Politics, politics, politics: The reality gap, Hobbled public health, Manufactured apathy and more
A vaguely themed miscellany
Welcome to the 7th issue of The Covid-Is-Not-Over Newsletter! Thank you very much to the 130 or so people who have already subscribed to the newsletter. I would encourage all of you non-subscribers reading this to like, share and subscribe. Spread the word!
This issue is a grab bag of recent articles that I found interesting and illuminating. There’s a vague theme this time for most of the articles, basically around how politics has shaped the total abdication of responsibility by government and public health authorities this past year or so.
The next issue or two will continue to be vaguely themed at best as I work on a compilation provisionally titled “How Academia Sh*t the Bed on Covid.” The final title will probably not include the rude word, though I’ll admit to being tempted.
Like I said: like, share and subscribe! Spread the word!
I’m also happy to take suggestions for themes in the comments. If there are articles out there you think I should highlight, I’m happy to accept those in the comments as well.
See you next time!
The Reality Gap: The failure to recognise the ongoing severity of COVID-19 is creating a reality gap that is being filled by groups peddling misinformation / The John Snow Project
Worse, the failure to recognise the ongoing severity of COVID-19 is creating a reality gap that is being filled by groups peddling misinformation. A recent film viewed by millions of people around the world falsely claims vaccines are causing the excess mortality and sudden deaths. Rather than recognising and educating the population about the well documented role of COVID-19 in cardiac and neurological damage as a consequence of vascular damage or auto-immune dysregulation, governments and policymakers have remained silent, thus allowing misinformation and disinformation to flourish. The end result, predictable and indeed predicted since almost the start of the pandemic, is that trust in vaccination as a whole is eroding, undermining the foundation of public health, beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
The reality gap and attempts to deflect attention away from the pandemic and its consequences have further repercussions. Earlier in 2022, acute hepatitis cases in children were seen around the world, and despite extensive evidence of SARS-CoV-2 causing liver injury, the UK Health Security Agency flagged adenovirus, a common virus not previously associated with hepatic injury, as the most likely cause54. This had clinical implications, with frontline healthcare workers encountering the condition opting to treat with antivirals. In fact, it seems the hepatic injury was immune mediated, which might explain why children with the condition responded to immune suppression in the form of steroid treatment. The knock-on effects of mischaracterizing the root of the problem are serious: if an infection is the source of the hepatic issues, then immune suppression is not the proper treatment. Scapegoating adenovirus and ignoring the immune-mediated cause of liver issues in children meant that many of these pediatric patients did not receive appropriate treatment.
Covid backlash hobbles public health and future pandemic response: Lawsuits and legislation have stripped public health officials of their powers in three years by Lauren Weber and Joel Achenbach / The Washington Post
Health officials and governors in more than half the country are now restricted from issuing mask mandates, school closures, and other protective measures or must seek permission from their state legislatures before renewing emergency orders, the analysis showed.
The movement to curtail public health powers successfully tapped into a populist rejection of pandemic measures following widespread anger and confusion over the government response to covid. Grass-roots backed candidates ran for county commissions and local health boards on the platform of dismantling health departments’ authority. Republican legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the legal arms of libertarian think tanks filed lawsuits and wrote new laws modeled after legislation promoted by groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence in statehouses across the country.
The Alabama legislature barred businesses from requiring proof of covid vaccination. In Tennessee, officials cannot close churches during a state of emergency. Florida made it illegal for schools to require coronavirus vaccinations.
The result, public health experts warn, is a battered patchwork system that makes it harder for leaders to protect the country from infectious diseases that do not care about red and blue state borders.
Manufacturing Apathy: When information cannot be removed from public view, New Brunswick officials endeavour to remove interest from public minds / PoPN NB
The government and the office of Public Health claim legitimacy and authority through propagating the idea that they protect people from illness and death, that they improve and prolong life.
This is a myth.
The public believes this myth.
They believe, if things were bad, government would inform them. But if government doesn't inform them in time, government would intervene. But if government doesn't intervene in time, the systems created by government will heal them. We see all around us, day after day, that this mythological safety net does not exist, and perhaps never did.
Blind public trust is a potent tool and it has been used effectively in New Brunswick to convince good people to not protect themselves, their families, or their communities from a crippling pathogen.
But blind public trust does not come naturally. It requires cultivation.
