In our neck of the woods, masks have largely been abandoned. But at our local grocery store, some of the cashiers are still wearing them. And, when my wife and I go out, we wear our masks. That's because Andrew Nikiforuk is right. He writes in The Tyee:
Let’s call it a plague of willful incompetence or an outbreak of epidemiological stupidity. Or maybe José Saramago’s novel has come to life and targeted public officials with a scourge of blindness.
In any case, COVID, a novel virus that can wreak havoc with vital organs in the body, continues to evolve at a furious pace.
In response officials have largely abandoned any coherent response, including masking, testing, tracing and even basic data collection.
Yes, the people have been abandoned.
The data keeps coming in -- and it's nothing to celebrate:
Reinfections, and 2022 is surely the year of reinfections, just increase the damage from COVID, which can be profound: immune dysregulation, blood clots, nerve cell death, inflammation, lung damage, kidney failure and brain damage.
New science shows that Omicron and its variants are getting better at evading immune defences induced by vaccines or by natural infection. BA5, for example, is more transmissible than any previous variant.
As a consequence it is now possible to be reinfected with one of Omicron’s variants every two to three weeks.
The data also shows that each reinfection confers so little immunity — because the immune system is unable to remember it — that we must seek every other protection available.* A summer infection, for example, will not protect you against a fall infection. But each and every infection will damage your immune system regardless of how mild the symptoms.
There is more bad news. Past infection by older variants dampen rather than strengthen immune protection even among those with three vaccinations. “That previous SARS-CoV-2 infection history can imprint such a profound, negative impact on subsequent protective immunity is an unexpected consequence of COVID-19,” noted the researchers in Science.
The virus is getting better at thwarting vaccines and evading immunity. Although vaccine protection against hospitalization and death remains strong, it is being steadily eroded by Omicron’s subvariants. Meanwhile protection against severe disease has declined as the effectiveness of our vaccines progressively wanes.
Yet we blithely assume we're getting back to normal. We simply can't go back to the way things were. I'm getting darkly pessimistic in my old age. We haven't got the character to survive our brave new world.
Image: ThoughtCo
22 comments:
The political class and the commentariat have decided Covid is over. By saying the public will resist the reintroduction of public health measures, such as mandatory masking, they've created a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Meanwhile, new variant case counts are rising here and in Europe. According to the CDC, 95% of US counties now show high or substantial Covid spread. Last month, half the riders on the Tour de Suisse cycling race dropped out as the virus spread like wildfire among them. There's fears the Tour de France will suffer the same fate. Those are both outdoor events.
But as our media claim that millions of deaths and cases of disability are unavoidable, countries like China and Japan show this is not true. Our elites simply don't value other lives as much.
Cap
There are profits to be made, Cap. Deaths are simply collateral damage.
What will the monied (millionaire and billionaire) people do when all the slaves are gone? The nouveau riche don’t know anything about manners nor do they respect the elderly. That is very apparent in North America. Anyong
Meanwhile, as we haven't had any break from our "home" stay, except to go out every 2 weeks for some food, libation and renewal of pharma products, we decided to take 3 days and travel to our favourite hotel on the water just south of us in Bellingham.
Has anyone else tried to complete the new Federal computer application before you leave Canada in order to get back into our country? The govt will now have a complete record of every trip out of the country, including (in our case) what time of the day the border staff should expect you to return and at which specific border crossing.
It looks like we will be expected to complete and submit this info even if we are just making a day trip down to Bellingham (which hundreds or even thousands of BCers do regularly.
I guess this is the new reality of life in our country (except for those who just walk across several open border points without any problem).
Look out for Canadianism called Anocracy. Knowing something was missing in trying to describe Canada, now, having read the Disaffected Libs blog in the last hour, thank you Mound for providing the exact word ,Ancracy. That is what PP is all about. Anyong
You can't have a kingdom without serfs, Anyong.
It's a brave new world, Lulymay -- and we're not going to like a lot of it.
It's a word I didn't know until reading The Mound's blog, Anyong. But it's a word that captures precisely what we face.
They say it because it's truth, enough with this hypochondriac crap, you all need to seek help, this isn't healthy. It's extrodrinarily unlikely a more dangerous vaiant arises because it'd have to over come the evolutionary disadvantage of killing it's host among others.
And governments aren't doing nothing, they are designing the next generation of vaccines, that will be safer, that will work on all variants, etc..., not just for Corona either, they are applying all the science knowledge gained from the world be a giant vaccine lab experiment to other diseases like the Flue, Malaria, HIV, etc...,
Yes! Canada is a nation of Serfs. Todays Canadian political system corrupts Canadian values. But that does not mean it has to be this way as Lulymays example shows. We must demand our be transparent. Anyong
In keeping with Dr. Walter's comments in the WaPo, I was wondering if the healthcare/mask mandate/Freedom Convoy is being used to exacerbate social division and challenge the strength and credibility of our political institutions.
The pandemic is the immediate fulcrum but there will be others as the climate crisis deepens.
Many physicians will say that our healthcare system has been brought to the breaking point by the Covid problem.
By some accounts we're heading for a 7th wave of the coronavirus this fall. That creates plenty of history by which to gauge our political apparatus. We've gone from lockdown to all clear to lock down to all clear, a political roller coaster. Eyes glaze over, people yearn for a return of some vestige of normalcy. Political fecklessness has brought us to the point today where the healthcare system is in jeopardy.
If we can't enforce mask mandates, vaccinations and such then we must defend our healthcare system, our nurses and doctors, our hospitals. This would mean accepting social division and excluding the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers from mainstream society.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/07/08/Forever-Pandemic-Nikiforuk-Replies-Critics/?utm_source=weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110722
Owen, the UC San Diego professor, Barbara Walter, as mentioned in Mound's blog, is featured in several Youtube videos. As an example:
https://youtu.be/27Q17eO1B7Y
Vaccine makers are doing an excellent job, Gyor. But the virus mutates rapidly. Therefore, public health measures shouldn't be abandoned.
I don't understand your last sentence, Anyong.
It's an old complaint, Mound. We lack the will to get things done -- and that problem is exacerbated by a short attention span. We simply can't muster the perseverance our situation requires.
Nikiforuk will not be bowed by his critics, Mound. We need more of that kind of courage.
Thanks for the clip, Toby. She's impressive.
I am sure there is nothing to worry about Owen. Wanna by a slightly used bridge, one owner? Or I have some prime resort property just north of Hwy 7.
This TVO post is not wildly encouraging Ontarians need clear public-health messaging on COVID-19 It reads as if Moore, the chief medical officer of health, is being obstruct by our idiot premier.
I am seeing a lot fewer masks this week but still a number of people are wearing them including me.
The provincial premiers are doing their annual rain dance for more money for health care---but with so strings attached, of course. For one, I would not trust Dougie to use anything he got on health care. At best, he might use it to reduce the deficit to "prove" what good fiscal managers the PCs are.
The premiers were given more taxing power to cover healthcare, jrk. Several of them used that authority to cut taxes.
Owen …..We must demand transparency from our Federal Government on all issues. Mound…..I have thought exactly of what you have mentioned. You and I are probably not the only people who have thought this either. Anyong
I appreciate your clarification, Anyong. And I agree with you.
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