I actually didn’t say anything at all about how I expect “people to act.” I didn’t call for a “lockdown”, or mask mandates, or anything that involves compelling people to do stuff they don’t want to do.
I’m talking specifically about the failure of public health. Where funding for the pandemic response keeps getting cut. Where surveillance and data collection is poor. Where the people who are most at risk will be the least able to afford to get tested, vaccinated, and treated. The plan is commercialize. To move the pandemic response out of the hands of the government and into the hands of private enterprise.
This will disproportionately affect the disabled, the elderly, people from marginalised communities, indigenous peoples. People that work in low-paid jobs. People that work in the food industry.
I’m sure that almost everyone on these board will be fine. But this isn’t about “hot zones” any more, and focusing on that means you ignore the fact that sick people can’t afford to take time off work and will be forced to go in, it ignores the need to invest in the healthcare system and healthcare workers who have been depleted by over 2 years of pandemic, it ignores the probable impact of long-covid.
Nothing is inevitable. I went down to the supermarket today and everyone was masked. If I were to get covid I’d get free healthcare to treat it, I’d get paid by the government to isolate for the (required) seven days. I got a text yesterday to pop down to the local vaccination centre to get my free fourth vaccine. I can get as many free rapid tests as I need. These are really the basics one would expect from the government during a pandemic.
I follow all Covid restrictions - if masks are required, I wear one and in fact I may wear one for the rest of my life in certain situations. But while you don’t see value in “risking death or dismemberment” for a one-night event, I don’t see it that way. First of all, it’s not a “one-night event” if I’m attending concerts and sporting events - no one is attending a single concert/sporting event/party and then returning to isolation until there is a vaccine which will cover current and potential variants. I also don’t believe there will ever be a vaccine that will cover current and all potential variants - how could there be? So no matter what vaccines there are, I will always be taking a chance , even if I live another 25 years. And I would rather die soon than exist for the next 25 years without living.
It will not be treated as a pandemic for long. It will be treated as the endemic disease that it has become. Pandemic response is drastic and will not be put up with forever. The people eventually decide. They will decide against you and the high cost of pandemic response. Do I wish we had universal healthcare? Sure. That’s not going to happen any time soon. So yes it will go back to commercial entities because that’s what we have in this country.
I actually read an article the other day that pointed out that it’s effectively like smoking these days, in that serious illness and death are essentially a personal choice thing, and that the excess deaths are in the same ballpark as smoking as well, so it’ll become a public health challenge very similar to smoking, not the flu.
…I think you need to stop kidding yourself. It isn’t being treated as a pandemic now.
Many of the people (in America) have already decided. And they’ve decided this:
Well yes. The public health response in America has been catastrophic. Putting the pandemic response in the hand’s of commercial entities is an utterly ridiculous thing to do. And it will disproportionately affect those who are at the bottom of your society. As it always has, as it always will.
You know who has decided? Those “bottom of society” people you are so worried about. I couldn’t work from home. I had to go into peoples houses the last few years. Guess where I found the least concern for the pandemic? It wasn’t the big houses. How are you going to force people to care more about Covid?
If the public health response is relying on “forcing people to care” or even dependent on “people caring” then we aren’t talking about the public health response.
Yes, I’m worried about those at the bottom of society. As should we all.
Who funds public health? The public. So yes the public needs to care or they won’t be behind it. “Trust me I’m with the government” doesn’t work. If the last couple years hasn’t shown you we can’t force public health on the American public without bad consequences I don’t know what will.
In the U.S., there’s no way to implement a sustained nationwide public health response from up on high. There just isn’t – for better or worse, for right or wrong. Criticisms can certainly be noted, but the overall edifice of the U.S. as a nation isn’t nimble enough to pivot that quickly.
To turn the U.S., socio-culturally, into a huge version of New Zealand would take immense social change measured over generations, not over months.
…please don’t imagine I’m doing anything more than making observations. I’m under no illusion that anything will change any time soon in the US. In fact, I’m anticipating that everything will get significantly worse.
The public didn’t decide to change the guidance people exposed to COVID-19 don’t have to isolate any more. There wasn’t a referendum. There wasn’t a vote. That was a decision made by the CDC. There are limits to what the public decide. And when it comes to matters of public health, often decisions are made that not everybody likes. That’s simply the nature of public health.
Other things affect the poorest of us as well, such as shuttering the places they work.
At least with this, the government has funded absolutely free vaccines and boosters, and has made one hell of a push to make them as accessible as anything we’ve had in decades.
