We are said to be in ‘wave 3’ of the Covid pandemic. In the U.S., as of this writing, a cumulative 11,202,265 have tested positive for Covid after administering 149,014,170 tests, equivalent to 45% of the US population. The actual number of contractions is likely much higher due to low availability of testing in the early stages of the pandemic, and especially low symptom individuals who never got tested. Or it may be less if the tests created false positives based on common-cold coronaviruses or disabled fragments of the virus. Deaths stand at 248,468, a death rate that has now shrunk to 2.19% of recorded cases.
If Covid was a god, it would be an angry god that has not yet had sufficient sacrifices given to it. This is what I see when I look at the charts and compare that to what we threw at it to stop it. Just yesterday alone, we had more confirmed cases than we had all the way through March 30, 2020. By that time, we had locked down for almost two months, we had destroyed our economy, sort-of flattened the curve and were starting to open things up again, gradually. If we only knew then what we can see now. We enjoyed a semi-recovering summer and early fall, only to see the stats again skyrocket starting in October. Suddenly, now everyone is hearing of someone that got it or maybe several people.
A lockdown was supposed to break the chains of transmission; a sound idea conceptually. Nobody move for one month (much longer is some cases), and anyone that has it will be recovered, non-infectious, or dead at the end of the said lockdown. Then we tried masks, lots of them everywhere. Masks were pushed for instances where they had no clinical efficacy, being in close quarters indoors (except using a properly fitted N-95 mask). They were also pushed for instances that had no needed utility, outdoors in moving air with no sustained close contacts. Some institutions remained closed down such as many schools, meanwhile, children integrated and played like normal on their own blocks. Most average people avoided large people gatherings. Rioters and political people did the opposite, attending large ‘gatherings’ often.
Masks were mandated in a lot of places in May, when the curve had settled and day over day infection rates were low. Looking at the daily cases chart for the U.S., any casual non-medical person would come away with one simple conclusion and it is this: Enacting high impact anti-transmission efforts on populations creates a short term nominal decrease in infections, but then fails miserably. Lockdowns work short term, then fail. Masks appear to mitigate some individual’s risks, but as observed in the macro, they too fail. The more people comply, the outcome trends worse.
When government and politicians look at these charts, they say, “look how bad it is, how non-compliant you’ve been, and how much more control you need to give us to save you.” I and many other look at it and say, “your controls have been at best marginally effective and at worst, show that you have no idea how to actually manage a pandemic.” I’m viewing this from the upper atmosphere, metaphorically, from where you can see the curvature of the earth. To be fair, the government tried and are themselves helpless, but damn them for their guilt tripping, hypocrisy, and especially for their opportunistic euphoria in the exercise of new, seemingly unlimited grabbed power. Even though we’re on the eve of vaccines employed on Covid, I suspect we’re looking ahead with the same dumb optimism we had in May and June.
Very lethal viruses like Marburg and Ebola, the Plague, Hanta viruses; these pop-up in unexpected times and places, claim their victims with intensity and retreat back into the dark forests or jungles from which they came, but only on their timetable. Even our common flu does the same, just with less lethality, on a more predictable recurring timetable and conditions, and on a much broader scale. Viral outbreaks, like mold colonies have a ‘hive’ mind. They demonstrate unified consciousness and intelligence that is able to anticipate and thwart efforts to control and exterminate them. They want a certain number of victims. They don’t care if they get their victims in a year or five, or ten, or generations. That we decide.