More than a year ago, I thought I had written my last piece about Covid-19. Alas, both the virus and the various spin-off controversies are still with us, but thankfully both at a much-reduced level.
Today, in California, the state’s “emergency” has officially ended. The stories in California media, like this one or this one, have generally noted that for most of us, the “emergency” part ended long ago.
You probably remember “two weeks to flatten the curve” as the rallying cry for government intervention and lockdowns. Most people could see the sense in that – just so that hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed with sick people all at once. In California, the governor added five more goals to the test before we could emerge from heavy-handed government lockdown and restrictions. Of course, its pretty unlikely that most of those “goals” could ever be achieved, and most were not. But they allowed the governor to ignore the usual processes for government action and to issue unilateral decrees and spend hundreds of millions of dollars without any oversight.
Here’s where we are in February 2023, about 3-1/4 years from when SARS-CoV-2 virus first made its public debut in China –
- Its Still Around and May Linger Indefinitely – Despite ridiculous flip-flop statements from President Biden that the pandemic is over – or maybe that its not over – the virus is still circulating in USA and a few hundred people die every day with or from a Covid-19 infection. In 2021, it was the third leading cause of death in USA (according to the CDC), and some say it will be a “top 10” cause of death indefinitely in the future. More than a million nationwide, and 100,000 in California, have died “with” or “from” Covid-19. (The worldwide numbers are mostly conjecture but could be as much as 20 million.) So, it makes sense to deal with it in a serious fashion as we try to do with other serious health risks.
- But Partial Immunity Is Everywhere – From everything we know, it’s likely that most of the people in USA have had a Covid infection by now. We have known from the beginning that surviving a bout with Covid-19 produces immunity. And eventually – even miraculously – we developed vaccines that also produced immunity. In some cases, both an infection and a vaccination mean you’re less likely to end up in the hospital or dead. There’s really no excuse for not having that partial immunity by now, with the exception of that unfortunate portion of the population for whom vaccination is not an alternative because they have other ailments. But even some portion of that group has already gotten Covid infections but never realized it. If you believe the pronouncements of public health officials today, partial immunity – from prior infection or from vaccination – will usually be good enough to keep you out of the hospital when you are infected again. So, even though SARS-CoV-2 is still roaming the countryside, most of us need not fear it like we did in the early days.
- Some Did and Do Need Special Consideration – We have known for years that the statistics for Covid-19 testing and the number or percentage of “positive” tests is at best unhelpful and at worst a true distraction. Likewise, we thought earlier that statistics about hospitalization or death from Covid-19 were the true marker of how we were doing in dealing with the disease. But its now clear that, by chance or by design, those statistics don’t really tell us what’s important because of a new word in our vocabulary – co-morbidity. Most people who die with Covid-19 are already sick or infirm from other diseases. Then there’s the notorious and affirmatively evil policy of Governor Cuomo in NY ordering infected people returned to their nursing homes, resulting in thousands of deaths, about which he then lied and denied. Its likely to be a long time before we can untangle this with precision, but we now know with some certainty that we should have treated the old and the infirm differently from the vast majority of the population.
- Can we now clearly see what we should have done when it arrived? Hindsight allows us to see what we did right, and conversely, what was wrong and sometimes absolutely wacky or evil in the public and private responses to the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic:
- Lockdowns – Lockdowns caused major harm to individuals and businesses. They were irrationally designed and irrationally implemented. They were not very effective. Many small businesses were destroyed. Poor people suffered more from lockdowns than rich people. Many excess deaths and aggravated health conditions resulted. Civil liberties were violated. Dictatorial powers were grabbed by people in government who lied and continue to lie about it. Children in public schools were harmed in ways we knew from the beginning and can now measure empirically.
- Travel Bans – Prior to and during the Covid-19 pandemic, the WHO’s position was that travel bans were ineffective to stop the spread of a pandemic. That turned out to be true, but the desire of governments to “do something” overwhelmed the evidence and wisdom of past experience. It’s not much consolation, but we saw in recent months in China the result of the lockdown / travel ban policies – at some point, they have to end and then the virus runs its course.
