvious that that is not a viable strategy. We have to face up to reality.
All the experts said that it was too early to lift restrictions. Some were circumspect, as experts are in the face of their ignorance, and the political pressure was heavy, from the president on down. Armed men occupied the Michigan capital to protest with no resistance from law enforcement. New Mexico’s Restaurant Association is fighting restrictions in court. Congress has voted inadequate financial aid. Even now, with evictions looming for many people, the Republican Senate has no bill and will not consider the one passed by the Democratic House.
AS more people become homeless, the disease will spread further and spiral the economy down. This is the disaster scenario.
We will be vulnerable to uncontrolled spread of the virus until immunity levels are high enough to slow the spread. Stopgaps before we get there could be treatments that minimizes covid’s damage to the body and cut transmissibility and symptoms short; or getting case numbers down to levels where testing and tracing can isolate outbreaks. All of these will be necessary; there are no silver bullets. We are far from any of these.
In New York City, with a high transmission of virus, 15-20% of its people show some immunity to SARS-CoV-2. That will slow down transmission somewhat, but something like 80% is necessary to end transmission. Other parts of the country have lower immunity. Getting to 80% without a vaccine will require much more time and illness, and probably several hundred thousand more deaths.
The “gee whiz” articles about vaccines are derived (sometimes copied) from press releases by the companies that hope to make gazillions of dollars from those vaccines. Because President Trump chose not to lead an international effort to develop and distribute vaccines, and because he has undercut the World Health Organization (WHO), the effort is fragmented among many companies. Every development that can be spun as good is hyped to increase stock prices. We have no way of knowing which press releases are accurate.
The federal government is shoveling money out to selected companies (selection criteria not available), ostensibly to be ready to produce vaccines in large quantities. Many different approaches are being taken to developing a vaccine, and production methods will be different. It’s a good idea to have production facilities ready to go, but we need more transparency about these grants.
Let’s assume that development of a vaccine proceeds with minimal difficulties. A few vaccines are now going into Phase 3 trials, for effectiveness and safety in large numbers of people. There are several ways these trials can fail. If they go smoothly, they may have results by fall. If preparation for production goes smoothly, vaccines may be available by the beginning of 2021. But smooth preparation is seldom the case, particularly for the firms that have no experience in this area.
Then there’s distribution. Once upon a time, America had a public health network. We don’t any more. Will distribution be prioritized to health workers? Teachers? People in retirement communities and prisons where covid has been spreading?
How effective will the vaccine be? Will it be more effective for some people than others? Will there be an anti-vaccine movement? How effective will they be?
Perhaps mass vaccination can be in place by mid-2021. Enormous numbers of people will still be infected and have to recover. The non-vaccine interventions of lockdown and mask wearing will have to continue in parallel with a vaccination campaign. It’s likely to take until the end of 2021 to damp down transmission to where we can think about gradually removing those interventions.
Plans are available that could break the virus in two months or less, so that we could be back to a very cautious normal in time for a football season and return to schools. But I see no indication that anyone is willing to try, and the strong probability that President Trump would sabotage it.
Kelissa
If Trump is reelected it will be much worse. At least if Biden takes over there’s some hope we can intelligently mitigate further damage.
jonas
The failure of national leadership on this scale is simply something I never thought I would see in this country. From what I can tell, about 40% of the country living in the GOP/Fox/OANN/talk radio bubble is still running around, angrily refusing to wear masks and claiming that as long as we’re not dying at the rate of New Yorkers in March-April, it’s not a big deal and besides they’re taking hydroxychloroquine. You’re just sort of paralyzed with a combination of not being able to believe we’re this stupid, and the blinding rage of a thousand white-hot suns at what Trump and Trumpism have wrought.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nicolle Wallace had a story about a high school in Georgia that is restarting classes but not requiring, only ‘recommending’ masks. Two girls started an on-line petition calling for the admin to require masks and I suspect you can guess the rest (Liberals suck! Trump 2020!). High schools in this country will send students home cause their hair is too long or their shorts too short. My nephew got sent home from grade school for wearing his souvenir Guiness sweatshirt from Ireland– he was nine and really upset (he’s 25 now, I wonder if he remembers that).
Sab
One of my husband’s best friends just ended up in the hospital yesterday with scary shortness of breath. Good news was tested negative for Covid. It’s only congestive heart failure. Better news, medication relieved a lot of his symptons and hospital not overwhemed so he is getting an aortic valve replaced next week.
