Of course the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. But there is a parallel side track and the street sign there is "Do something!"
A couple of observations:
1. Omicron is probably less serious than the original strain but 90% of the people who contracted the original strain were either completely asymptomatic or suffered from symptoms no more serious than a cold or the flu. I remember reading about one of the original patients who introduced the virus to Italy from China: she felt cold during a business meeting, grabbed a sweater and that was the extent of her symptoms. The issue has always been that a small minority of people are vulnerable while for the vast majority it is indeed just the flu. The drive to portray the virus as a threat to the population in general has distorted our thinking about acceptable remedies for ameliorating the effects of the pandemic.
2. A lot of the government responses last year, including lockdowns, were panic driven. Now with the benefit of hindsight we are reexamining whether or not they were justified. The problem is that the question has attained culture war significance. Pushing for lockdowns now is a means for arguing that lockdowns were a good idea a year ago.
3. The lasting effects of the pandemic have been corrosive to social trust, especially in authority. I think that "Trust the science" has probably been irreparably tarnished.
The only thing I'd ask you to do is engage with the arguments that people are making rather than the arguments that you think they are making. I have literally not seen a single person advocate for a "strict lockdown" a la 2020 during this latest wave - certainly not public officials or anyone in a position to implement them - and yet here you spend paragraphs arguing against something that has a 0% chance of happening in the coming months. I have not seen a single educator advocate going back to "remote learning" in the same way that we did in 2020, and yet you spent an entire post railing against its evils.
There may be some people on Twitter who are arguing for those things. And lots of schools are going to close on a very temporary basis because teachers have a nasty aversion to working while sick (even if it's "mild") - but other than that, you are fighting a battle that you have already won.
I think "did lockdowns work" or "did remote learning do more harm than good" are very interesting arguments and you'd get a lot of serious engagement on those topics! But note the past tense on those questions - we really are not going back to those things any time soon. Take the W, Freddie.
I started to write an article in my head about what we should have in place for schools for the next go round, whether in COVID or otherwise:
1) Have, on hand, with a real distribution plan, a supply of high quality masks enough to cover all students and teachers for, say, a month (3? 5?). These should be kept on hand more or less indefinitely, for distribution during a pandemic wave.
2) For the next year, at least, have a supply of appropriate tests on order/pre-order/reserve, whatever to *guarantee* their availability within, say, a month of a new wave appearing on the horizon.
3) Have a plan, on hand, for how to test students and teachers returning from a break, that everyone understands ahead of time.
4) Have an aggressive short and long term plan to improve ventilation in schools, up to and including complete reconstruction when necessary (and in this case the reconstruction is probably necessary for many reasons, just hasn't been done). Make people aware that this is actually happening.
5) Have overall plans for how to handle the next wave that won't literally change completely at the moment the next wave arrives. Don't teach and maintain safety plans which are only used when the situation is almost completely safe anyhow and are discarded the minute the situation changes.
6) Add a week to the end of Christmas break in next year's school calendar, just in case.
(sorry, I'm adding more as I remember them).
7) Once COVID vaccines have regular non-emergency approval, make them mandatory for students to the same extent other vaccines are in your state.
8) Make it clear that all students will be tested periodically active pandemic diseases, or at least make it opt-out rather than opt-in.
People may ask, "Why didn't schools have this anyhow, especially with the fountain of money thrown at the problem?" The problem is not *teachers*, I can tell you that. Our district administration spent the entire summer of 2020 planning for everything except how to manage a rapidly changing pandemic.
Freddie what if Covid mortality goes above 50%? I agree with you based on present facts but something worse is likely in coming decades. Are you assuming we’ll be prepared?
I mean, there's a lot we could we could be doing that's not a Chinese-style authoritarian nightmare. I've been reading yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com which strikes me as a reasonable and dispassionate look at the data, with some recommendations.
For instance, in her most recent post she states that the case/hospitalization decoupling is less pronounced in the U.S. than either Denmark or the U.K., likely owing to our lower vaccination rate.
One thing I'd like to see us talk about more is ventilation. I remember reading something from a few months ago which made the argument that with the technology available to us now, we could make indoor air quality the 21st century equivalent of the 19th century sanitation push, with a resultant reduction or elimination of many airborne respiratory diseases.
There *are* ways to contain outbreaks though. China provided the blueprint. They've had fewer than 5,000 deaths this entire time! They're at the point where they can contain outbreaks without needing to lock down! Most of their cases are mild or asymptomatic because they catch them so quickly.
