The vaccine is good news, but it will have little effect on infection rates (averaging around 220,000 per day in the U.S.) or deaths (averaging over 2,500 per day) for many months, or even a year, because it will take that long to get it to all the Americans who say they are willing to take it. Even then, only 71% in U.S. Now Say They'll Get the Vaccine, which is a huge increase over just a few months ago, but possibly still not enough for us to reach herd immunity. Furthermore, if we don’t Vaccinate The World, the virus will persist and continue to be reintroduced into the U.S., starting new outbreaks.
But there is a more immediate problem, and it is one that
can easily be solved: the government continues to encourage businesses to
operate, employees to go into crowded indoor environments, and children to
crowd into classrooms, in a deliberate attempt to infect as many people as possible and keep profits high. According to University of Washington’s IHME, there could
be 770,000
Deaths By April 1, Even With the Vaccine, If Leaders Don't Impose Mask
& Distancing Rules. (Or, a still staggering 540,000 deaths if they do
impose new restrictions). Either way, the Covid-19 pandemic could soon become
the deadliest event in the history of the country. (The previous record was
held by the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed 675,000 people, followed by the Civil War, which killed 618,000 Americans over the course of four
years).
One problem with the hypothesis that we can keep the
mortality down to a still horrific 540,000 by April 1, by imposing mask and
distancing mandates, is that it is too vague and would likely have no teeth. By
imposing mask and distancing rules, they most likely mean telling the public to
wear masks and keep their distance from others, which they’ve been telling us
for the past ten months. These rules have never been enforced with any kind of consistency,
or teeth, anywhere in the country. When states like California tried it back in
April, morbidity and mortality did, indeed, plummet, but the governor relaxed
restrictions way too soon and morbidity and mortality jumped back up again. For
the past week or two, we’ve been averaging over 30,000 infections per day in
CA, more than almost any other country!
People are sick and tired of the restrictions, the social
isolation, their businesses floundering, and getting little or no help from the
government. And, in many people’s eyes, restrictions don’t work. The 30,000 new
infections per day seem to confirm this. Consequently, only 49%
of Americans Say They Will Shelter in Place, If the Government Recommends It.
I predict that thousands will defy the new rules and travel for Christmas and/or
continue to flaunt mask and distancing recommendations, and we’ll see either a
continued surge or a bigger one in January.
The bigger problem with this hypothesis is that it seems to
be universally interpreted by politicians and the media as a mandate to control
our voluntary social behavior (e.g., travel, parties, restaurant dining, bars, church).
But this just blames the victims and ignores the main cause of the surge: forcing
people to return to crowded indoor work environments (e.g., Amazon warehouses, automobile
assembly plants, meat processing plants) and classrooms.
Yes, the 50
million Americans who travelled for Thanksgiving exacerbated the spread of
the disease and those who travel for Christmas will continue that trend. And
yes, not wearing a mask and behaving irresponsibly also spread the disease, but
why were so many people getting infected prior to the holidays? The answer is:
school and work. The 50 million people who travelled for Thanksgiving is a
small compared with the number of people still working indoors and attending
indoor classes. Furthermore, a majority of those who travelled (or who will
travel) had been working in indoor environments and attending indoor classes
prior to their travel, thus taking the germs they picked up at work and school and spreading them to family members at holiday gatherings. Swapping indoor air is the number one way to catch the
disease (see the Stop
Swapping Air campaign). (See also Studies Show Crowded, Indoor Spaces are High
Risk for Covid).
To see just how significant this problem is, consider that Meatpacking
Plants Have Been Linked To 6-8% of All Covid Infections & 3-5% of Deaths,
nationwide. A single indoor Boston
Biotech Industry Convention Spread Covid to 245,000 People. And nearly 400,000 Covid Infections have occurred on U.S. College Campuses, as of December. Those who still believe that children don’t catch and spread the virus, should
keep in mind that over 150,000
New Juvenile Covid Cases occurred just in the Last Week of November, Bringing
the Total to More than 1.3 Million Kids Infected Since January. Michael
Osterholm, the nation’s leading pandemic expert says the
Data is Clear: It is Unsafe for Kids Age 10-19 to Be in School because they
contract and spread the disease at the same rate as adults. One study Found
that 40,600 Lives Were Saved By Closing Schools in March. Another study
found that School Closures Reduced Transmission by 40-60%.
Osterholm,
who is Biden's Covid Adivisor, Proposed a 6-Week National
Lockdown (which, of course, Biden flatly rejected). Yet, if we kept all nonessential
workers home, infection rates would plummet. If we get infection rates down to
1 new daily infection per 100,000 people, it becomes possible to do contact
tracing and quarantining to prevent small outbreaks from spreading, as they’ve successfully
done in China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, each
of which has kept total infections down to around 1,000 per 1 million
residents, or less. “Essential worker” needs to be defined as literally
essential to survival (medical workers; emergency responders; food production
workers). No one will starve to death or bleed to death if teachers, bankers,
autoworkers stay home. But, of course, they must be paid so they aren’t forced
to defy the stay at home orders to prevent starvation. Small business owners
must be paid to keep their empty properties afloat until the pandemic ends.
Renters must be given money for rent or extended a rent moratorium until the
pandemic ends. Landlords must be given mortgage relief if they were relying on rental
income to make their mortgage payments. Essential workers must be provided adequate PPE and their workplaces
modified to reduce infection (e.g., fewer workers on site; more spread
out; HVAC systems that adequately filter the air). And everyone must be given free health
care, since so many would lose their employer-paid healthcare while sheltering
at home. Paid Sick Leave Helped
Reduce Covid Infections, According to this Study.
Until we have reached herd immunity (i.e., enough people
have immunity that the virus can no longer spread in the community), these
other measures are still necessary in order to save tens of thousands of lives,
to keep the healthcare system from collapsing, and to prevent thousands from suffering the
long-term and possibly permanent organ damage that often occurs with Covid-19.
