Coronavirus news

[J. Thomas Shelley]

https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2022/02/15/covid19-and-the-failure-of-americas-major-religions-n2603293

[Jim Butler]

Here is a hopeful update:

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-health-united-states-3e7ab3f74080bac8480aa6de3e65ecce

Money quote:

About half of eligible Americans have received booster shots, there have been nearly 80 million confirmed infections overall and many more infections have never been reported. One influential model uses those factors and others to estimate that 73% of Americans are, for now, immune to omicron, the dominant variant, and that could rise to 80% by mid-March.

[peter_speckhard]

This is an interesting article from Newsweek.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-eisenhower-predicted-fauci-opinion/ar-AATJhbG

[D. Engebretson]

Most states have now removed their mask mandates, many in the schools as well.  CBS News also reported that "California became the first state to formally shift to an 'endemic' approach to the coronavirus with Gov. Gavin Newsom's announcement Thursday of a plan that emphasizes prevention and quick reaction to outbreaks over mandated masking and business shutdowns." Case numbers are falling. I believe I read that over 70% of the country has some level of immunity either from vaccines or having had the virus. I suspect there will be people who will live with strict pandemic protocols for quite a while after this, but I think that most of the country is ready to treat the virus as it does the seasonal flu ones. 

Overall I think that most churches have long since returned to normal, with some lingering covid protocols.  For example I and the elders still mask during the distribution of the Sacrament.  Perhaps by summer we can back away from those as well, although we recently had a 'dust up' with some who felt we were too lax in not enforcing universal masking at worship.  I hope that the pandemic has not caused too much division in the church-at-large, although I realize it has in some cases.  Perhaps with time this chapter will be put behind us.  I can only hope.

[Charles Austin]

Pastor Engebretson:
I believe I read that over 70% of the country has some level of immunity either from vaccines or having had the virus.
Me:
True, but the immunity may not be strong and it will not last.

[D. Engebretson]

The truth is that this virus will never completely disappear.  According to my doctor we have effectively eradicated only one: small pox.  All the others linger somewhere.  I suspect this is a higher immunity than we have ever had for the seasonal flu virus.  We will have to learn to live with this.  It's gonna stay....somewhere. 

[Charles Austin]

Personally, I am inclined to think that it is time to ease off on masking and certain other restrictions. There is a risk, but the risk may be less than the risk that can come from continued fighting about masks.

[Charles Austin]

More about masking and other restrictions:
I personally believe restrictions should probably be lifted in many ways. Not that they that I believe they’re not necessary or that they don’t work, but I worry that the civic and social damage might be a bigger risk than the infection itself.
I worry that those who oppose masking and other precautions concerning the pandemic are unduly influenced by some truly wicked forces in our society, and that they are being misled, and that some of them simply aren’t very bright.
But the disruption in Civic Society, not to mention the political garbage that is being thrown around concerning that issue is serious.
So let’s back off the masking, back off some of the other restrictions. We will then, I hope, have a greater chance for civic peace. There is a risk. But if more of us get sick and die, maybe we will learn from it. If not very many people get sick and die, we will have come out on the plus side of the risk.

[Terry W Culler]

I'm somewhat amused by people who say they will continue masking because they believe that will protect them from infection when actually masked are to keep you from infecting others.  i don't know how we've gone 2 years and folks still don't get it right. 

[D. Engebretson]

I hope that when we are far enough removed from this pandemic to not be emotionally caught up in all the drama that has surrounded it, we will be able to analyze the response to it in a balanced manner.  I don't think that many people out there were necessarily caught up in fantastic conspiracy plots or were deliberately ignorant and rejecting of science.  I think that people had concerns and made choices they felt were in the best interest of their own health and their family's, but were demonized for those choices because they did not fit the prevailing narrative.  I think that there was more than a little confusion over the last two years with regard to mandates and directives, and we must be cautious not to fault people too quickly for not always grasping where those in authorities were going.  And we cannot deny that politics played a role in all of this, and it will take some time to sort all that out so that we can have a truly clear and relatively unbiased assessment.  But like so many crises of a national and international scope, I don't think such an analysis will be fully possible for years, maybe a decade. 