I agree with the thrust of your article, but I don't view covid as some kind of irresistible force. The US (and most of the western world) is too calcified to mobilize the necessary response but it's not impossible. We're just... not doing any of those things.
"Educated liberals are mad at them, but they don’t have many anti-vaxxers in their orbit" — Don't most people have ongoing protracted wars with family members over vaccination status, active disinformation, and family health and the elderly? I guess I assumed this was more universal an experience from the people I talk to than perhaps it is.
I think the evidence in favor of 2020-style "lockdowns" is a little stronger than you're giving credit for here.
From Nov. 2020 in Nature: "We showed that the most effective measures include closing and restricting most places where people gather in smaller or larger numbers for extended periods of time (businesses, bars, schools and so on)." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0
Another one: "Early-onset lockdown with gradual deconfinement allowed shortening the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and reducing contaminations. Lockdown should be considered as an effective public health intervention to halt epidemic progression." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7806254/
(Aside from the research, there's been a great deal of anecdotes flying around lately of restaurant workers on the job while actively sick with COVID because they don't get paid sick leave.)
So, in terms of "what more can we be doing," it seems like "closing bars and restaurants for a few weeks and providing economic support to businesses and workers to get them through it" is a pretty reasonable ask.
I am going to commit heresy and suggest that vaccines have changed exactly zero with regards to how society should approach the pandemic.
First, unfortunately, it does not appear that vaccines have an appreciable effect on limiting transmission. This is especially true of omicron. That moves vaccines out of the category of a means for protecting society at large to a measure for individual protection.
But the virus has always been primarily a threat only for vulnerable populations--those with diabetes, the obese, etc.--rather than the public at large. For the elderly and those with comorbidities I think getting vaccinated is a very good idea. But for everyone else for whom the risk is negligible it is probably superfluous.
So in that sense nothing has changed. The general public can largely proceed with life as normal while those subgroups that are at risk should take extra precautions. I call this position the "modified Swedish" because it is what Sweden wished it had done when originally faced with the pandemic: lock down rest homes and group living settings while letting the rest of the country do the work of keeping society running.
"I ask you to consider the possibility that from the beginning, the only solutions were solutions brought to us by medical technology."
I think this might be true for climate change as well (though you can cross out the word medical, obviously). I don't see the world stopping for that either. I just don't buy that we see a world with dramatically reduced consumption.
Great post. I agree there is a huge emotional component. Anxious people want everyone else to validate their emotional state.
On Friday, Twitter was full of people saying Rochelle Walensky wants them to die. I looked it up, and (in a conversation about vaccine effectiveness) she said, “The overwhelming number of death, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least 4 comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with. And yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron…”
People called it “eugenics” and got thousands of likes. The hashtag #MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy went viral throughout the weekend.
I imagine most of them are perfectly aware that Walensky did not say “it’s encouraging that disabled people are dying, because they’re unworthy and also fuck them.” But countless strangers responded with agreement and sympathy, which is what they wanted I guess.
I’m a hypochondriac with anxiety, so I’ve been on the side of lockdowns and restrictions until recent months. I believe it was sensible to isolate until we had a vaccine. But evidence shows: 1) Vaccines are effective, 2) Children under 5 almost never get serious cases, 3) We’re all going to get Omicron no matter what we do. So I’ve softened in my views because of those realities.
I understand why many people are stuck, though – it’s hard to shepherd people through different stages of the pandemic, even with perfect messaging. People who spent two years desperately trying not to get covid still think that’s the goal, even though it’s no longer possible (Omicron) or necessary (vaccines). It's hard to think clearly about things like a "great but not perfect vaccine" after feeling afraid for so long.
I've come to dislike the term "validate." What does it mean exactly? Because I believe one should accept their emotions and admit them, but that doesn't mean one gets to act on all emotions. When did that become true? Its obviously not a good way to live.
I always wondered if while vaccine mandates couldn't (and shouldn't) be enforced, they were a group of people who, while not religiously anti-vax, would decide to get the vaccines as a result. I do know a few people like this either because they didn't "get around to it" or they were like Scarlett O'Hara, waiting to be invited to dinner but got the vaccine once they heard there was a mandate. Perhaps that could justify the mandates even if they couldn't be enforced but don't have any real facts (besides some people I know) to justify this.
Of course the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. But there is a parallel side track and the street sign there is "Do something!"