Weird times.
I despise anti-maskers and even the not-bothering-to-mask.
feloniousferb
@jonas: I was in the military as we ramped up to invade Iraq. Was dumbfounded at the “rah-rah” war drums. Could not understand how so many people (Millions!) could get behind the fallacy and not see the discord between facts and ‘why not invade a middle east country, what could go wrong, we’re AMERICA!’.
Now we have COVID. And it’s (to me) that same unwillingness to differentiate between a personal sacrifice and why we really are all in this together.
Thanks for the comment.
Baud
Via Reddit, funny.
David C
There was an interview with FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn that was posted yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdmaU2-C_wE&feature=share
My first impression was that Dr. Bauchner wasn’t too familiar with drug development and Dr. Hahn was on a learning curve, but the FDA has a guidance and there are a lot of ways that they can expedite reviews without compromising safety. With government contracts, it’s tricky. The procurement process is tightly guarded to maintain confidentiality, but the wisdom of the government’s picking winners and losers will show up in the results.
It looks like the FDA will rely on it’s vaccine advisory committee for any approval decisions – the AdComm meetings are open, so that’s a good thing.
ETA: ”Normal” will be difficult to define. This Boomer is still being careful. Also, as a former vaccine researcher, I am well aware of the failures we could expect.
Sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I got sent home for culottes disguised as a skirt when I was thirteen. A friend of mine’s daughter got suspended for wearing a scarf in the school pictures ( they thought it was a gang color, which it wasn’t)
Hunter Gathers
White people will not allow this under any circumstances.
The White investor class has moved on and is already looking forward to next year due to the fact they were successful in raiding the PPP fund and whatever windfall they receive in the next COVID bill.
Old white people are going to die because Fuck Grandma, am I right ?
Middle class white people are willing to die in order to get their fill of the Applebee’s salad bar and they are honor bound to drop 5 grand at Disney World before the end of the year.
Young white people are willing to die to go get their drink on.
Very young white people are going to be forced back into team sports and die so their loser parents can relive their ‘glory day’ like the pathetic lumps of shit that they are.
We are bound and determined to destroy the human race because How Dare You Tell Me What The Fuck To Do and the black president wore that tan suit once.
japa21
Thanks for the upbeat post.
Brachiator
@jonas:
Yep. And I am astounded to see that the Republican leadership continue to back Trump are willing to let people get sick or die for the sake of political ideology.
donnah
My 85-yr-old mother has been in general lockdown in her home since March, with me and my husband as her food supply and entertainment. We go over several times a week and I play cards with her and bring her lunch or dinner. We brought her over for dinner last night and she said she just doesn’t want to spend what could be her final months stuck in her house.
How do I deal with that? Her health is shaky and her co-mortalities tick every box on the list. She’s getting ready to throw it all away for a goddamned meatball sandwich in a sit down restaurant.
And I’ve locked down myself to care for her and my mother-in-law. I’m exhausted and stressed trying to keep them going. But I don’t know when they’re going to say they don’t care and if God wants them, it’s time to go.
And for that, I hate this president and everyone who keeps fucking it up.
laura
I will not be satisfied unless the gormless wax-faced shit weasel and his father in law are held accountable for their actions causing or allowing the deaths of well over 150,000 lives to date. Preferably after a trial, but I’m okay with a street light pole.
Jharp
We had a local high school start classes yesterday and a student tested positive on the very first day.
beth
My daughter had a “mild” case of Covid in April for a week and is now one of the so called long haulers. I put her on my health insurance when she lost her job; I just checked my claims page and there is $22,000 in medical claims since June 1st. I’m having a really hard time holding my temper when people tell me “it’s just like the flu”. Even when this is over I worry that for thousands of people it will never be over. They may be living with the effects of this for the rest of their lives.
Phylllis
@donnah: I had a conversation with a coworker Wednesday about this. She said “people are tired of staying at home”. I wanted to say I bet my grandparents and your great-grandparents were damn tired of being dirt poor with nothing to do and nowhere to go during the Depression, but I just said “Okay” and changed the subject. Tl;dr: Americans are spoiled, whiny, annoying brats*.
*Not specifically directed at your mother.
