Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

We might all take our masks off after Omicron ebbs, but there's gonna be a Pi baking in the oven by Memorial Day. What then?

 

Back to semi-lockdown, I suppose.

New boosters?

 

Unless you get one that spreads like Omicron and kills like Delta, you’ll see 0/50 states with meaningful restrictions this summer. The fraction of society that has been cooperative has exhausted its patience trying to save the lives of barbarians.

 

We should all be prepared for semi-annual boosters for the foreseeable future.

 

In June or July there will be a German man who will become infamous for spreading the next variant far and wide. What will he be called?

 

Antivaximilian

 

In the last week, a friend of mine - used to be the chief photog at my hometown paper when I was in sports - tested positive. Symptoms. Long out of the biz, but now works as an elementary school teacher in a rural county.

My mother's husband of less than three years - positive. Probably around a lot of people who don't believe in vaccines and such, which is a direct contrast to my clinician mother, who was brought up in the rural South, but thinks most of them are simply not thinking.

A few weeks back, a good friend of mine who was around someone who had been around someone who had it. Positive. Former desker and colleague for a while who understands and embraces the science.

Last one is recovered and fine. First one is much better as of a text an hour or two ago. Mother's husband is past the worst. Last two are vaccinated and boosted ... first one will get booster as soon as she can. My mother supposedly tested negative, but we'll find out. The virus might hesitate before trying to go after her.

Don't even try to tell me this crap is over. Not even close ...

 

It's almost a week old, but I thought this might be worth mentioning in case it came across anyone's timeline. A group of Johns Hopkins economists came out with a paper that was meant to assess the efficacy of lockdowns in the US and Europe and concluded they were all but useless (only a 0.2% benefit in mortality). It's been getting play in all the places you'd expect would trumpet such findings.

As you might imagine, there are Twitter threads aplenty picking apart the paper, but I know Twitter threads drive some people here to tears so I'll just put in links. Accusations of cherry-picking, shoddy research, and working backward from a preferred conclusion abound.




Incidentally, Steve Hanke, one of the paper's co-authors, is on Twitter himself. He appears to have some, shall we say, strong opinions about Fauci and pandemic mitigation efforts.

 

cases down

deaths leveling

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

NY to ease mask requirements

Inside Gov. Hochul’s Decision to Lift ‘Mask or Vax’ Rule in New York

https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/

 

For that study’s purposes, “lockdown” was defined as “At least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention.”

So, for example, if a city instituted a mandatory mask policy at, say, dine-in restaurants, but enacted literally no other restrictions, that is counted as a “lockdown.”

Also, the mere idea that an academic study would use “lockdown” instead of something like “mitigation measures” kind of tells you all you need to know.

 

Answer: Herr Pi.

Come on, y’all.