Anyone who doesn’t have it has decided that they don’t want it, and a HUGE proportion of those people don’t want us to protect them with pandemic restrictions. I am beyond tired of fighting the fools who want both no precautions and no vaccine. These are the fools who made sure our response was catastrophic, who fought every reasonable precaution before vaccines were available, fought the vaccines when they were developed, fought everything to actually contain the problem. I’m not fighting them to protect them from themselves.
For what it’s worth, and somewhat relevant to this thread:
Yesterday, the director of the CDC announced that the agency is being restructured, in order to allow it to act more nimbly, and also to improve how it communicates information and guidance to regular people, which she acknowledges has been a significant issue, particularly during COVID.
Guidance is not compliance. In the short term in some states that guidance worked reasonably well. In other states it was rejected outright. In the long term any far reaching health initiatives require either public cooperation or government force. How well do you think the later will work?
…yes, I’ve made a value judgement. And I do own it.
You could have shuttered those places they worked, and then paid them all to stay home.
“One hell of a push” is an entirely subjective thing. And “accessible as anything we’ve had in decades”, in the context of healthcare in the US as compared to anywhere else, doesn’t really mean very much.
Equitable access to healthcare, consistent metrics and methods of reporting are the things that I’ve been focused on here. I’ve barely touched on “pandemic restrictions.” An effective pandemic response is much more than just so-called “restrictions.”
The catastrophic public health response is the responsibility of the people in charge of the catastrophic public health response.
And I’m not asking you to fight for anyone.
I’m not entirely sure what you want me to say here. We’ve seen the future of how public health will be run in America already. This is it! In the long term any far reaching health initiatves will be farmed out to private enterprise who will run everything for a profit. Anything the government do will probably get struck down by a random Trump appointed low-level judge.
You guys won. You’ve got the public health response you always wanted. This is it. Cheesesteak doesn’t want to “fight them to protect them from themselves” anymore and now they no longer have too.
You can be the cranky old man yelling at clouds or you can work towards making the real world better. Pointing out how it is in the real world is not meant to be a personal insult.
…I just want to go back to this post here because it kinda focuses in on where I’m at.
Public health is about much more than just “restrictions.” As I said in my first post public health is all about "protecting the health of entire populations.”
That’s the brief. That’s the entire point.
“The people” have spoken. And they have decided that things are “good enough” to remove protections.
This isn’t a debate any more. This is where you are at.
People in this thread are throwing a positive spin on this. “Hospitals aren’t really full.” “It’s only 400 people per day.” “Everyone had their chance to get vaccinated and they didn’t take it, so they get what they deserve.”
But the reality is that most people probably will be fine, but the ones who are most easily forgotten. Yes: that includes the “anti-vaxxers” and the “cultists”. But they aren’t the only people that are suffering.
Public health is concerned with protecting the health of entire populations. It isn’t just about and never just been about restrictions.
And this is why I stand by my observation that the pandemic public health response to the pandemic in the US has been catastrophic. Because all people can think about are “restrictions” and every other aspect of a public health response that is seeking to protect the health of entire populations is being ignored.
Forget masking. (Although this is important) Forget lockdowns. Think ventilation. Think equitable access to healthcare. Think vaccine equity. Think financial support to isolate.
From a recent oped about the recent CDC change to the guidelines:
Things will be “good enough” when mortality among minority groups is no longer twice as high as everyone else. And that is the entire point of a public health response.
So I say to this:
This is about you owning it. And I don’t mean “you” as in specifically you. But as in everyone here who thinks things are “good enough” now. “Good enough” means that most everyone is going to be okay. But there will be plenty of people who will not. And those people who will not be okay are not just people who “deserve it.” But those with unequal access to healthcare, to vaccines, to wealth. The historically marginalised.
I will note that what I had written was in response to the OP, who specifically stated “hospitals ARE full,” and whose general take on things seems to be that the U.S. is no better off now than it was at the height of the early days of the pandemic.
Things are better than they were months or years ago, and for most Americans, COVID isn’t an existential threat anymore. But, you’re absolutely right in that it’s not just the willfully unvaccinated who are still at greater risk; it’s also those in the poor and marginalized groups, as well as those with underlying health conditions who, even if they can get the vaccine, are still at risk. I needed to see past my privilege on this.
You’re also right in that we, as a country, kind of suck at public health. Part of that is probably the decentralized nature of public health decisions and administration, part of it is the dominance of private and for-profit health insurance and healthcare, and a good amount of it is our citizens’ “you can’t tell me what to do” attitude.
Anyway, thank you for pointing out that I wasn’t seeing the entire picture.
…I was only really using your post to make a larger point, wasn’t intending to pick on you You were addressing the OP, and my reply is kinda taking what you said out of context, so apologies for that.
You were addressing the OP, and my reply is kinda taking what you said out of context, so apologies for that.