Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021497
HEALTH
COVID-19
Umair Haque ... I’ve Met the Covidiots of 2022 — And They’re Our Leaders
COVID-19
Umair Haque ... I’ve Met the Covidiots of 2022 — And They’re Our Leaders
Image Credit: Dr Prof Christina Pagel on Twitter
Original article: https://eand.co/ive-met-the-covidiots-of-2022-and-they-re-our-leaders-84ed9171108f
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Written by Umair Haque
January 8th ·2022
I’ve met the Covidiots of 2022, my friends. And unfortunately for us, they’re our leaders.
Let me begin with a little story, which you can skip if you want..
My lovely wife, the doctor, spluttered into her phone. And then she looked at me with a look I’ve come to know too well over the last few years. She spent two years — two and a half, in fact — battling wave after wave of the pandemic. Seeing people die, gasping for air, who’d been fine and healthy just a few hours before. Kids, the elderly, moms, dads.
She knows the reality of the pandemic — the brutal, unforgiving horror of it — in ways that you and I don’t. To this day, have you seen someone suffocate to death because of the virus? Maybe you should have.
The look she gave me? A combination of anger, despair, and powerlessness. Not at the virus, this time, though. At how it’s ripped what was left of our societies apart — and exposed, as if with a scalpel to a bone, the lethal incompetence, stupidity, and incompetence of our leaders. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
She’d just read that the head of the CDC — the head of the CDC — proclaimed that the majority of people dying because of Omicron were people who already had co-morbidities, so this was “really encouraging news.”
She was disgusted, horrified, incandescent. My wife? She takes her Hippocratic oath seriously. Maybe even more seriously than our marriage, because, well, look at the idiot she has to deal with every day. The Oath. First, do no harm. But do our leaders have any understanding of such a concept? Because I’m going to explain to you the horrific mess we’re all now in, thanks to them.
Across the Atlantic, a new consensus towards the pandemic is emerging. A brutally foolish and mistaken one. It goes like this. Our leaders have decided that we should “learn to live with the pandemic,” because “the pandemic is ending.” This means the following things. In the UK, vaccination is going to stop. Covid tests aren’t going to be free anymore, meaning that they’re not going to be available at all. In America, Biden’s “advisors” have proclaimed that the virus should now just be allowed to rip.
Our leaders are surrendering. They’re not declaring victory — they’re giving up. They’re surrendering us, by the way. They have made their peace with mass sickness and suffering and death, and shrugged. The average person is bewildered. Is this right? True? Correct? Should we just…surrender?
Let me help you make that decision for yourself, with five facts — which dispel five myths. Which our leaders appear to be absolutely, fatally ignorant of, oblivious to — or maybe they just don’t care.
This is the last wave, right? Wrong. The variants have not stopped and will not stop. In fact, the WHO is tracking plenty of them. You can see them right here. Just last week, scientists — good ones — were concerned about yet another one which seemed to have many mutations. I’m going to talk about mutations in just a second. First, the fact is this. Omicron is not the last wave of the pandemic. New waves are going to arrive, probably seasonally — every summer and winter. That is a fact.
So if we know — again, know — that new waves are going to arrive, probably seasonally, why take the foolish decision to stop testing? Stop looking at case numbers? To stop vaccinating, even? All that is premature, to say the least.
This isn’t good science. It’s stupidity and ignorance. It is the politicization of science. That is a theme we’re going to return to.
Some waves will be less severe. And some?
Omicron is just Covid becoming the flu, right? Wrong. Viruses do not — let me repeat, do not — “evolve to become less severe.” Any virologist will tell you that, and plenty are screaming on Twitter, only our leaders have decided not to listen to them. If viruses evolved to become less severe, then no disease in history, really, would have mattered. But they have and do. Hepatitis still kills millions. Polio and smallpox didn’t become one iota less severe until vaccines were created to rid humanity of such maladies which had plagued us for millennia. All you have to do is think about it for one second using the knowledge in your head to understand that viruses don’t evolve to become less severe.
