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20/20 Hindsight, We Were Never Going to Stop COVID – Our Response should have been This.

20/20 Hindsight, We Were Never Going to Stop COVID – Our Response should have been This.

This is going to be a bit of a rant, so bear with me. While I recall thinking this in the early days of COVID, it could just be my brain saying “I told you so.”

We were never going to stop COVID.

This is very simple, either you get the vaccine or you get the disease in the passage of time (2 years, 5 years, 10 years), you cannot count on anything else. We were never going to stop the disease by isolating the patients, masks or social distancing. Herd immunity was never within reach. China was already allowing it to spread around the world, there was no keeping it out or keeping it from large population centers. Americans do not have the heart to exterminate or otherwise mistreat diseased people (which would likely have saved 100’s of thousands during the AIDS epidemic…), we are not willing to throw away our Constitution quite so easily, even in the face of life and death conditions.

We needed to resign ourselves to the condition that COVID was here to stay. Only China could have prevented a worldwide epidemic, and they were not cooperating. Our only goal at that point should have been to make sure that our hospitals were not overwhelmed, that people who got the disease had access to treatment, and that vulnerable populations (mostly the old folks) were protected as much as possible until the vaccine was available. Locking down was a good tool to try to keep the disease at bay, but trying to prevent any and all contagion was foolish. And still is.

If I were starting this over again, the right feedback loop is to watch the hospitals and make sure we have the capacity for the patients. The social measures should be throttled accordingly. When hospital beds are open, social measures should relax. When hospital beds are close to full, increase the social measures where it makes sense and only to the extent that we don’t exceed hospital capacity. And all of this should be a DELAYING TACTIC until the vaccine was prepared. Thereafter, the vaccine should be is the only measure necessary. Many local governments have actually followed this (wittingly or unwittingly). It makes sense.

Once we found out that the young were in almost no danger, we should have embraced that and (much like parents used to do with Chickenpox), expended our efforts making sure that they DID get the disease and got over it (or in later stages, get the vaccine). Schools should never have been closed, at least not for more than the first month, while we were getting the parameters for the disease. Kids were major carriers but in no danger themselves. This should have been obvious.

I believe that the correct focus would have shortened the COVID crisis and mitigated the economic damage by a factor of ten. The over-reaction of some officials caused a great deal of unnecessary damage. I don’t believe that lives were saved.

The very early Trump response was that probably COVID would not be an issue. Why did he say that (100% supported by his advisors)? Very simple, history indicated that epidemics like this were not likely, there was not a lot that anyone could do, and he didn’t want people to panic. There were just a handful of cases in America at that point.

But later, as new data indicated that this was a serious threat for epidemic, Trump issued the orders and guidance, based on the advice of his advisors, to start with masks, do social distancing, etc. He started distributing resources, ventilators, hospital resources, etc. and using federal funds to pay for the production of supplies.

More importantly, he started the most massive effort in history to develop the vaccine, funding billions in research from multiple sources, which resulted in the fastest start to finish vaccine development in history.

The partisan attacks on Trump and the vaccine by the Democrats gained them power in the 2020 elections, but opened a chasm between political factions. The resulting resistance costs thousands of lives and $100’s of Billions in economic damage.

Initially, attacks on Trump damaged the reputation of the vaccine, causing doubt in many people’s minds. The Biden Administration has an existing vaccine (thanks, Donald), but has failed to inspire the level of vaccine usage that would reduce contagion. Biden has allowed a new resurgence in COVID, there was absolutely no reason for this to have happened.

Make no mistake, I blame the Democrats (because I always do, and it is usually their fault) but this was a failure on both sides. And it was a failure of previous administrations not developing the proper plan for dealing with an epidemic. With 20/20 hindsight, this is obvious.

And we have not quite learned yet. We still see people being harassed or fired for not getting the vaccine, we still have mask mandates that don’t make sense, and those damned social distancing stickers are still on the floors of many supermarkets.

And approvals for vaccines for children are just now getting underway. That should have been done a year ago.

Again, we were never going to stop COVID.

COVID is very similar to every other kind of flu, it is contagious and it will not go away. It will be with us from now on. The vaccine for it will have to adapt, much like the regular flu vaccine does now. COVID will be normal, hopefully the B.S. that came with it will not be.

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36 Comments

  1. Ben

    I agree that at this point it’s too late to reverse course with soooo much bad information being consumed. However, imagine if the previous administration had handled things differently as opposed to only worrying about numbers and how it made him look. It was a prime opportunity to come together for the greater good. Instead we have this.

