US cases are still rising, 7% increase week-to-week, >146,000 confirmed yesterday, current 7-day avg 112,000+, only a small fraction of the actual infections.
Hospitalizations closing in on 30,000 https://t.co/QPRo6jaOka
UK cases & hospitalizations are starting to increase again pic.twitter.com/gpLn6bEyQM— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 11, 2022
… Danish social scientist Michael Bang Petersen, of Aarhus University, told me that familiarity with Covid is changing people’s attitudes. Many stopped fearing the virus once they contracted it and recovered. In Denmark, he said, studies show 80% of the population has been infected. Here in the US, a similar study showed about 60% had had Covid as of last February — before the latest wave started.
And people are taking cues from those around them. Social signals are really important, he said, so it’s very difficult to keep your guard up when others are going back to normal. Behavior can change in a cascading way. People wonder why they should bother if nobody else is. “That’s straight out of basic psychology of collective action,” said Bang Petersen…
… Osterholm added that compared with previous surges, there are relatively few deaths this time, so the death rate is getting closer to something people are used to seeing with flu. “We don’t really know for certain how to act,” Osterholm said. We’ve never been expected to change our everyday lives because of influenza. But that might all change again if the next variant is more dangerous.
Reporters at a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health press briefing this week wanted to know whether the pandemic was over. The answer, given by Tom Inglesby, MD, director of the Center for Health Security, was no. The other critical question was whether it still made sense to try to curb cases. Inglesby said it did — but stopped short of recommending universal masking or social distancing. He did stress ventilation, which could suppress superspreading events, as well as making sure high-quality masks are available for those who want them…
“I think people are just psychologically done with Covid,” Osterhom said. “If you look back at the 1918 experience … In 1918 and 1919, there were multiple waves, it wasn’t just 1918. And people were quite compliant with public health recommendations, limiting public gatherings, etc. By the spring of 1920 when it got just past a second year, people said, “Ah, forget it, you know, we’re going to move on.”
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, June 11-12Post + Comments (20)