Patricia Kayden
JMG
Here in Massachusetts, where masks are almost universal and where we had ALMOST suppressed the virus to European levels, new cases per day have just about doubled in the last week or so as the positive test rate climbs back to 2 percent. That’s one of the “good” states. And the culprit has been people, mostly young, seeking human companionship at parties and other get-togethers. So in conclusion, we’re screwed.
David C
The paper in these tweets. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1289241881537392640.html
Sab
@jonas: My RWNJ brother, who used to be a normal Republican, and has become a modern Republican, called me out of the blue a couple of days ago to rant about Fauci. Bro used to think Fauci was in cahoots with China in developing the virus (!??!) and now he thinks Fauci is screwing up the hydroxychloroquine studies by not allowing research of multi-drug cocktails that include hydro…..
Then he went on about how he has mistrusted Fauci since the AIDS days. I am proud of myself for not shrieking at that point. I lost a number of my closest high school and college frinds to AIDS. At the time my brother ( same guy) wanted to throw ActUp folks off the bridge into the bay.
I think billionaires and millionaires are actually terrified of angry roving mobs like they had in the Depression. They should be. But they don’t learn anything. They should learn from FDR about diffusing class warfare. Instead they consult Putin, since Russia has been so good at governance over the centuries.
Martin
There is no end game with the trajectory we are on. It’s not that people aren’t staying home and masking enough, it’s that the fundamental way we’ve approached containing this is wrong, and we’re going to have to be willing to tear that down and rebuild it.
I’m not optimistic. Trump tasking the pentagon and not the CDC for distributing the virus makes me even less so.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I am absolutely pro-mask, but I can easily see students having difficulty wearing masks for the entire school day.
The problem will be even worse for younger kids.
And are schools requiring masks going to replace them at intervals throughout the day?
Baseball teams have plans to swap in replacement players if someone tests positive. What are schools going to do if teachers test positive?
How long should students be allowed to sit in a classroom, even with social distancing?
People at least move through a supermarket or store, do their business and get out.
I suppose that school officials have thought about this, but I am sceptical that social spaces can be made safe enough to let people marinate in them for extended periods of time.
donnah
@Phylllis: And yeah, part of her frustration is that she’s spoiled, but more than that, she’s missing her social circle of friends who are her age and to whom she relates. She feels isolated and lonely and frustrated because her church online isn’t enough. I understand how she feels, but at the same time I don’t want her to go out carelessly and regret it.
CaseyL
It’s the 80/20 rule, only rewritten as 60/40. 40% of the USian population are sabotaging the other 60%. And the 40% have the President, the Senate, and most of the MSM on their side.
We (as a country) have been letting stupid mean people punch way above their weight for 40 years or longer. The consequences were never going to be pretty.
joel hanes
will not return
Smallpox was once endemic.
So was polio.
So was pertussis.
So was measles.
I’m thinking five years to effective vaccinated herd immunity, maybe less, except in areas with pockets of anti-vax idiocy.
Brachiator
@Sab:
Your brother cannot point to many medical experts anywhere on the planet who agrees with him. It’s not about Fauci or even the WHO.
No one has ever looked to this drug as a cure. What is your brother relying on for his beliefs?
Phylllis
@Brachiator: Substitutes are a big issue. We don’t have enough now. I can see a situation where a teacher becomes ill and their assigned students are shifted to a virtual teacher’s class while the original teacher recovers.
As for masks for the kids, right now our policy is they have to wear them during transition times (entering school, moving around the school, etc.) but can take them off at their desks. Our teachers are being given masks provided by the state, and we bought these face shields for everyone in the district.
We’ve been running a K-3 remediation reading and math camp for the last two weeks & it’s gone pretty well. But that’s only been about 60 kids max.
Anoniminous
“It’s just the flu” …
with the extra added fun of gasping for breath while drowning in your own lung fluids and/or bleeding in your brain or some other major body organ if Sars-Cov-2 attacks, as it can & does, endothelium cells lining the blood vessels.
Sab
@donnah: My dad got upgraded at his nursing home to a better view. Now he sees pedestrians and wonders why he can’t go outside.
We lied to him a couple of years ago. He doesn’t think he is in a nursing home. He thinks he is in a crappy hotel because GD contractors are so GD slow at repairing his house.