    Trumps greatest accomplishment ( his vaccine) is being shunned by his own base. It never made sense to me. I recently moved from the city to the country. Most city dwellers wear masks and kinda try to do as recommended. Out here in the country, it’s as if Covid doesn’t exist. How can we hope to stop it when folks won’t take the simplest of precautions.

    On the good side, my best friend’s wife is a Nurse Practitioner and hospitals are in such desperate need of workers she was offered $125 an hr. The hospitals are overwhelmed, but the money is good. So silver lining I guess.

    • Dean R Neumann

      Because it’s just the flu. They just renamed it COVID-19.

    • Joe Gilbertson

      I saw a job posting for an overseas emergency nurse. $30,000 per month.

  2. Miles collins

    Blame the Chinese. We should seize all of their assets in America. But they also had help from the democrats through collusion to harm Trump

    • Ben

      You do understand that trump ran as a Republican, and the Senate was controlled by republicans when COVID hit America… right?

      So much for the buck stopping at the President’s desk huh?

      • Miles collins

        I do understand that Biden hasn’t done a damned thing about Covid. The old prick is too busy trying to appear intelligent. And that’s a lost cause

        • Frank stetson

          And from the mouth of experience.

          Wait until you have something of value to share.

        • Ben

          Miles, remember when trump bragged about meeting the President of the US Virgin Islands?

          Trump skipped the “trying to appear intelligent part”.

          • Miles collins

            I remember Biden on the campaign trail getting his sister mixed up with his wife during their introduction. I wonder who he’s really been fucking. Not including the little girls that he loves to fondle.

        • Ben

          I remember trump spelling his third wife’s name wrong. And as far as little girls … only one of the two was on Epstine’s private island… and it wasn’t Joe.

        • Maria

          love it!

      • Joe Gilbertson

        And in seven months we had three working vaccines. Had never happened before in the history of medicine.

        Joe has those vaccines now. One would think he could do better.

        • Frank stetson

          Joe, Not to worry, its mostly Conservatives in the hospital and dying. They got their wish of personal freedom at last. But without mandates whatttya want Joe to do? He made the vaccines available, accessible, free, but even Trump gets booed forctaking them.

          Besides Joe, isn’t this how you wanted to get to herd immunity? Now suffer the little children for their parents ignorance.

          So sad, so unnecessary. Such a waste. .

          • frank stetson

            Actually Joe, I will agree with the point you didn’t make that Biden is responsible for a lack of adequate testing and rapid testing. That’s on his watch, was foreseeable, and he has had 11 months to prepare. Xmas testing was a debacle.

            Frankly, we need vaccine mandates wherever the law allows. We need proof of vaccinations for many public offerings and group settings. We need to make the unvaccinated pay for that choice when using emergency medical services for lack of a vaccination. It’s just fair.

            The latest CDC call to shorten quarantine time is not going to help this.

    • Micala

      Yes! Definitely! If the CCP and Xi would have let the world know that China was highly infected with Covid so much that Xi had villagers dig enormous pits outside their villages to burn and bury their dead from COVID — the disease could have been isolated in China!! But Xi hid ALL the deaths from the world and why his countrymen were dying, other infected countrymen were flying to other parts of the world SPREADING COVID because it was the Chinese New Year.

      There is absolutely 100% BLAME FOR THE SPREAD OF COVID WHICH LIES DIRECTLY ON THE CCP AND XI’S shoulders! If Xi would have grounded all flights out of and into China during the height of the infection, the rest of the World would not have been infected as much…but he did not!
      The Chinese still do not know how many hundreds of thousands villagers died….too many that their deaths had to be burned and buried. Desperation makes people do the “UNTHINKABLE”!

  3. frank stetson

    In the future, I might rebuttal your tome, point by point. Now, we will just scuttle the whole thing as making little factual sense.

    First, this was on Trump’s watch in 2020, plain and simple, quit blaming the Democrats. Biden was dealt his hand, Trump was the dealer. Now the hand is Biden’s to deal; that’s a separate issue.