That is because viral evolution is not human evolution. Viruses have been around far longer than us. But they didn’t evolve brains or eyes or legs. They just stayed…viruses. They do not evolve like us. Their evolution is governed by mutation and recombination and chance, and their selection pressures are not like ours are. Many are ascribing human characteristics to viruses when this is a simply false and dangerous way to look at viral evolution.
So, let me say it again, Omicron is not Covid becoming the flu. And yet this is literally what top “advisors” on both sides of the Atlantic are preaching. These appear to be scientists who are more interested in politics than science. They are rejecting the most basic fact of how viruses work, one which any virologist will happily confirm for you.
Because viruses “don’t evolve to become less severe, the variants we are going to face can go either way. Some might indeed be relatively innocuous — but some? Some could be really, really bad.
How bad is really bad?
Coronaviruses are reputed to be masters of mutation. As far as the “virosphere” goes, they are some of the most “recombinogenic” viruses there are. Recombinogenic means that they recombine a great deal — viruses swapping bits of genetic material. There’s already real-world evidence of Coronaviruses in bats acquiring working genes from other viruses. So how bad could a future variant be? We don’t really know, but the upper bound is really bad. Because if Coronaviruses can acquire functioning genes from other viruses, then recombination hits the sky’s limit. All kinds of nasty things become possible.
The point, again, is that the trend which our leaders appear to believe in — and which they’re encouraging the average person to believe in — is false. The pandemic’s over, because the virus has evolved to become the flu. That is all 100% false. None of that has actually happened. It appears that way because we got lucky, or because Omicron was a statistical inevitability, Covid-19 reccombining with a ubiquitous common cold virus. But what happens if it recombines with something worse? The trend of diminishing severity is false. It is an illusion, and our leaders are verging on malpractice by encouraging it, if they’re really foolish enough to believe it themselves. There is no guarantee whatsoever — none — that future variants will magically be kinder, instead of more lethal.
Let’s think about the most obvious possibility. Covid — our Covid — recombines with SARS or MERS, its predecessors. Those have mortality rates of between 20 and 40%. Now imagine a virus with the infectiousness of Omicron — even half it — but the lethality of SARS or MERS. That is the kind of fire we are playing with — or our leaders are playing with on our behalf. Want to take that kind of chance? That we breed that variant? Even if you do, you shouldn’t. Because it would incur massive, massive costs for us all. Not just in terms of public health — it would crash economies and stop polities and wreak more havoc than even Delta or Alpha did.
So three myths. The pandemic’s over. Omicron’s the last wave. Covid is evolving to become the new flu. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not just wrong in some kind of trivial way, either, but dangerously, stupidly wrong.
But my booster will protect me! Right? Wrong. It’s a little known fact that boosters lose efficacy fast. At about ten weeks, most boosters have already dipped under 50% protection. Think about that for a second. What does it really mean? Boosters offer people maybe two to three months worth of protection. And that’s it. Then you’re in the same place, more or less, as you were before.
Logic would dictate that means that people are going to need boosters every few months. So why are leaders shying away from it? Israel, wisely, is already moving in that direction. But our leaders, generally speaking, are going in the opposite direction. They don’t want to give people boosters. Why not? Because they don’t want to pay for it, probably — and that’s the generous interpretation. Because the other one is that they don’t know the science, which is unequivocal on this score.
But so what? If I’ve had Covid once, I can’t even get it again, right? Wrong. Reinfections are rising. That is precisely because a variant like Omicron appears to be better able to reinfect people — to cause what’s know as “breakthrough infections.” Listen to this. “The protection afforded by past infection against reinfection with Omicron may be as low as 19%, Imperial College said.”