- Social Distancing – The newly invented term “social distancing” is an idea supposedly grounded in empirical data and common sense, but actually doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Staying a meter, or 6 feet, or 10 feet away from others surely reduces the likelihood that, if an infected person sneezes in your face, you will inhale a lot of virus particles that they exhaled. That’s the common sense part. but other than trying to stay away from other people, there’s nothing particularly scientific or effective about social distancing. That is, the farther away you stay from others, the greater the protection will be, but it doesn’t assure you of anything, and the arbitrary rules come with great tangible and intangible costs.
- Hand Washing – Remember in the early days of the pandemic, we were admonished to wash our hands frequently and keep our hands off of our faces? Most of us had mothers that taught us that as children, and it is surely a good idea. But did this stop a lot of Covid-19 infections? Probably not, and no one now seriously thinks it makes a big difference in whether you will be infected. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is spread mostly through the air, not from surfaces.
- Masks – The final prong of the trifecta of visible measures we were all told to take was to wear a mask. This has also been rejected as an effective measure by public health community prior to the pandemic. The Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918-20 demonstrated that simple cloth masks just don’t stop viruses. Its likely true that virus particles found in spit or mucus from a sneeze would be stopped or reduced by some masks. But the initial advice – don’t bother to mask up – was the right advice. But again, the desire of politicians to “do something” lead them to reject established, conventional medical wisdom and encourage and then impose a “mask mandate” on the public that doesn’t really work or make a difference. Who knows how many infections and hospitalizations and deaths resulted from people who wore their masks, confident it would protect them. Early on, it was pretty clear to to a layman like me that only something like N95 (and equivalent) masks were meaningful. Of course, N95 masks will probably make some difference in that most (but not all) airborne virus will be stopped by the mask. But the N95 mask has to be available, and has to be properly fitted, properly worn, properly handled and properly disposed of. Long after we knew that most infections resulted from aerosolized virus particles, the CDC and other public health authorities insisted that we must wear a mask, and it didn’t matter what kind. Tragic for some of those who were infected while wearing a cloth party mask, and for the rest of us, the source of untold amounts of social anxiety, strife and division.
- Ventilation – Here’s the one thing that actually can and does make a difference – good ventilation that circulates cleaned, filtered air. We knew this 6 months into the pandemic, yet no lay person or local government official can really figure out, as a practical matter, whether a grocery store, church, office or other indoor space has ventilation that is “good enough” to greatly reduce the airborne virus count. Even now, on airliners, with very good filtering and circulation, some believe its not good enough, although its surely better than most places we go to in everyday life.
- Compulsory Vaccination – This is another area where the actions of governments caused great harm. The support that the US and other governments gave to the vaccine inventors and manufacturers was amazing and proper. But the subsequent compulsory vaccination campaigns were based on the false premise that a vaccination meant that you could no longer catch Covid-19 or give it to someone else. So, while it seems appropriate to justify big campaigns to encourage vaccination because it usually reduces the severity of the infection, there is no justification for government rules barring un-vaccinated people from travel or admittance to a public place or going to work. Likewise, with the “booster” campaigns. I’ve been vaccinated twice and boosted twice (and tested positive once, to boot), but I’m not convinced its worth the public effort and money to make boosters compulsory. If the next round of boosters are each going to cost $100+, I’m not sure you will see widespread uptake unless there is clear evidence that it really makes a difference.
- “Science” – Finally, great harm has been done to the argument that “science” has the answers. Scientific method and scientific processes and scientific opinions can all be legitimate and interesting and helpful. I almost always want to know what “science” says about a topic, in cases where science is relevant. But the coercive measures that governments enacted and then justified as being necessary because of science often had no such justification or were not, in fact, effective. “Scientists” should never make public policy. Politicians should weigh what scientists say and make the decisions. Deferring to the bureaucrats at CDC and elsewhere to establish and the require compliance with measures they believed might be helpful was a big mistake.
- Huge Amounts of Wasted Money & Then Inflation – If governments imposed lockdowns and other measures that cost individuals and businesses money, and destroyed their livelihoods, its entirely understandable that governments should spend money to try to mitigate that harm. I believed, and still believe, that the first round of federal pandemic relief programs was good and helpful, even if they were crude and poorly-tailored in many respects. But the second and third federal pandemic relief bills were not well-designed and were very wasteful. And now we see that the injection of that much money into the economy was a major cause of today’s inflation. Curing that inflation with monetary measures only, as the Federal Reserve is now doing, will cause more disruption and loss before inflation is tamed.