    Second, you take a myopic US-centric view of the whole thing primarily blaming the Chinese. IF it wasn’t the Chinese, it would be someone else, perhaps even us. Fighting a pandemic is the issue. Trump never even looked at the existing pandemic plan; he did not listen to advisors from the medical/scientific communities; he fired many who pushed back; he ignored what other countries were doing; and he left a national problem up to the States to resolve. Yes, he did some good things, like the vaccine. But so did Hoover who owns The Great Depression and many of the deaths that caused. IT was under the reign of Trump that this happened. It was a pandemic in America.

    Third, under Trump’s reign, US results suck. Statistically. Badly. Numerically. Unequivocally. This story from the WSJ details who did best, globally. The US is not there under Trump. There are many reasons they did better than us, you reference none of them. Note that the safest place in America is Samoa, ironic ain’t it. The farther away from Trump, the safer.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-countries-have-responded-best-to-covid-19-11609516800

    Time’s view of the same: https://time.com/5851633/best-global-responses-covid-19/

    Statistically, our death rate is far worse than most countries; hospitalization and our case rate/100K too. This is Trump’s legacy in the hand dealt Joe Biden. Trump’s own top advisor, Ms. Brix, says Trumpian policies, his messaging (or lack thereof, remember the secret vaccination), killed 30-40% more people than doing the things other countries proved to be working. That’s over 130,000 souls. Guess what: “I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30 percent less to 40 percent less range.”

    https://www.newsweek.com/birx-estimates-trump-admin-could-have-prevented-30-40-percent-covid-deaths-1642753

    And from France, a study puts the Trump’s US response at number 5. From the bottom. It notes: “In bottom place was Brazil, closely followed by Mexico, Colombia, Iran and the United States.” followed by “Brazil has recorded more than 218,000 coronavirus deaths – a toll second only to that of the United States.”

    I think if you had looked across the globe, you would have seen how poorly the US faired on Trump’s watch. The answers to how to improve are evident as well, just not in your story. This is not fake news, this is not even spin. Pandemics are not politics. Mandates are not a needle in Liberty’s eye. It’s public health not politics. The facts on cause and effect, actions and results are across the globe. The US faired poorly under Trumpian policies. Today it is painfully obvious where the problems lie: Red populations that support Trump get sick more often, require hospital resources more often, and require undertakers more often. Factually. Demonstratable. That’s the result of mixing politics and medicine in this way. You want to know who weaponized covid 19: it was YOU (Republicans) and you shot yourself, unfortunately, not in the foot.

    Your point that the virus would come anyway is well accepted by the m/s communities; for most, that was the point. If you can’t stop the spread, slow the spread, save the system, get vaccine and get 85% or more vaccinated. Not tough stuff. And yes, each of these countries that faired so well have faced huge challenges in 2021 with varying degrees of success. But all have started from a better place than Joe Biden having been given the hand that Trump dealt.

    IMO, you are very wrong based on the global statistical results of 2020 for cases, hospitalizations, and death. Factually.

    • Harry williams

      There’s no pandemic. It’s all made up. The government is infecting people and calling it a pandemic. Just like sandy hook was staged

      • Frank stetson

        There’s no Harry williams. It’s all made up. The Russians are infecting threads and calling it a post. Just like sandy hook was staged. It’s really a beach in New Jersey. Idiot Russians.

      • Ben

        Harry, why would trump enlist the entire world to make up this pandemic? It doesn’t make sense! Besides, like Jr said, the trump organization aren’t disciplined enough to pull something like that off

        • HaRry williams

          Trump didn’t make it up. The low life democrat commie party did. And colluded with China.

          • frank stetson

            None of which you can prove as you live the fantasy you call your life. Stand up for what you say or just sit down.

            Man, I can take being called a commie, but a low life commie, oh man, that really hurts. Oh the horror of it all. Gosh, there’s giant tear welling up in the corner of my left eye. I might burble at any time……

            Come back to us when you actually having something to say beyond childish name calling.

          • Ben

            Harry Balls,

            Wait, the do nothing dumbocrats some how pulled their head out of their ass long enough to get the ENTIRE world to come together to make trump look bad? And NO ONE anywhere in the world came forward as a whistleblower with proof of such a plot?

            Either that says a ton about how amazing Democrats are, how universally despised trump is, or how delusional you are. I’m betting on the last option.

    • Joe Gilbertson

      Not going to read your whole book, but it seems to me that Trump was drawing to an inside straight and out popped 3 vaccines in 1/10th the normal time.

      And when Joe took office, he had four aces in the hole, and discarded them.

      • Frank stetson

        Joe, Why, because Republicans refuse to take the vaccines?