He hates his room, because the main room has a better view of the pond with the ducks. (WWII forced him to be an MD when he wanted to be a marine biologist.)
wvng
TPM reporting that DOD will be distributing the vaccine, when there is a vaccine, rather than the CDC that knows how to do it. At least if there is a vaccine produced in quantity while Trump is in office. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-admin-sidelines-cdc-to-give-pentagon-unprecedented-role-in-vaccine-distribution
Phylllis
@donnah: I can relate to that; I remember the first virtual meeting I had after we shut down in March. I didn’t know I liked my co-workers that much.
Ken
Republican donors? Highest bidders? Winners in the televised DeathPit™ matches?
James E Powell
@jonas:
When this pandemic took over in mid-March, I was deeply depressed because I thought it was the disaster that would rescue Trump, like 9/11 turned affable dunce Bush into Our Own Churchill.
Happy to be wrong
Duncan Black at Atrios regularly makes the point that Trump could be a fairly popular president if he had just spent an hour or so each week not being a raging asshole.
trollhattan
Our county’s new case numbers are back down to late-May/early-June levels since peaking early July at nearly 10x what it is now, but IDK whether test availability/delays might be affecting the data. Since Trump fucked up the hospitalization data I don’t look to that stat as meaningful. IIUC LA, Imperial and some other counties are driving the statewide numbers.
mrmoshpotato
@Jharp: Hopefully this is the same story. Otherwise…
jonas
Yep. For a very simple reason: the people getting sick are “those” people, i.e. “not my voters,” from a Republican perspective. The VF article on Kushner’s clusterfuck testing program today made that very clear: the WH policy was essentially to do as little as possible because the virus (at the time) was mostly ravaging blue states like NY, CA, and MA and they could make political hay by blaming everything on Cuomo and other Dem governors. Now it’s burning over a bunch of red states, but the victims in places like CA, FL, TX, and MS are still disproportionately POC, so again — why bother?
The best prevention for Covid isn’t hydroxychloroquine. It’s white privilege — not having to live in a small, multigenerational apartment in a city where you have to rely on public transportation; an office job that allows you to telecommute rather than work in a crowded meatpacking plant or warehouse, and provides health insurance, etc.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@joel hanes:
This
Brachiator
@Phylllis:
Even with fewer students in a classroom, I hope that someone is thinking about the total amount of time students will sit inside a classroom without masks on, and the need for good air flow.
Right now, in many places we have prohibited indoor dining.
I think that I would prohibit in class instruction for most states for the winter term and rely on remote learning, and concentrate on trying to get more control over the virus.
In any event, schools that re-open are going to need rigorous testing operations.
Sab
@Brachiator: He says he “knows virologists.” I think ( but don’t say) where do you know virologists. You are a finance guy. Did you meet them at the yacht club? I “know” microbiologists from jackals on line. That isn’t the same as meatspace friends, but it must be better than what he is running into.
There are very weird things going on in RWNJ space. He used to be like Alex in Family ties. Now he is beyond odd. He should know better. He comes from a medical family. His father was a pathologist. His nephew is a doctor. All the nieces-in-law are microbiologists. But he is just digging in with his billionaire overlords because he wants to be richer. Somewhere along the line they brainwashed him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
You mean there won’t be a vaccine by this fall? Color me shocked
Phylllis
@Brachiator: In any event, schools that re-open are going to need rigorous testing operations.
Isn’t a part of the discussion/plan/protocol in South Carolina.
Sab
@wvng: I am not an anti-vaxer by any means, but I think I will hunker down instead. DoD gave my dad hepititis in Korea by using one giant syringe down a line of troops.
jl
US is just not good at this stuff. States need to get expert teams in the country from countries in Asia, W and E Europe, Africa, Baltics, to give expert advice in practical on-the-ground emergency epidemic control. Those places have dedicated and heroic infectious disease control experts who will brave our extremely hazardous and high threat environment. We can give them plenty of total body self contained isolation suits.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have one school teacher friend who teaches in Jefferson, GA. He quit and was lucky enough to find a job here in Athens that is goin 100% virtual in the fall. Another teaches in a non-compliant adjacent county and he’s terrified for his wife and kids.
Brachiator
@jonas:
This just underscores how stupid these people are. “Disproportionately” does not mean “white immunity, especially in red states.”
The virus does not care about borders or political affiliation.
