CommentsGELFAND’S WORLD--It's been a struggle since the novel corona virus was first identified and then began to chew us up, wave upon wave.
And all of this has happened in a mere eleven or twelve months. But it's almost over -- at least it should be. And here we are, about to abolish the virus from our lives through the use of multiple vaccines -- perhaps two or three different formulations, each ready to appear in the next month or so. All we have to do is keep our heads down, avoid crowded areas, and be reasonable, and we will be free and clear in the next half year.
That's where reasonable behavior would lead us. There is even room here to give some credit (however modest) to President Donald Trump, who at least did not screw the vaccine program up too awfully. The results ought to count, and we seem to finally be seeing results.
But while the concerted behavior of thousands of pharmaceutical researchers and factory workers is leading to a predictable end to the pandemic, another kind of behavior is observably wrong, terribly damaging, and right now out of control. I'm talking about the behavior of the American people -- at least some of us.
In a previous article, I talked about the benefits of herd immunity. Unlike a super-communicable virus like measles, the Covid-19 virus is slower to get around and makes fewer of us seriously ill (those it does make seriously ill have had a terrible time of it, but that is another story). For this pandemic, we probably don't need to get herd immunity up to levels in the 90% range that we require for measles. I doubt if even the experts are really sure what it's going to take to get to real herd immunity, but it is probably lower by a substantial amount. Maybe 60% or 70% will get us over the hump.
But even immunity of a lesser part of the population is probably going to help. The first round of inoculations is going to protect healthcare workers, and as new batches of vaccines become available, we will be able to protect a lot of the really old people who have contributed a disproportionate share to the death toll. We should start to see caseloads and death rates drop substantially at that point. We're talking six weeks or so to start to see results.
What should the rest of us be doing in the meanwhile? The answer is to keep our heads down: Stay indoors, avoid getting coughed on by strangers and distant relatives alike, stay out of crowded restaurants and bars, and hold on for another three months or so.
For the least vulnerable, it might take six months because you will be last in line for the vaccine. But we know that help is on the way.
The problem is what's happening right now. We know that thirty-somethings doing all the wrong things can become asymptomatic carriers of the live virus, and their behavior has led to what we are now witnessing. Los Angeles County is experiencing a Covid-19 explosion. South Dakota and Indiana and other parts of the country are suffering similar explosions. People are still dying from the disease, and a lot of those casualties are preventable. The spike is happening.
And a lot of this explosion is attributable to Donald Trump, he of the vaccine crusade. Had the man shown even a minimal level of true leadership by wearing a mask in public and by not undercutting what the doctors and scientists were saying, we might have done better as a nation. If his followers had been holier-than-thou about wearing masks, the rest of us would have put up with it, and there would be tens of thousands fewer dead. Think about how easy it would have been.
Europe vs. the Americas: five months of zeros vs five months of busy ICU's
A few days ago, a right-wing radio host actually said something that was accurate about the pandemic. Europe, he pointed out, had (at the time) higher rates of Covid-19 deaths when ranked per million population than we Americans. This turns out to have been true. Let's consider briefly what he was talking about.
As previously, I will link to the Kevin Drum graphs for the relevant countries here. Italy (the original model for the European version of the epidemic, is at the top left. The United States is at the bottom.
For several European countries, there was an initial sharp peak of Covid-19 dead. In Italy, there were 14 deaths for every million population per day (Italy has about 60 million people). That's why, in April and May, we were hearing that the Italians and French were losing so many hundreds of people each day. But the Europeans, for the most part, enforced a lockdown that made the American lockdown seem puny by comparison, and as a result, the European death toll went down to near-zero and stayed there for one-third of a year. Germany, essentially alone among nations, held its death rate down to about 4 per million per day, and then got it down to near zero.
The Americans by contrast never got that initial reduction to near-zero. We saw the curve go way down by July 1 (down to 2 per million per day, still a lot of dead people because for a country our size, it adds up to 600 or so deaths every day). But we could never replicate the European results. The U.S. just kept dragging along, with somewhere between five-hundred and a thousand people dying of the virus every day, month after month.
Now, suddenly, as the infectious residue of Sturgis, countless Fourth of July parties, Halloween, and Thanksgiving dinners accumulate, we are seeing case numbers growing at a huge rate. It could have been prevented.
Now back to the "gotcha" moment I heard on talk radio. Between November and December, the European countries suddenly saw large increases in Covid-19 cases and deaths that rival what they endured at the beginning of the year. This is presumably due to the relaxation of rules all over the continent. Even the Europeans got complacent and they are now paying for it. That doesn't mean that the U.S. is reacting well to the pandemic, as the radio announcer's words might have implied. It just means that Europe can also make mistakes, and in this case they did.
But the Americans just stayed complacent. As a nation, we have been willing to endure those 600 dead per day over the spring, summer, and fall.
Some of us got worse than complacent. It seems that about half the country is downright rebellious about the way that the authorities are trying to limit our behavior. Instead of dealing with the reality of a pandemic that is killing people off left and right, they are talking about recalling the governor and violating the rules passed by county supervisors.
For most of us, it is probably not too late. Just treat the epidemic as real and try to avoid being the last American to die for lack of a vaccine. Then get the vaccine.
The need for a public ID for vaccination status
This is going to be a hot topic very soon. When the vaccine is widely available, we will be able to have ID's that show our vaccinated status. Our civilization will be able to put restrictions on riding a bus or flying on an airplane. We will be able to limit entrance into a store or a movie. This is as it should be, although the usual crazies will protest and file lawsuits. But the rational approach is to go back to something equivalent to the international certificate of vaccination that people had to show when they crossed national borders. Is there any doubt that international travel will go back to this system while there is any Covid-19 still infecting the population?
Addendum: Pardon me, say the Trump children?
So now the rumors are starting that Trump will hand out pardons to his family and possibly even to himself. Why would he want to do something like that if they are all as pure as can be? Perhaps the tippee-tip of this iceberg came through the other day when Ivanka had her deposition taken over the misuse of the inaugural funds. It seems that an unusually large amount was paid to the Trump Hotel, an amount more than twice the going fair market rate. It was (if true) a way of taking quasi-public money and putting it into the Trump pockets. Note that the Trump family has been doing this the whole four years what with trips to golf courses and resorts. Whether any of it rose to criminality is another question, but as of this week, we've got Sean Hannity laying the groundwork for widescale pardons from the president. It seems that Donald Trump's first and only term will end as it began, on a bedding of lies and graft.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].)
-cw
