We just might be turning a corner; Blame for people not getting vaccinated
The good news on Omicron keeps coming in. All the evidence collected shows it to be less severe than Delta. It is not more severe for kids despite rising hospitalizations. The best news though is that Omicron could displace Delta and provide immunity against it. The latter finding is still preliminary and based on a sample of just a handful of people so it is too early to celebrate just yet. If it does hold true, we may just be at the end of the pandemic.
I was initially worried that more schools would start to close, but have been very happy to see almost every school district pledge to do what it takes to stay open. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Bill DeBlasio has been great here. He has promised to ramp up testing in schools, but will keep them open. I am sure Eric Adams will do the same.
Much to my pleasant surprise, the CDC revised its quarantine guidance downward to just 5 days for people without symptoms and applied it to everyone, not just healthcare workers. Some have criticized it for not recommending getting tested after five days, but it is a reflection of the reality we are in. We do not have enough testing supplies right now and probably will not have enough for some time. God bless the FDA. Still, that is the situation we are in and the alternative to what the CDC recommended was not having more testing supplies, it was continued excessive quarantine rules and the risk of large sections of the economy closing. We need our economy to stay open and anything that helps with that is welcome. When the pandemic first hit, I was supportive of limiting gatherings and closing things down, but we are way past that and our policies and guidelines need to reflect that.
It really looks like we are finally heading in the right direction in terms of policies and guidance. For too long, both have been too rigid and excessively cautious. Both have also been heavily focused on the public health side while ignoring most everything else. Now, we are starting to see a serious balancing of tradeoffs. The CDC has all but acknowledged that their new guidelines were motivated by a desire to avoid shutdowns and minimize quarantines. In other words, they were concerned about the non-public health problems caused by the current guidelines and rules. That is a welcome development and is how we all can get to go back to normal. Here’s hoping the next shoe to drop is mask mandates.
Just as encouraging, it now looks like leaders in the US and abroad are focusing on hospitalizations and not case numbers. That should have been done a while ago, but I am glad to see it happening now. Omicron has already sent case numbers higher than they ever have been in many places. Despite that, hospitalizations are nowhere near as high as they were during previous waves and that is what counts. Case numbers by themselves tell us almost nothing at this point. With vaccines, case numbers and hospitalizations are no longer linked. It is about time we realized that and our leaders acted accordingly.
We have the tools we need to make the CCP Virus nothing more than background noise. It seems as if people are finally getting over the illusion that vaccines are 100% effective at preventing infection. They are not and were never going to be. If that was our standard, every vaccine in the world would be a failure. The vaccines were invented for two reasons. One is to reduce the odds of infection. The other, and much more important reason, is to make infections much less problematic. On that front, they have been a major success.
I recommend reading this article from The Washington Post about people who were hyper vigilant about avoiding the CCP Virus but still got it. The theme is not happy, but reading it actually makes me hopeful. I am not happy that the people interviewed got sick (they are all fine now), but am glad that it has shattered their illusions about avoiding it.
The only frustrating thing about the article is reading about people blaming themselves for getting sick and acting like they are moral failures. It quotes a therapist talking about how her patients are crying over Omicron, not because it is dangerous, but just because it exists. They think there is no end in sight. Cry me a river. Anyone who thinks that way needs to get a grip, stop apologizing for getting sick and stop feeling sorry for themselves. There is nothing rational about thinking like that. It does not help anyone and only further destroys people’s mental health. The alternative to getting the CCP Virus is not to live happily ever after, it is to live in a perennial state of fear and paranoia.
Every single one of us will get the CCP Virus and probably soon. Most of us will not even know it absent getting tested. Some unlucky ones will feel bad for a while, but will recover and be fine. With vaccines, being hyper vigilant and insanely cautious is purely emotional and not based on any logic or reason. That is why I think more vaccinated people getting Omicron is actually good because it frees everyone from the delusional idea that they can avoid it. Once we all realize we will have it, we can live again like we did before the pandemic. Omicron is looking more and more like it might be the thing that gets us there.
Who is responsible for people not getting vaccinated?
One thing that has irked me a lot is seeing excuses made for those who are unvaccinated. They usually take the form of blaming Biden, Democrats, the left, coastal elites, the media or some boogeyman for the choices made by others. This thread lays out that idea. It begins by lamenting that a friend of the writer is unvaccinated and wonders why someone who is so opposed to masks and lockdowns will not get vaccinated since that is the way out. That is all good, but then it goes on to bash liberals for making “the science,” expertise and masks a cultural marker and attributes that to vaccine resistance.
That is 100% garbage. Sure, plenty of liberals and some public health officials have been obnoxious asses and the phrase “follow the science” has many problems when used by the left, but that is not who is responsible for people refusing vaccines. That honor goes to those who spread lies about vaccines and, above all, to the people themselves who choose to not get vaccinated. What drives me off the wall about hearing those kinds of excuses is that they infantilize unvaccinated people and treat them as if they have no agency at all. It is essentially saying that all of them make their decisions based entirely on what others say or do and that they are incapable of making their own choices.
One of the many reasons I have for disliking wokeness is that it does that same thing. It infantilizes anyone who is part of a "historically marginalized” group and treats them as if they are all helpless victims of oppression. That is exactly what is going on with the unvaccinated crowd. The reality is we all are capable of making decisions. In the case of vaccines, everyone has access to them. They are being handed out like candy and do not cost one cent. The only reason someone is unvaccinated now is because of choices they made. Nobody forced them to do that.
If you want to be mad at people for doing things to discourage vaccination, be made at those in the right-wing media ecosystem. Almost everyone in that world does everything possible to convince people to not get vaccinated. That people listen to them is certainly sad, but ultimately that is their choice. Just as someone who is crazy about avoiding the CCP Virus at all costs is making their own choice, so are people who are not vaccinated.
For years, a common complaint from the right was that the left saw everyone as victims and absolved them of any responsibility and denied them any agency. There was and still is some truth to that, but now the right has fully embraced that mindset. The only thing holding the MAGA crowd together is shared resentment of perceived boogeymen and the belief that they are all victims. Unvaccinated people are not refusing vaccines by their own volition, but because elites are mean to them. They should not be seen as people making irresponsible decisions, but as victims who should be coddled.
I find the idea that if only everyone was super nice to the unvaccinated that they would all get vaccinated to be beyond laughable. Every elected official, public health official, pundit, reporter, etc. could have done everything perfectly and almost all of the unvaccinated would still be unvaccinated. If the Fox News and Infowars of the world could not find something or someone real to resent they would have created one.
Despite the perniciousness of that crowd, the choice to listen to them is up to each person. Nobody is required to live in a right-wing echo chamber just as nobody is required to live in a left-wing echo chamber. Doing so is 100% a choice and that ultimately lies with each individual.
Not every last thing is within our control, but plenty of things are. How we deal with the CCP Virus is one of them. We can choose how risk tolerant we want to be. We can choose to get vaccinated or not. We can choose to try to find reliable information or believe in conspiracy theories. There is nobody else to blame for those decisions. The fact that someone else is obnoxious or horrible does not absolve anyone of choices they made and that applies to any subject.