Now put that together with the preceding fact — boosters don’t work very well after two or three months. What does that mean? It means that people get Covid, over and over again. They keep getting it. It becomes “like” a cold, only it’s not a cold, because as you can see, hospitals are full of kids on ventilators: “Today in the US, more than 4000 children are hospitalized with #COVID19, which is double what we saw 2 weeks ago. At one Indiana hospital, half the kids went to the ICU and ~25% were put on a ventilator.”
The WHO — the only sane party left in this mess — has been wise to warn against saying that Omicron is “mild.” It’s less severe than Delta, sure. But that’s not saying a whole lot, because Delta is a disease that killed probably north of ten million people across the globe, a million in America alone. Being less severe than that does not remotely make Omicron “the cold,” “a flu,” or “mild.” If it were, hospitals would not be full of, let me say it again, kids on ventilators.
But the death rate is lower! So everything’s fine!! Wrong. Have you actually checked the death rate, my morbid friend? Why so glib about…people dying? The death rate is flat. But that is not really progress. In America, there’s the equivalent of a 9/11 every two days…still. That is not some kind of “mild” or “low” death rate. It’s just that it’s become acceptable to our leaders, and they’re encouraging us to make our peace with mass death, too. But should we really accept the equivalent of the worst terrorist attack in American history…every two days? Or does that just corrode us into cowardice and make fools of us?
But hospitalisations are lower, right? Wrong. Go ahead and look at the chart. Hospitalizations in America are now as high as they were during Delta’s peak. Omicron still hasn’t peaked yet. Yes, hospitalisation as a percent of cases are lower. But that is cold comfort. Because healthcare systems have hard limits. And we are hitting those limits, in terrible ways, like, again, wards full of kids on ventilators.
The idea that hospitalisation is lower is, let me say it again, wrong. It is lower in relative terms. But it is not really an indicator like that. Absolutes matter. We can’t say that just because everyone in society is sick, if only 2% of them end up in terrible predicaments in the hospital, that that’s some kind of success. It isn’t. It is still a shocking and massive failure. America and Britain have let their kids — their kids — pack hospitals with a disease that leaders have wrongly encouraged people to think of as “mild.” Think about the madness and stupidity of all that for a second. Kids do not get hospitalised with mild illnesses. They should not be hospitalised at all. Meanwhile, we’re all ignoring the sudden wave of deaths among the elderly — which surely have plenty to do with Omicron too.
But so what if kids are in the hospital and old people die! Hey, the strong survive, right? Wrong. First, that’s a fascist way to think — and sadly, the pandemic is making little fascists of us all. Our leaders have adopted a basically fascist politicisation of science at this point — a eugenics of letting the frail and elderly and weak die off, kids end up in the hospital, so that life can be “normal” for the rest.
But that is not going to end well for anyone, just as fascism usually doesn’t. Why not? Leave aside the fact that if you get sick, even of something else, you’re probably not going to be able to find a hospital bed. The problem is much worse than that. Every case of Omicron brings us that much closer to new variants emerging. Every reinfection of Omicron — something we can now predict is going to happen regularly — brings us that much closer to new variants emerging. Every seriously ill person is a viral playground, in which new variants find ideal breeding grounds. By treating this variant so casually, we have only ensured the emergence of the next one. And, again, we don’t know how bad it will be. We only know that it probably won’t be even “milder” than Omicron, which isn’t “mild” in the first place, even if that’s the Big Lie our leaders encourage us to swallow. It will probably be — if only because of the laws of sheer, dumb chance — worse than this one. How much worse, though, is anyone’s guess. It might be a recombination with MERS. Or it might be something like Delta. Want to go back to the spring of 2020? I didn’t think so.
So what’s the good news? The good news is this, but I want you to really understand it — not clutch at it like straws, and ignore everything else, from science to public health, which is what our leaders are doing. Between vaccines and existing infections, you now have some limited degree of protection. Not complete immunity. That brings me to my final myth.
But so what? Between vaccines and prior infections, I’m immune now! Wrong. What you have is some limited degree of protection. You’re protected — for now — against severe disease, and maybe even hospitalization. But over time, antibodies to Covid appear to wane. After how long? We’re just beginning to have good data, and that seems to say at around six months or so, roughly.