        And fyi- I read your book….. And destroyed it! I can understand you not able to respond. It’s tough.

    • Micala

      I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH YOUR CONCLUSIONS AS THEY ARE EXTREMELY BIASED AND NOT ADEQUATELY SUPPORTED!
      Do you feel better getting that crap off your chest now? Perhaps you need to see a professional before you let your misdirection infect your mind. You can even find one on the Web! Good luck with that! But REALLY, go see someone before this advances and takes all rationality from your existence!

      FYI: CHINA IS TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR INFECTING THE WORLD WITH COVID, a virus that can jump from animal to man! If Xi would have stopped his millions of INFECTED countrymen from flying to other countries spreading this biowarfare weapon, our World WOULD NOT BE IN THIS PLACE! It has nothing to do with Trump or any other leader but all RESPONSIBILITY FOR SPREADING COVID FALLS DIRECTLY AND EXPLICITLY ON CHAIRMAN XI’S SHOULDERS…and the CCP!
      Research the real facts — don’t spread lies because we already have a federal government full of lying FOOLS!

  4. Ben

    It appears that the MAGAts are turning on their lord and savior. He was almost boo’d off stage when he tried to get credit while urging his cult to get vaccinated.

    He spent so much time worrying about his Covid numbers that he is responsible for helping kill off his base. This is almost too rich for words.

    • Harold blankenship

      Don’t worry. There’s still plenty of us around. And we are never going to comply with joe Biden and the lunatics running around with their noses up his ass. So there’s plenty of room for your nose.

      • Frank stetson

        I’m not worried, I am sad. Very sad.

        What kind of idiots boo a vaccine, a medicine. A free vaccine. Free.

        Sure, there’s plenty left, that’s not the point. It’s just so sad how many just didn’t need to die.

        One of my big takeaways from this is wtf were we thinking when we lose 40-100k a year to flu and say;: “ well, they were old.”! Apparently for lack of a mask, some distancing, and hand washing. So sad.

        Now they are dying in Red counties at much higher numbers than blue counties. Just stupid and so sad. Gotta feel for the burned out medical staff trying to help these fools anyway, because that’s what they do. And all those who suffer because the unvaccinated are crashing the system. I say, they them pay full price, if they survive.

  5. frank stetson

    As noted, my rebuttal your tome, point by point, sorry for the length, but reprinted you; here we go (fs rebuttal notes). Joe says:
    This is going to be a bit of a rant, so bear with me. While I recall thinking this in the early days of COVID, it could just be my brain saying “I told you so.” (fs yeah, must be only in your brain cuz it’s loaded with inaccuracies…)

    We were never going to stop COVID. (fs True, pretty much well known early on, especially after NY/NJ. However, the vaccinated did stop Delta and most boosted will probably be OK, just sick, with Omicron., but the under vaccinated, covid 19 recoveries, unvaccinated will continue to clog up the hospitals and die. The unvaccinated will also be much more probable to create the next variant as well, it’s a numbers game. And the unvaccinated are mostly from Trump constituencies, an overwhelming majority. Why didn’t you address than one?)

    This is very simple, either you get the vaccine or you get the disease in the passage of time (2 years, 5 years, 10 years), you cannot count on anything else. (fs But who is YOU, it’s really your side of the aisle in far greater numbers than my side of the aisle that is skipping the vaccine. Why don’t you call it like it is?) We were never going to stop the disease by isolating the patients, masks or social distancing. (fs I agree (IA), but that wasn’t the point. Remember, slow the spread, save the system?) Herd immunity was never within reach. (fs Not true (NT), but at what cost? Well, now we have an idea). China was already allowing it to spread around the world, there was no keeping it out or keeping it from large population centers. (fs this is some spin. It’s a global economy. At any point, over 100K Americans in China and vice-versa. China, on South Korea, stopped the spread at the cost of movement, we called them authoritarian about it. It worked).
    Americans do not have the heart to exterminate or otherwise mistreat diseased people (which would likely have saved 100’s of thousands during the AIDS epidemic…), we are not willing to throw away our Constitution quite so easily, even in the face of life and death conditions. (fs This is just stupid talk. Why not extend it to the old or better yet, let’s do it today with the unvaccinated. I’m all in for that. And their progeny too; stop the evolutionary erosion now!)