Covid struck and Britain locked down. Here’s what we learned from that – and what we must do next time by Devi Sridhar / The Guardian
Three years to the day from when Britain went into formal lockdown, it’s worth reflecting on the historical moment we all lived through: a once-in-a-century kind of pandemic that swept the world over. As analysis and inquiries begin to make sense of what we lived through, it’s clear that different political factions are attempting to rewrite what happened and why. Some are questioning, driven in part by the Telegraph’s lockdown files, whether the Covid-19 pandemic was really that bad. Was the response by government proportionate?
In these debates, there’s a clear survival bias. Those who can ask these questions were affected by restrictions and are likely to have had Covid-19 once, if not several times, and survived. Those who died – an estimated 220,437 people in the UK – don’t have a chance to weigh in on whether government intervention was sufficient, or whether their deaths were preventable. More than a million people suffering from long Covid still face scepticism over their condition and an uphill battle to have it recognised and addressed
Merchants of Doubt: Some people wave away concerns about the long-term effects of COVID-19 by saying, “if it was really bad, the government would take steps to protect people.” / John Snow Project
Whatever one’s understanding of the harms of COVID-19, it would be a mistake to assume governments would automatically protect people from a public health threat in the face of more immediate economic considerations. In fact, history tells us there would be resistance to change that might be costly until the evidence to justify it was overwhelming, a process we’ve already seen played out during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From asymptomatic and airborne transmission to the risk of breakthrough infections and reinfections, from organ, immune system and neurological damage to the impact of Long Covid, every single serious harm of SARS-CoV-2 has been minimized by influential commentators, including experts on some public health committees, whose words seem to carry more weight with policymakers than the carefully designed studies evidencing these harms. Each of these harms increases the rationale for a change of approach - and each will be resisted by those keen to defend the status quo.
‘We Were Helpless’: Despair at the C.D.C. as the Pandemic Erupted: Current and former employees recall rising desperation as Trump administration officials squelched research into the new coronavirus. by Apoorva Mandavilli / New York Times
All through February 2020, agency scientists had been gathering evidence that the new coronavirus was being spread by people without symptoms. In early March, the C.D.C. said that any employee who had been deployed elsewhere to track Covid-19 must isolate at home for 14 days, whether or not he or she had symptoms.
To the scientists gathered outside, trainees in the agency’s vaunted Epidemic Intelligence Service, the implication was clear: C.D.C. leaders realized that the virus was being spread not just by people who were coughing and sneezing, but also by people who were not visibly ill. But the agency had not yet warned the public.
“All of us knew tens of thousands were going to die, and we were helpless to stop it,” said Dr. Daniel Wozniczka, one of the trainees. “It was really heartbreaking and difficult on a psychological level not to be able to do anything.”
It is generally known that morale at the C.D.C. plummeted as Trump administration officials sought to squelch dissent among career scientists who disagreed with the White House’s handling of the pandemic. But few employees have described the despair inside the beleaguered agency as hospitals overflowed with patients and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues.
Do You Have Coronaphobiaphobia? Ask Your Doctor if Notmybizumab is Right for You by Jonathan Howard / Science-Based Medicine
Are you a doctor who has written multiple articles saying “now is the time to stop living in fear?” Did you say cautious people were not “truly not actually living right now“, months before anyone had been vaccinated? Are you engulfed with white hot rage by the handful of people who still wear masks in crowds? Have you relentlessly mocked them on your podcasts and Twitter feed? Have you called them “idiots“, “STUPID“, a “bunch of fools” “total morons“ “delusional” and “off their rocker”? Did you mercilessly shame anyone who wanted a booster just weeks before the Omicron variant ripped through the population? Do you actively encourage strangers, whose lives you know nothing about, to repeatedly expose themselves to a new, mutating virus with unknown long-term consequences? Do people who are still trying to avoid SARS-CoV-2 remind you the pandemic didn’t end in 2021 as you said it would? Have you coined new terms to stigmatize anyone who doesn’t want to repeatedly get sick with COVID for the rest of their lives?
My Blog has a bunch of COVID Information posts you can find here:
Around the Web: Women in Science May Suffer Lasting Career Damage from COVID-19
Around the Web: Scholarly Communications in the Age of the CoronavirusCOVID-19 Resources for Canada & Ontario: Advocacy, Data, Visualizations, Health & Safety Standards, News
Around the Web: COVID is airborne so enough with the bullshit hygiene theatre
Around the Web: COVID-19 is airborne and hygiene theatre is the wrong response
The COVID Information Series: The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Not Over!
The COVID Information Series: Dear Joe Biden, The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Not Over!
It is as if an unsaid gag order has descended on the government and society at large. Both parties are complicit in this intentional episode of temporary(?) amnesia.