[Coach-Rev]

I'm somewhat amused by people who say they will continue masking because they believe that will protect them from infection when actually masked are to keep you from infecting others.  i don't know how we've gone 2 years and folks still don't get it right.

Neither is true, even according to the CDC's own internal statements, and still it persists.  Analysis of filtration of specific masks vs either droplet or aerosol size of shed covid virus shows just how ineffective both cloth and paper (surgical) masks really are.  I've posted the data here before.

I personally believe restrictions should probably be lifted in many ways. Not that they that I believe they’re not necessary or that they don’t work, but I worry that the civic and social damage might be a bigger risk than the infection itself.

Glad you finally came around.  Some of us have been saying this from the beginning.

I worry that those who oppose masking and other precautions concerning the pandemic are unduly influenced by some truly wicked forces in our society, and that they are being misled, and that some of them simply aren’t very bright.

And I worry that those like Anthony Fauci are misleading America, all for their own personal gain, and are the REAL wicked forces that are influencing folk like you.  I would refer you to Robert Kennedy's book "The Real Anthony Fauci."  And FWIW, those who are influenced and brainwashed by Fauci et al. are not very bright.

So let’s back off the masking, back off some of the other restrictions.

It's truly a remarkable thing to see liberals suddenly "backing off" their draconian restrictions that have destroyed the economy, divided the country more than it already was before, and perhaps killed more people than it saved.  Guess there must be an election coming soon.

[Harvey_Mozolak]

Stated:  And I worry that those like Anthony Fauci are misleading America, all for their own personal gain, and are the REAL wicked forces that are influencing folk like you.

can you share what personal gain you refer to, say in Fauci's case?  Other than personal aggrandizement, which would be hard to prove because there is also personal belittling that is being offered to him?  And where how do you source your answer, please?

[Coach-Rev]

I would refer to the same reference I made in my previous post.

Dr. Robert Kennedy (a liberal Democrat) and his book "The Real Anthony Fauci." 

It is nearly 400 pages of Fauci's 50 year career of using deceptive and often unethical practices and studies to outlaw drugs like HcQ and use the same deceptive and unethical practices to promote toxic and ineffective drugs like Remdesivir.  All I can tell you is to read the book, and examine the exhaustive footnotes and endnotes that support his claims.  Fauci did the same thing during the AIDS pandemic that he did during Covid, and people died as a result, unnecessarily.  Yet he and his cronies pocketed millions.

[D. Engebretson]

There is no getting around the fact that this is an election year, and an important one. Biden's approval ratings are way down. Democrats face a very real chance of losing both the House and the Senate.  I don't think that it is a mere coincidence that blue state governors started loosening covid protocols, especially mask mandates, even contra CDC guidelines.  In general the public is tired of the restrictions and wants them to end.  A few, of course, want them to stay, but that is a very, very small minority, I suspect. Much of the country has been opening up long before this change in the blue states.  Now Wisconsin had far less restrictions; the ones we did have in the beginning were struck down by the courts.  So, life in my state has not resembled the more highly controlled ones with strict mandates.  If the CDC is considered the 'gold standard' of health protocol guidance by those who insist we must "follow the science", then going against them clearly indicates to me political expediency.  This doesn't entirely bother me, however, as I think we are long overdue to open up the country and begin to learn how to live with an endemic and not a pandemic.

[D. Engebretson]

In my local paper yesterday was an AP article entitled Wisconsin Senate approves protections for unvaccinated.  I love one of the opening sentences where it says the package of bills "aim to shield workers who do not want to protect themselves from the virus by being vaccinated."  A bit interpretive and judgmental, if I might say.  Have they talked to a lot of these "workers"? Do you try to understand their hesitancy? 

The article is clearly not supportive of the bill or the Republicans who are sponsoring it, and as we have discussed in another thread, shows as much ideological bias as attempts at simply reporting.  One of the provisions of the bill is that employers could require a prior coronavirus infection as an alternative to vaccination and testing.  I hope that when much of this crisis settles down we can have a thorough and complete investigation and study of natural immunity.

Of course, our Democratic governor is predicted to veto it.  With a Republican controlled Senate and House and a governor in the other party, we are divided in our state on most issues, not least of which includes the pandemic.  But it was because of the Republican legislators that we eventually were spared the draconian shut-downs and mandates other states labored under.