Tenar Arha
@JMG: I woke up mad today. Enough so I picked my angry ? that says “THIS WAS PREVENTABLE.” Then I stupidly watched Baker’s press conference between errands bc I’m apparently a glutton.
Frickin’ Lifeguard parties, & adults organizing a 90 person prom party!! And I hadn’t heard until today about the illegal football camp; IIRC they said at least 17 people tested positive so far?!
Sab
@Brachiator: I have no phucking idea. Fox? Oan? He is in and from a medicsl family, with doctors and microbiologists. One of us even provides computer support to a bunch of medical researchers at a pharmaceutical company.
Instead he seems to listen to the billionaires his finance outfit talks to. So many of tje super rich are completely divorced from reality. It is actually kind of amazing. Don’t their dogs even get fleas?
CaseyL
I’m not sure I trust the vaccine production and distribution, because it’s being run by profit-driven companies all of whom want to be “First!” on the market. There will be shortcuts, bad data, not enough time to determine adverse effects – a whole list of ghastly possibilities.
I do trust UW Medicine, so hopefully they’ll carry out a large scale vax program whenever that may be, and I can get my jab then.
Until then, I’m staying (mostly) home, and masking when I go out.
JMG
@Tenar Arha: I don’t like hearing about groups of young people being foolhardy, but I remember being pretty foolhardy myself on occasion as a young person, so I cut them a little slack. Adults organizing football camps and prom parties? That’s for their ego thrills and they deserve the strongest censure, plus some healthy fines.
Brachiator
@Phylllis:
In any event, schools that re-open are going to need rigorous testing operations.
I hope that parents are being pro-active, asking tough questions.
Roger Moore
@Phylllis:
I totally get it. I’m damn tired of having to wear a mask all the time. I was just commenting to a coworker that I’m always looking forward to lunch because it’s my one chance during the work day to take off my mask for a while. But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to give up wearing a mask because I’m tired of it. Part of being a adult is continuing to do things you’d rather not do because they’re the right thing to do. Giving up on important things because you’re bored and tired is childish.
Sab
@Brachiator: My school district moved it back to January. Meanwhile it is online. I have no idea what they are doing for kids not online. Prior mayor wanted to have citywide wifi, but we are much too hilly for that to be economically feasible.
Clusterphuck.
Frank Wilhoit
I think perhaps you already know about Derek Lowe. His takes on vaccine candidates are not at the press-release level.
Phylllis
@Brachiator: Our parents have been great, actually and have asked good questions. I was expecting pushback on the mask requirement & there’s been almost none so far. Most of the anti-mask/it’s a hoax folks in the community don’t have kids in the schools and keep their foolishness confined to social media.
patrick II
@Sab:
Do they say what Fauci’s motive is? Is someone paying him off? Is he secretly a Chinese agent who has undergone surgery and lived undercover in the U.S. fighting disease for fifty years waiting for his chance?
Brachiator
@JMG:
At a certain age you’re supposed to be young and stupid. It is a necessary part of life. And even if a huge chunk of yoots do the right thing, whatever that is, a critical minority will always do something dumbass.
And of course there are always people who only grow into deeper and older stupidity. A good number of these people appear to be conservatives.
ballerat
@Jharp:
Close contact according to them is someone who spent more than 15 minutes within six feet of an infected person.
That’ll be a couple dozen of other kids. I figure 4 kids in 6 classes plus lunch. Plus friends he hung out with. And their definition ignores that indoor transmission can travel a lot further via a/c and ventilation systems.
What another Trumpercluster.
Frank Wilhoit
@wvng: If DOD do what they will need to do to make that work, then they will have done what they would need to do in order to become an alternative government. I have always said that if they did intervene, it would not be to prop up the Republican Party, but to sweep away the entire system.
Tenar Arha
@JMG: Yup.
I was glad to hear Baker say we have excess testing capacity bc I’m honestly dreading the return of the college & grad students from all over the country. I keep thinking how those students & any of their parents coming from uncontrolled spread states likely won’t be able to get tested or quarantine before driving to Massachusetts. It just seems like it’s inevitable we’re going to have a September spike. /sigh
Patricia Kayden
Dorothy A. Winsor
Reporting on the person who has COVID in my building: she’s doing well. She’s been recovering at home and been seen sitting on her patio. The 20 or so people who were quarantined because of contact with her have all finished their quarantine without symptoms. So that’s small good news.