    We needed to resign ourselves to the condition that COVID was here to stay. (IA) Only China could have prevented a worldwide epidemic, and they were not cooperating. (NT: this cat was out of the bag by the time China found it, it had literally flown the coop. Besides, it’s on Trump’s watch to defend OUR nation and to solve pandemics once they get here, not blame where they came from as the excuse) Our only goal at that point should have been to make sure that our hospitals were not overwhelmed, that people who got the disease had access to treatment, and that vulnerable populations (mostly the old folks) were protected as much as possible until the vaccine was available. (IA, except we didn’t know the speed of spread and death for the elderly, idiots thought “it’s just a flu. And come on, 65-70 ain’t elderly anymore) Locking down was a good tool to try to keep the disease at bay, but trying to prevent any and all contagion was foolish. And still is. (IA)

    If I were starting this over again, the right feedback loop is to watch the hospitals and make sure we have the capacity for the patients. The social measures should be throttled accordingly. When hospital beds are open, social measures should relax. When hospital beds are close to full, increase the social measures where it makes sense and only to the extent that we don’t exceed hospital capacity. And all of this should be a DELAYING TACTIC until the vaccine was prepared. Thereafter, the vaccine should be is the only measure necessary. Many local governments have actually followed this (wittingly or unwittingly). It makes sense. (Isn’t that what happened in the Blue States but not in the Red States?)

    Once we found out that the young were in almost no danger, we should have embraced that and (much like parents used to do with Chickenpox), expended our efforts making sure that they DID get the disease and got over it (or in later stages, get the vaccine). Schools should never have been closed, at least not for more than the first month, while we were getting the parameters for the disease. Kids were major carriers but in no danger themselves. This should have been obvious. (fs You said it yourself, kids are major carriers and while only 1% of the total 797K deaths are under 17, they live with the 18-50 year olds where 6% of the deaths occurred which would have ratcheted that number way up. Using your math, like ten tome or 60% instead of 6%. Extend that to 64 and you get 25% of the death being bumped way up. Herd immunity even for kids is a risky venture. Downright foolish post vaccine. Given most parents had chickenpox when they did this, the scenarios are very different. But I concede you may have a point — if we only knew, and I am not sure we know today given how sheltered these kids were, how many infected now in school, and we still don’t really know the endgame there on death.)

    I believe that the correct focus would have shortened the COVID crisis and mitigated the economic damage by a factor of ten. (fs Oh Bull). The over-reaction of some officials caused a great deal of unnecessary damage. I don’t believe that lives were saved. (NT, a complete shot in the dark)

    least you know I read it :>} happy holidaze

  6. frank stetson

    Part 2: The very early Trump response was that probably COVID would not be an issue. Why did he say that (100% supported by his advisors)? Very simple, history indicated that epidemics like this were not likely, there was not a lot that anyone could do, and he didn’t want people to panic. There were just a handful of cases in America at that point. (100% NT, can you say Fauci).

    But later, as new data indicated that this was a serious threat for epidemic, Trump issued the orders and guidance, based on the advice of his advisors, to start with masks, do social distancing, etc. He started distributing resources, ventilators, hospital resources, etc. and using federal funds to pay for the production of supplies. (On this one I call BS. Basically, the man was a day late and a dollar short. Not to mention States having to procure PPE and ventilators themselves, overseas. Not to mention Americans facing shortages on OMG, toilet paper, etc.. When the answer turned out that the TP companies didn’t want to open new factories because they saw a surge-demand that would dissipate, Trump put his finger in his ears. IMO, the correct response to these shortages would have been to invoke the Defense Production Act ASAP. My God, it was TP. Just buy a fucking factory, give it to Kimberly Clarke, produce a shitload of TP, and fuck, let em have the factory, who cares? We wasted more on ashtrays for the Pentagon. Trump knew he should be ready for the DPA in January 2020, on 3.13 he got a letter from 57 Senators saying “pull the switch damn it,” on 3.18 he pulled the switch saying “just in case we need it.” WTF planet was he on? PPE, ventilators, TP, etc. He refused to implement. Later he said it was like being Venezuela nationalizing companies which, of course, is a complete lie, terrible spin at best. By 3.23 he signed an EO against hoarding and high prices, a meaningless start. Finally on 3.27 he invoked the act with GM to get ventilators, his much ballyhooed too much, too late. Four months after he could have done it in January. Many States sought help elsewhere. And we just had to suffer the lack of TP and other things. I was grocery shopping a State away due to surge demand and lack of good for example. Think about all the things we shoulda used the DPA for. Going forward Trump used it 18 times for vaccine development as he shortsheeted Biden in actual production. On 3.21, Biden used it for vaccine production as Trump had not thought about manufacturing and distribution, especially into the arms. Being kind, he was leaving it to the States, a fool’s answer. Being mean, he wasn’t going to do anything unless we gave him another four years. Just like he skipped on the Transition or even conceding he was not still the duly elected President. Sorry, that’s my personal rant focusing on where tf is the TP!)
    More importantly, he started the most massive effort in history to develop the vaccine, funding billions in research from multiple sources, which resulted in the fastest start to finish vaccine development in history. (IA)