A couple of observations:
1. Omicron is probably less serious than the original strain but 90% of the people who contracted the original strain were either completely asymptomatic or suffered from symptoms no more serious than a cold or the flu. I remember reading about one of the original patients who introduced the virus to Italy from China: she felt cold during a business meeting, grabbed a sweater and that was the extent of her symptoms. The issue has always been that a small minority of people are vulnerable while for the vast majority it is indeed just the flu. The drive to portray the virus as a threat to the population in general has distorted our thinking about acceptable remedies for ameliorating the effects of the pandemic.
2. A lot of the government responses last year, including lockdowns, were panic driven. Now with the benefit of hindsight we are reexamining whether or not they were justified. The problem is that the question has attained culture war significance. Pushing for lockdowns now is a means for arguing that lockdowns were a good idea a year ago.
3. The lasting effects of the pandemic have been corrosive to social trust, especially in authority. I think that "Trust the science" has probably been irreparably tarnished.
I'm sorry comments were off initially, it was in error. They're on now.
The only thing I'd ask you to do is engage with the arguments that people are making rather than the arguments that you think they are making. I have literally not seen a single person advocate for a "strict lockdown" a la 2020 during this latest wave - certainly not public officials or anyone in a position to implement them - and yet here you spend paragraphs arguing against something that has a 0% chance of happening in the coming months. I have not seen a single educator advocate going back to "remote learning" in the same way that we did in 2020, and yet you spent an entire post railing against its evils.
There may be some people on Twitter who are arguing for those things. And lots of schools are going to close on a very temporary basis because teachers have a nasty aversion to working while sick (even if it's "mild") - but other than that, you are fighting a battle that you have already won.
I think "did lockdowns work" or "did remote learning do more harm than good" are very interesting arguments and you'd get a lot of serious engagement on those topics! But note the past tense on those questions - we really are not going back to those things any time soon. Take the W, Freddie.
I started to write an article in my head about what we should have in place for schools for the next go round, whether in COVID or otherwise:
1) Have, on hand, with a real distribution plan, a supply of high quality masks enough to cover all students and teachers for, say, a month (3? 5?). These should be kept on hand more or less indefinitely, for distribution during a pandemic wave.
2) For the next year, at least, have a supply of appropriate tests on order/pre-order/reserve, whatever to *guarantee* their availability within, say, a month of a new wave appearing on the horizon.
3) Have a plan, on hand, for how to test students and teachers returning from a break, that everyone understands ahead of time.
4) Have an aggressive short and long term plan to improve ventilation in schools, up to and including complete reconstruction when necessary (and in this case the reconstruction is probably necessary for many reasons, just hasn't been done). Make people aware that this is actually happening.
5) Have overall plans for how to handle the next wave that won't literally change completely at the moment the next wave arrives. Don't teach and maintain safety plans which are only used when the situation is almost completely safe anyhow and are discarded the minute the situation changes.
6) Add a week to the end of Christmas break in next year's school calendar, just in case.
(sorry, I'm adding more as I remember them).
7) Once COVID vaccines have regular non-emergency approval, make them mandatory for students to the same extent other vaccines are in your state.
8) Make it clear that all students will be tested periodically active pandemic diseases, or at least make it opt-out rather than opt-in.
People may ask, "Why didn't schools have this anyhow, especially with the fountain of money thrown at the problem?" The problem is not *teachers*, I can tell you that. Our district administration spent the entire summer of 2020 planning for everything except how to manage a rapidly changing pandemic.
Freddie what if Covid mortality goes above 50%? I agree with you based on present facts but something worse is likely in coming decades. Are you assuming we’ll be prepared?
I mean, there's a lot we could we could be doing that's not a Chinese-style authoritarian nightmare. I've been reading yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com which strikes me as a reasonable and dispassionate look at the data, with some recommendations.
For instance, in her most recent post she states that the case/hospitalization decoupling is less pronounced in the U.S. than either Denmark or the U.K., likely owing to our lower vaccination rate.
One thing I'd like to see us talk about more is ventilation. I remember reading something from a few months ago which made the argument that with the technology available to us now, we could make indoor air quality the 21st century equivalent of the 19th century sanitation push, with a resultant reduction or elimination of many airborne respiratory diseases.
There *are* ways to contain outbreaks though. China provided the blueprint. They've had fewer than 5,000 deaths this entire time! They're at the point where they can contain outbreaks without needing to lock down! Most of their cases are mild or asymptomatic because they catch them so quickly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_government_response_to_COVID-19
I agree with the thrust of your article, but I don't view covid as some kind of irresistible force. The US (and most of the western world) is too calcified to mobilize the necessary response but it's not impossible. We're just... not doing any of those things.