Then there’s your other kind of immune system — the long-term one, which is made of B and T cells. Those work together to hold a “memory” which attacks pathogens over long periods of time. We don’t know how long this kind of immunity lasts to Covid, yet. This is by far the best hope we have to really conquer Covid in the long run. Existing vaccines are “neutralizing” — they target the spike protein which Covid uses to rip into our cells, and make it less capable of doing that. But the virus mutates especially at the spike protein to evade them. T cell response, on the other hand, interferes with the virus at a deeper level, stopping it from replicating in the first place.
That is probably what we need to focus on — the development of vaccines not just for Covid-19, or even variants like Omicron, but a general Coronavirus vaccine. One that lets us not to have to worry about new variants, period, because it’s capable of disrupting Coronaviruses in general, eliciting a strong, long-term immune response, especially from T and B cells. My wife, the doctor, can tell you more about that than I can.
What I can tell you is that if that’s not a priority — and it’s not, right now — the pandemic is going to keep on disrupting our lives. By “a priority,” I mean we should be pouring money and effort into it. So far, for perspective, we don’t even have a vaccine for Omicron. We’re using vaccines against Delta for it — and we’re lucky, because they work.
But at some point, our luck is going to run out. The variants won’t stop coming. There’s no guarantee they won’t be worse, and they could indeed be much worse. This one? It’s already packing hospitals with kids on ventilators and killing off the elderly with a vengeance — so if you believe the Big Lie our leaders are telling you, that it’s “mild,” then you might want to stop and ask who made you such a fool.
Our luck is going to run out. We need to defeat this virus, not surrender to it. That means a) vaccinating the world with b) the vaccines we have now while c) developing a more general vaccine. Those are really our only good options. At least if you believe in science.
Our leaders do not appear to appear believe in science anymore. They have politicised the pandemic. They are telling you a series of what can and should only be described as Big Lies. Most people, bewildered, confused, scared, are wondering: should I believe these myths? My leaders wouldn’t lie to me, right? I’m sorry to tell you that either they are, or worse, they’re so ignorant they don’t even know they are.
It is a sad thing to watch leaders trash the gift of science. Science is humanity’s gift of knowledge. It is for all of us. For our benefit and betterment. To politicise it is a shame and a disgrace.
Why are our leaders doing it? Because they are scared. Their approach isn’t working. They don’t know what to do. Sadly, they are surrounded by poor scientists who themselves appear to care more about politics than science, like Dr Wallensky, who at this point, is something between a national laughingstock and global pariah — who thinks it’s a good thing that people who are already sick are dying of Covid? Our leaders have bundled Covid incredibly badly.
The question for you is this. Are you going to understand the reality of the predicament you now face, or you going to believe the myths? My only job here is try and point out to that these are all foolish, fatuous lies: the pandemic’s over, this is the last wave, it’s becoming the flu, it’s mild. Lies which, conveniently, hide the truth of how badly our leaders have trashed our future, and let them get away scot-free with it.
Let me say one final thing. Nobody is wearier of the pandemic than me. OK, maybe a few people, Like those who have lost loved ones, terribly and suddenly. Or like my wife, the doctor. Me? My wife has come home crying in bitter rage, slumped in despair, weeping with fury, almost every night for years. I hold her tight. And treasure the nobility of one who is still there, doing the right thing, caring, trying, with a fierce passion that burns through all the lies and corrosion, even if it can’t burn them away.
She is the bravest person I know. I don’t know if she knows that. She just thinks she’s doing her job. But what about our leaders? They have given up on theirs.
I wish more of us were like her. I wish I was. She teaches me every day about my own shortcomings. Our leaders? The pandemic was what finally taught me how foolish and malicious they are. And it teaches me that lesson again and again now, every day.
Umair January 2022 Eudaimonia and Co