    The partisan attacks on Trump and the vaccine by the Democrats gained them power in the 2020 elections, but opened a chasm between political factions. The resulting resistance costs thousands of lives and $100’s of Billions in economic damage. (This is just BS; open a chasm? Where tf have you been?)

    Initially, attacks on Trump damaged the reputation of the vaccine, causing doubt in many people’s minds. The Biden Administration has an existing vaccine (thanks, Donald), but has failed to inspire the level of vaccine usage that would reduce contagion. Biden has allowed a new resurgence in COVID, there was absolutely no reason for this to have happened. (OMG – you blaming vaccine hesitancy and denial on democrats? Have you looked at the map to see whether it’s Red or Blue dying? Do you really expect us to believe that we convinced Republicans to take actions to kill themselves? Not a nice thought and certainly totally bogus, Dude.)

    Make no mistake, I blame the Democrats (because I always do, and it is usually their fault) but this was a failure on both sides. And it was a failure of previous administrations not developing the proper plan for dealing with an epidemic. With 20/20 hindsight, this is obvious. (NT, there was and is a plan. Just not a plan followed.)

    And we have not quite learned yet. We still see people being harassed or fired for not getting the vaccine, we still have mask mandates that don’t make sense, and those damned social distancing stickers are still on the floors of many supermarkets. (No, we have learned. Either get the shot or get infected. IF not shot and infected, you are in the dead pool. Masks scientifically proven to help. Distancing scientifically proven to help. It’s just science. Some day may change with better information, but it’s the science today.)
    And approvals for vaccines for children are just now getting underway. That should have been done a year ago. (IA, but Trump never expedited it, Biden did)

    Again, we were never going to stop COVID. (IA, and it’s much worse than it had to be because Donald J. Trump screwed the pooch)
    COVID is very similar to every other kind of flu, it is contagious and it will not go away. It will be with us from now on. The vaccine for it will have to adapt, much like the regular flu vaccine does now. COVID will be normal, hopefully the B.S. that came with it will not be. (NT, not just another flu. The bottom line has always been slow the surge, dent the curve. The race has been to buffer health services while we limit infections to slow or even stop the variants. The math is easy; more cases equal more variants. Our vaccinations are too low, our cases too high, and WE are creating the variants ourselves, we don’t need India or South Africa, we grow our own. We have deadly results from the Trump era in 2020. If he had acted promptly and correctly, we might have significantly reduced Delta and maybe even avoided Omicron. It’s a numbers game and my or my, we have the numbers. His administration made way too many mistakes by believing themselves and not what the world showed them, right in front of their eyes. Your article is misleading at best. IMO, fact is that when the first case cropped up in NY, Trump coulda dropped the hammer, locked us down, and we could have started really pushing back better than China and South Korea that we CLEARLY leading the pack with their results based on their response. Italy had screwed the pooch and we knew their results based on their response too. But we basically sat on our fingers as Trump felt it would just go away.)

    Joe, at least you know I read it :>) Even I stopped proofing at the end…. Happy holidays.

    • Keith koontz

      The proper words are “Merry Christmas “. Happy holidays can fit bullshit celebrations like kwanza , for example.