CaseyL
@Frank Wilhoit: I think that’s going to be an invaluable site going forward – thanks for finding and posting it!
Mind you, I barely grasp what he’s saying; he’s VERY detailed and technical. The comments help figure out the most salient points!
Sab
@patrick II: Evil lefty who hates Republican presidents?
I have no idea. My brother used to launch toads in little baskets with helium balloons. They couldn’t come down or be rescued or escape. My older sister thinks he is kind. I think he has always been phucked up. Until I got married I thought that was just male behavior. My husband says ” sociopathy not male.”
Cheryl Rofer
@Frank Wilhoit: I’ve seen some of Lowe’s stuff linked on Twitter, but didn’t know he had a blog page with it all there. Thanks.
patrick II
@Jharp:
Your school was able to turn around a test in one day? That isn’t right, is it? Did they test them ahead of time but couldn’t wait one more day for the results?
Fair Economist
@joel hanes:
The problem with eradication by vaccination is that immunity to respiratory infections is not permanently sterilizing. After a while, you can get it again, generally a few months to a few years. That’s how it works for adenovirus, rhinovirus, influenza, and even other coronaviruses. (Repeat infections are probably milder.) It will be substantially harder to eradicate SARS2 than it has been to eradicate polio, and we haven’t done that after 30 years (although we were close before SARS2 shut down the polio vaccination campaigns).
The best hope is that SARS2 will be much milder on repeat infections and we will just live with it like the common cold coronaviruses. But that’s a hope. My guesstimate is that repeat SARS2 will be similar to flu pandemics (think 2018) and a substantial strain on health and medical resources. Plus there’s no guarantee repeat infection will be milder with *this* virus – it’s a strange beastie.
Sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That is good news.
Lapassionara
I think we need to face the fact that Putin is driving this train, with the assistance of Trump and McConnell. I don’t know what to do about that, other than to do what I can to ensure that Trump loses in November, and soundly.
Sab
@Hunter Gathers: In your twenties you gotta try to mate.
ballerat
@Patricia Kayden: This is why Trump and Jared nixed the plan for a coordinated covid response.
They learned who it was mostly killing.
That’s genocide. All the dots are there, but people don’t want to connect them.
Sab
@patrick II: They don’ t need a motive. Just disparage and the rest will follow.
Mike in Pasadena
@donnah: Keep strong. I hope you can take time for yourself so that you’ll have the strength to care for others. You have an uphill fight in front of you. Best of luck.
Quaker in a Basement
Trump is faithfully recreating the role of Mortimer Duke in “Trading Places” after he suffered a trading rout:
“Turn those machines back on!”
joel hanes
@Fair Economist:
There’s some early evidence that COVID-19 is actually worse in subsequent infections, perhaps because of damage from the earlier infection.
But unlike influenza, SARS2 does not seem to be rapidly mutating in ways that affect its immunological profile, at least to my knowledge. (SARS2 has a protein that suppresses some mutations by repairing errors in replication.)
I admit that the very existence of repeating cases with a second symptomatic phase after initial “recovery” mitigates for your take; to my knowledge, these are thought to be rare.
I’m encouraged by the very strong response to the Moderna vaccine in primate trials.
ballerat
@wvng: Trump has been trying to draw the military into his domestic politics. This is another one of his efforts.
Vaccines and public health shouldn’t be political but he has made it so. Why the military? They are not experts at public health but they are the state’s instrument of force and violence.
I think this is very dangerous. We absolutely do not want a politicized military.
jl
@Hunter Gathers: Several W European countries went from disaster to low enough prevalence to safely reopen in 2 to 3 months. So, it can be done. No reason we can’t.
Some faced similar problems we do. For example, their populations are not all that much more docile and obedient that we are. When Italy did the emergency travel ban, there was a horde of people running for airline and train gates, just like they would here. In Denmark, first thing that happened during their reopening was that a lot of population thought it was an all-clear so they could throw away their masks.
And they still have outbreaks, and they are big pain the neck. But there is a difference between big pain in the neck and crippled society and economy. And if you get prevalence low enough, you have dangerous and big outbreaks in the context of keeping a robust reopening going, but these big outbreaks in other countries would be tiny unnoticeable blips here in the US, despite doom and gloom scare stories that the worthless US media likes to do.
joel hanes
@Frank Wilhoit:
Lowe
Thanks for the pointer.