"Educated liberals are mad at them, but they don’t have many anti-vaxxers in their orbit" — Don't most people have ongoing protracted wars with family members over vaccination status, active disinformation, and family health and the elderly? I guess I assumed this was more universal an experience from the people I talk to than perhaps it is.
I think the evidence in favor of 2020-style "lockdowns" is a little stronger than you're giving credit for here.
From Nov. 2020 in Nature: "We showed that the most effective measures include closing and restricting most places where people gather in smaller or larger numbers for extended periods of time (businesses, bars, schools and so on)." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0
Another one: "Early-onset lockdown with gradual deconfinement allowed shortening the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and reducing contaminations. Lockdown should be considered as an effective public health intervention to halt epidemic progression." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7806254/
From The Lancet: "Lockdowns are an effective way of controlling the spread of COVID-19 in communities. Significant delays in lockdown cause a dramatic increase in the cumulative case counts." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00315-1/fulltext
More specifically, there's ample evidence that indoor bars and restaurants are significant sites of spread. See:
https://khn.org/news/deadly-mix-how-bars-are-fueling-covid-19-outbreaks/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/10/coronavirus-restaurants-gyms-hotels-risk/
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/09/more-evidence-points-bars-adding-covid-19-spread
(Aside from the research, there's been a great deal of anecdotes flying around lately of restaurant workers on the job while actively sick with COVID because they don't get paid sick leave.)
So, in terms of "what more can we be doing," it seems like "closing bars and restaurants for a few weeks and providing economic support to businesses and workers to get them through it" is a pretty reasonable ask.
I am going to commit heresy and suggest that vaccines have changed exactly zero with regards to how society should approach the pandemic.
First, unfortunately, it does not appear that vaccines have an appreciable effect on limiting transmission. This is especially true of omicron. That moves vaccines out of the category of a means for protecting society at large to a measure for individual protection.
But the virus has always been primarily a threat only for vulnerable populations--those with diabetes, the obese, etc.--rather than the public at large. For the elderly and those with comorbidities I think getting vaccinated is a very good idea. But for everyone else for whom the risk is negligible it is probably superfluous.
So in that sense nothing has changed. The general public can largely proceed with life as normal while those subgroups that are at risk should take extra precautions. I call this position the "modified Swedish" because it is what Sweden wished it had done when originally faced with the pandemic: lock down rest homes and group living settings while letting the rest of the country do the work of keeping society running.
"I ask you to consider the possibility that from the beginning, the only solutions were solutions brought to us by medical technology."
I think this might be true for climate change as well (though you can cross out the word medical, obviously). I don't see the world stopping for that either. I just don't buy that we see a world with dramatically reduced consumption.
Great post. I agree there is a huge emotional component. Anxious people want everyone else to validate their emotional state.
On Friday, Twitter was full of people saying Rochelle Walensky wants them to die. I looked it up, and (in a conversation about vaccine effectiveness) she said, “The overwhelming number of death, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least 4 comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with. And yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron…”
People called it “eugenics” and got thousands of likes. The hashtag #MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy went viral throughout the weekend.
I imagine most of them are perfectly aware that Walensky did not say “it’s encouraging that disabled people are dying, because they’re unworthy and also fuck them.” But countless strangers responded with agreement and sympathy, which is what they wanted I guess.
I’m a hypochondriac with anxiety, so I’ve been on the side of lockdowns and restrictions until recent months. I believe it was sensible to isolate until we had a vaccine. But evidence shows: 1) Vaccines are effective, 2) Children under 5 almost never get serious cases, 3) We’re all going to get Omicron no matter what we do. So I’ve softened in my views because of those realities.
I understand why many people are stuck, though – it’s hard to shepherd people through different stages of the pandemic, even with perfect messaging. People who spent two years desperately trying not to get covid still think that’s the goal, even though it’s no longer possible (Omicron) or necessary (vaccines). It's hard to think clearly about things like a "great but not perfect vaccine" after feeling afraid for so long.
I've come to dislike the term "validate." What does it mean exactly? Because I believe one should accept their emotions and admit them, but that doesn't mean one gets to act on all emotions. When did that become true? Its obviously not a good way to live.
I always wondered if while vaccine mandates couldn't (and shouldn't) be enforced, they were a group of people who, while not religiously anti-vax, would decide to get the vaccines as a result. I do know a few people like this either because they didn't "get around to it" or they were like Scarlett O'Hara, waiting to be invited to dinner but got the vaccine once they heard there was a mandate. Perhaps that could justify the mandates even if they couldn't be enforced but don't have any real facts (besides some people I know) to justify this.