What Comes Next

I said in a post earlier this week that it is winding down.  The ending of many mask mandates is seen by many as an important milepost in recovery from the epidemic and from the self-inflicted lockdown wounds.  But it isn’t over and it may never be over, as long as we allow the authoritarians, the fearful and the “experts” to have any power.  Real recovery will mean passing laws to ensure that no one ever is able to exercise this kind of power again.

I have tried throughout the epidemic to encourage people to recognize complexity and avoid simplicity.  As vaccination proceeds apace, I  would remind everyone to understand what that means.  First, the data and the research suggest that full adaptive immunity following vaccination likely takes at least a month.  Even one dose of a two-dose vaccine helps limit infection and infectiousness, but it takes time to get the full benefit.  And adaptive immunity, once more, is not some physical barrier to infection.  People will be exposed and some will be infected to some degree.  Some will have fragile immune systems that even vaccination can’t help, so there will be hospitalizations and deaths.  Life goes on and this is part of it, humans have always been plagued by infectious agents.  We have to accept this basic truth, CV-19 isn’t going away forever.

I strongly believe there are meteorological factors that interact with many others to facilitate or hinder viral spread.  In the upper Midwest, we are heading to a low period.  In the Southeast and Southwest, I would expect even with high vaccination levels, we may see some slight case bump as we get into mid-June to July.  Next fall, I would expect to see the same bump in the Northeast and Midwest, spreading southward as we get to winter.  So we will see rises and dips.  But what I really hope for is that we stop tracking CV-19; we stop breathlessly reporting case and death numbers.  That would be the single best thing for the population; to de-emphasize CV-19.  It was great for the media while it lasted, but terrible for the nation’s mental health.

And we have to repair the damage that reckless and futile suppression measures have inflicted on so many in our population, especially children.  No more masks or restrictions of any type for children and special efforts to assure them that the world is a safe place and to help them recover lost learning.  This is particularly important for low-income and minority students, who just have been devastated by loss of educational opportunity.    We need to get people’s health and health care repaired; we caused so many to miss needed services due to the terror campaign.

I will do everything I can to fight to end the current formulation of emergency powers and to help fix the damage and I hope you all will as well.  Meanwhile, the motto is be vigilant against continuing abuses and “accept and adapt” in regard to CV-19.