MomSense
I feel like crap today so I just say my little “let it be allergies or a cold prayer”and hope for the best.
My mom’s friend died on Wednesday night. She used to visit him in the nursing home several days a week to bring him treats and take him out for drives. Back in March she stopped visiting because his nursing home went on lockdown. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t visiting him. She tried to explain and called him regularly until she realized her calls were upsetting him. She feels so sad that he didn’t understand why she dropped out of his life. I feel bad for my mom. She is an extreme extrovert and she is sort of depressed that this new isolated life may be the last phase of her life.
This didn’t have to be this bad. Between the criminal negligence and willful intent to kill people of the Kushner/Trump administration, the sociopathy of the GOP,-and the selfishness of too many Americans – I don’t know how we reconstitute the notion of the common good and shared responsibility. Can we depoliticized science? I hope so.
I just want to survive this fucking hell and see my children happy and healthy and getting on with their lives.
featheredsprite
@donnah: You need a weekend at a comfy hotel with room service. Then you can take another attempt at dealing with your circumstances.
–Warm thoughts and virtual hugs.
ballerat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Trump will still announce there is one, just before the election, ready in just a couple of weeks for anyone who wants one.
It’ll be another lie of course.
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator:
You’re right to be skeptical: they can’t. [long speculation on how to think about it, removed] The CDC’s guidelines (though hell, they probably edited ’em since) said that schools can reopen, BUT ONLY when community spread has been nearly-suppressed. B/c hell, you get a room with a buncha infected, they’re gonna be breathing out virus particles into the air, eh.
The CDC was pretty clear on this; the problem was (even back then) it was couched in a way so that the IMBECILES who rule us could ignore the “only when” bit and just go with “schools can reopen, yippee!”
Sigh.
Chetan Murthy
@Phylllis:
All I can think of is: “Jesus wept.” Oh my god, this is awful. Just awful. Just awful. Even with masks it’s not good. But this …. oh my god. I so feel for you in this situation.
marklar
Thank you for this sober assessment, Cheryl. I’ve been telling my colleagues at my college to consider Daniel Kahneman’s (Nobel prize winner in Economics) description of the “Planning Fallacy”, which refers to a prediction phenomenon in which people underestimate the time it will take to complete a future task, despite knowledge that previous tasks have generally taken longer than planned.
I’ve been hoping for a return to in-person classes in the Winter 2022 semester, and I think we need to all plan accordingly. This, of course, is all predicated on development of a safe and effective vaccine, which has yet to be established.
All this false hope ends up in people getting virus fatigue so much more quickly, as disappointment follows disappointment regarding matching benchmarks for return to normalcy.
ballerat
@Phylllis: Our schools here reopen week after next. My wife attended the virtual school district meeting on reopening. They are not going to test the staff regularly nor any of the students. (Students will be sent home if they self-report symptoms.) There are not enough tests, there is no budget, there isn’t enough community consensus, there isn’t enough political will.
This will fail. It will fail because there are people in this district like the trunt who, during the meeting, told the board and all present that she refused to have her children wear masks at school because she has never concerned herself with anyone else’s health or wellbeing before, and she and her children are not about to start.
Just jaw dropping.
Edit: “trunt” was my wife’s word for that belligerently selfish woman. My wife was pissed.
Chetan Murthy
@Sab:
I have a relative who’s pretty good, but sometimes she spouts Lee Atwater-style talking points. Shit about the “government-industrial complex”, how she wants to punish the govt by withholding her taxes. Shit like that.
I yell at her that she’s spouting RWNJ talking points, and that if she wants that, she needs to move to fucking Somalia. In so many words. It shuts her the fuck up.
You shouldn’t have to be the one to be civil. He. Should.
ballerat
@Chetan Murthy: Well, the same people make it a point to ignore the “well regulated” part of the 2nd amendment, so no surprise.
No name
@ballerat: I am so stealing TRUNT. Need a masculine equivalent.
Chetan Murthy
@ballerat: Frankly, I’m not trying to argue with her, and I’m not trying to convince her of anything. I’m trying to shut her up, and teach her that she cannot spread that bilge water around without getting a fucking earful, regardless of what company, regardless of what time, regardless of what circumstance. She can keep that shit to herself, or end up getting hearing loss: her choice.
