I'm just glad the pandemic is over

My apologies for the long pause in posting. I've been busy launching a circular economy-oriented social enterprise that aims to turn waste into useful things and increase the incomes of the informal workers we’ll partner with. I'll share more about that as we get closer to our launch. For now, I want to share some of the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic, which is starting to look alarming again.

I'm currently in Bangkok, where I estimate roughly 90% of people still wear masks, even outdoors. It's nice to be somewhere where most of the community members, and visitors, are still taking this small step to help protect themselves and each other. The sense of community it fosters is a far cry from the looks of indignation I get from some of the unmasked people back in the US.

That indignation may feel righteous, but it’s come at a great cost. A new study looked at the states of Ohio and Florida and found that excess death rates, the number of people dying above the number expected, were 76% higher for Republicans than Democrats from March 2020 to December 2021, but that the gap doubled to 153% between April and December 2021. (I don’t know why the dates overlap, but the figure was twice as high for the latter nine months, which are included in both figures. That tells us the gap between March 2020 to March 2021, and April 2021 to December 2021 is even larger.) Check out the way the gap opened up in the latter half of 2021. For anyone pushing partisanship over public health, this is the result.

We're now seeing worrisome signals, particularly in Europe, suggesting it might be time to bring back some of the public health measures we've shed since the omicron wave passed, but that hardly seems to be on offer. France is in the grips of its eighth wave (8!), and it’s gaining steam. And beyond Europe, there’s also a new variant taking off in Singapore.

During the pandemic, what has started in Europe has tended to soon follow in the US. The EU has nearly 20% more of its people boosted, so we may be set for another ugly ride.

The US ordered 170 million doses of the new bivalent boosters that aim to protect against the original COVID strain and a more recent one. As of last week, just 4% of the eligible people (12 and up) have received doses.

We have chosen a path in which vaccines are the core of our dwindling response, yet we can’t get people to line up for their shots. Many forces have worked to derail that response, but I blame the choices and communications made by the CDC’s leaders and the Biden administration for our failure. Their job is to protect us, but politics have outweighed public health. The Biden administration had the chance to break from that approach, but they doubled down.

With a slew of new variants circling, vaccine efficacy on the wane, and nearly a third of the global population still waiting for their first dose of any COVID-19 vaccine, we’re not in a great spot. President Biden has made things significantly worse through his administration’s choices and by saying stupid, dangerous things like “The pandemic is over.” How many people will suffer or die thanks to his choices?

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can choose a better path, but we can’t expect our leaders to do it for us. We know what needs to be done. We need to demand it.

And we’re getting a better understanding of the risks of repeated infection and long covid. (Short answer: you don’t want to roll those dice.)

As one doctor recently said, “It’s a disease and a pandemic that could have ended long ago if we could just put the needs of others ahead of our own.” That may be an overstatement, but it’s undoubtedly true that we could avoid much of the death and suffering.

Given all of this, I encourage you to redouble your efforts to avoid infection and to encourage others to do the same. If you haven’t received a bivalent booster, please get one immediately. (Edit: And please get your flu shot as well!l) If you’ve stopped wearing a mask in public spaces, please put it back on. And please encourage others to do the same.

I’ll leave you with a recent post from the BMJ. It’s a sober assessment of where we are and what we need to do to move in a better direction.