- Ignore the ~20% on Either End – There were strident and sometimes violent claims from the far out ends of the “spectrum” of responses to Covid-19. Maybe 10-20% of the population refuses to acknowledge the pandemic was a problem, refuses to taken any measures to protect themselves or others and accuses the government and public health experts of various politically-motivated conspiracies. Maybe another 10-20% of the population refuses to acknowledge that Covid-19 is not really a big problem anymore, continues to engage fearfully in “hygiene theater” and accuses the group at the other end of the spectrum of various politically-motivated conspiracies. Most of us have learned to ignore both kooky ends of the spectrum, while we have found a place somewhere on that spectrum that seems sensible and comfortable to us individually. I still wear an N95 mask on long airline flights, but nowhere else. That’s where I landed on the spectrum of opinions on the mask issue. But I surely don’t criticize others for wearing, or not wearing, an N95 mask. And I don’t much listen to those on either end of that spectrum who continue to want me to do things their way.
- Who wants “Amnesty”? The media were abuzz a while ago about an article in the Atlantic by a professor arguing that there should be an “amnesty” for what people said and did during the worst days of the pandemic. She argues that, on every issue listed above and others, someone was proven to be “right” and someone was “wrong.” But, she says, we shouldn’t “keep score” because no one knew what to do. I’m certainly willing to accept two points from her argument as being correct – first, in the first couple of months of the visible, public pandemic in USA (let’s say March and April 2020), a lot of people in power and out of power didn’t know what should be done. I’ll cut all of us some slack for that period. Remember, just about everyone agreed with “two weeks to slow the spread”. But after that, I have a lot less tolerance for foolish or evil public policy. Second, among lay people who were just trying to do what they each thought was right or best, I don’t fault anyone’s decision for themselves or their families. But those in government or public service who made decisions with the force of law, and compelled others to accept their decision, I have much less tolerance. If you’re creating and implementing policies with the force of law, you had better be right. Full stop.
- Who wants an Apology? I think decision-makers in government and public health owe the public an assessment of their actions during the pandemic. That would surely include noting the things that were done “right” and ought to also name the things that were done “wrong.” I don’t expect to see that from elected politicians. And I think it’s entirely appropriate for everyone to applaud them and boo them for the good and bad decisions they made.
- Will we be smarter next time? The public health folks tell us that more virus pandemics will be coming. I hope we learn the lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic, which I think are these:
- Stay on your toes – I’m not sure that there was much we could have done differently in the early days of late 2019 and early 2020, even if the pandemic had originated somewhere other than China. But be alert!
- Learn something from this pandemic – We made plenty of mistakes. Next time, don’t repeat the ineffective measures from last time.
- Be ready with the right resources – This seems obvious, but maybe isn’t happening.
- Be clear about what’s known and what’s unknown – We did learn a bit about “the science” during Covid. But we surely will have lots of unknows in the next pandemic, too.
- Don’t lie – There was lying – by governments, companies and individuals – to cover up for earlier mistakes and miscalculations. This destroys the credibility of the liar.
- Don’t try to “sell” the public a solution – This idea of getting the “messaging” right and combating “misinformation” has generated a lot of mistrust and division. Especially when the government’s “message” wasn’t always right and the “misinformation” wasn’t necessarily wrong. The FDA and the CDC have presumably learned something about reputational damage.
- Search for the least intrusive measures – Coercive government lockdowns, firing workers who refuse to be vaccinated and using the “emergency” as an excuse to further your unpopular and mostly unrelated policy measures will not be well received.
- Don’t impose mandatory measures without rigorous debate and clear evidence that they will work – A lot of what governments tried to do, didn’t really work.
- Be ready to change when indicated – Individuals and institutions don’t like to admit they were wrong and change their minds or policies. We’ve seen that from all political and philosophical viewpoints. But we really need to do this.
What Are We To Make of This? 