ETA: and this is a relative: so I’m happy to cook food for her, take her groceries, etc. It’s got nothing to do with anything -other- than I will not countenance that sort of politics. Period.
ETA2: and I don’t feel any such compulsion to keep my own political (or scientific) views to myself. Because mine are right, and hers are wrong. It’s as simple as that. I mean, at this time, after the last forty fucking years, and what those politics have wrought on our country, on my life, on our family, I am simply unwilling to let somebody publicly hold forth like that.
In short: “Reality has a liberal bias; deal with it.”
Chetan Murthy
@No name: I am partial to:
Trumpenfelcher
and GrOPer (“rapists and pedophiles, the lot of em”)
Ohio Mom
I’ve been saying I don’t expect things to be back “to normal”, whatever that is, before next summer at the absolute earliest.
Every time I hear someone else say this though, instead of feeling validated, I feel utterly defeated.
I have all the usual complaints — frustrated about all the things I can’t do — but mainly I worry about Ohio Son. It’s a challenge launching an autistic young adult and now his entire life is at a standstill.
He doesn’t have a job anymore, his recreation programs are suspended, his life has dwindled to grocery shopping with mom, walks with dad, and YouTube.
I hope when this is all over that he can pick up where he left off but autistics can get set in their ways.
Sab
@MomSense: So sorry. My dad wonders where I have gone. My BIL got to see his mom and she had forgotten who he was.
I am incandesent with rage.
Not good for my heart, but whatever.
Soprano2
I’ve quit talking about schools opening with people except to say I feel badly for everyone involved. I figure in-person school will last 2 months here, tops. I keep telling myself that every day that passes is another day closer to a solution to this clusterfuck. Electing Biden and a Democratic Senate will be a big step toward that.
rikyrah
@Sab:
Only congestive heart failure??
rikyrah
@MomSense:
???????
Miss Bianca
@Tenar Arha: Where did you find your angry “this was preventable” mask? I’d like one of those!
And feeling just salty enough to feel like wearing it in my little right-wing redneck town…
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore:
QFT
phein60
“We will be vulnerable to uncontrolled spread of the virus until immunity levels are high enough to slow the spread.”
I think it important to re-phrase what we mean by “immunity levels,” if we hope to understand how that will affect the spread. Right now, immunity levels might be described as a combination of several positive values:
Survivors with immunity + people who have no exposure to populations with exposure + people who have received an effective vaccine.
Each of these might be increased through actions that could be molded into a strategy (I defer to LTC Bateman) that could result in an manageable level of virus to allow commerce. If we had a functioning government, several different interagency working groups would already be Webexed, zoomed or TEAMS’ed until they come up with a path forward. Ah, well, to be living in a time where my stoner brother and his drop-out buddies are now designing policy in their 60’s.
Sab
@patrick II: He doesn’t know. He just assumes the worst. He is a RWNJ. Facts don’t matter. My brother is a zombie.
phein60
@Sab: I have painful empathy for your situation. My younger brother tried to turn me on this week to Dr. Stella Immanuel, along with his insights into the motivations of medical professionals and researchers, which include his oldest sister and brother, and my wife and daughter.
It’s either deflect immediately or sever the relationship. I thank dog he’s not committed to any position.
wvng
@ballerat: the military would have been really good at managing distribution of PPE. Logistics are truly in their wheelhouse. But,no, Jared did that, because he had no relevant skill set. CDC is perfectly equipped to manage vaccines, so if course Trump wants someone else to do it.
Bill Arnold
@Chetan Murthy:
For what it’s worth, the cdc.gov guidelines are indexed by webarchive.org if you want to see old versions. (At least the one I examined for diffs.)
Yeah the guidelines need to be written to be harder to willfully misinterpret. I can’t tell if they’re written to be easily misinterpretable deliberately, or not.
Bill Arnold
@marklar:
I won a crass bet (25 cents plus bragging rights, made in 2002) with a manager/friend about when the Iraq war (2003) would start; I bet after Valentines Day, because things take longer than planned.
(I was quite anti-war to be clear; it was clearly a mistake and the evidence was clearly (at the time) either completely flawed or fraudulent, or both.)
Bill Arnold
@ballerat:
she refused to have her children wear masks at school because she has never concerned herself with anyone else’s health or wellbeing before, and she and her children are not about to start.
She’s not being run out of town?