  7. John Hewett

    I was saying from day one that the way to fight this disease was with therapeutics. Once the cat was out of the bag (china) it was going to spread around the world because it was engineered to target human beings. The vaccines were a wonderful accomplishment, but, as we’re learning now, vaccines won’t protect you from getting covid. They just make the severity less life threatening. However, we’ve had the therapeutic answers from day one in the form of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and even remdisivir.
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-harvey-risch-hydroxychloroquine-ivermectin-and/id1471411980?i=1000543802269
    Now we have therapeutics from Pfizer and Merck that do the exact same thing as HCQ and ivermectin can do and when all the drugs are administered the same way, within the first five days of being diagnosed. The percentages of hospitalizations and death are like railroad tracks for HCQ and ivermectin when compared side by side to these new therapeutics. Why didn’t the FDA and CDC allow emergency use for these drugs? They could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the US and millions of lives around the world. One of the reasons, fauci had to get his beloved vaccine to market. Another reason was because their use became politicized when Trump touted the effectiveness of HCQ. The final, and best reason I can think of why these drugs weren’t used, is because they were so effective, cheap and plentiful that Big Pharma wouldn’t have an excuse to develop a new drug to be used as a therapeutic and that would be more expensive than HCQ and ivermectin.
    This entire pandemic has shaken my trust to so many things and in so many ways. I don’t know if that trust will ever be rebuilt and that’s sad when a person can’t even trust their own government.

  8. Dean R Neumann

    Seems to me that the author has swallowed a lot of BS regarding the “vaccines.” They are not vaccines in the traditional sense and are dangerous in the pharmaceutical sense. There are many treatments that should be employed for those that get sick and there are many ways of preventing people from getting sick in the first place. Yes, I agree, both sides have messed up, but primarily due to a corrupt bureaucracy that needs to be reformed.

    • frank stetson

      John H.; the only theraputic shown to work in your list is the one you say: “even remdisivir,” the other two won’t help, may harm, may kill. Nice. Thanks Doctor. “engineered to target human beings” is a fact you can not prove unless you mean by nature.

      “vaccines won’t protect you from getting covid” is as true as saying “vaccines won’t protect you from the disease that they specifically target.” No vaccine is perfect. Every vaccine has a % of breakthrough although some, via herd immunity effectively end the disease. That won’t happen here starting with people’s actions. People like you. It’s now a pandemic of the unvaccinated and the unvaccinated are more likely to be Trumpers, those in Red States, conservatives, and even evangelists. Yes, we have breakthrough or post vaccination infection but the vaccinated stand a much smaller chance of hospitalization and death. Unlike you. The number of times greater your risk of infection, critical illness, hospitalization, and death is astoundingly high. You are the ones bringing down our health care system and destroying our front line medical workers —– our Next Millennium Greatest Generation. Literally, you have become the enemy attacking our health care system with your negligence. This isn’t freedom of choice, this is public health catastrophe caused by you.

      I would say get the shot —– but your window is closing fast. NJ is highly vaccinated, but look what the unvaccinated are doing to us. 80-90% of all hospitalizations and death in this state is due to people JUST LIKE YOU.

  9. frank stetson

    At the epicenter of the omicron surge, NYC , an ER doctor explains why you should get the jab, perhaps there is still time. Most important, get the boost. Boosts may take effect in days, not the full two weeks, you can certainly up your odds of less severe infection.

    “”Every patient I’ve seen with Covid that’s had a 3rd ‘booster’ dose has had mild symptoms. By mild I mean mostly sore throat. Lots of sore throat. Also some fatigue, maybe some muscle pain. No difficulty breathing. No shortness of breath. All a little uncomfortable, but fine,” Spencer wrote.

    From there, it goes downhill – slowly, though.

    “Most patients I’ve seen that had 2 doses of Pfizer/Moderna still had ‘mild’ symptoms, but more than those who had received a third dose. More fatigued. More fever. More coughing. A little more miserable overall. But no shortness of breath. No difficulty breathing. Mostly fine,” he said.

    For those who just had the one shot of the J&J vaccine and never took a booster, the situation isn’t as good.

    “Most patients I’ve seen that had one dose of J&J and had Covid were worse overall. Felt horrible. Fever for a few days (or more). Weak, tired. Some shortness of breath and cough. But not one needing hospitalization. Not one needing oxygen. Not great. But not life-threatening,” he tweeted.

    And then there are the unvaccinated, who by all data are being hospitalized at a rate 15x or more the vaccinated.

    “And almost every single patient that I’ve taken care of that needed to be admitted for Covid has been unvaccinated. Every one with profound shortness of breath. Every one whose oxygen dropped when they walked. Every one needing oxygen to breath regularly,” he said.

    Spencer’s recommendations were straightforward — get vaccinated if you haven’t, get a second dose of something else if you’ve had one J&J shot, and if you’re eligible, get a booster.

    “So no matter your political affiliation, or thoughts on masks, or where you live in this country, as an ER doctor you’d trust with your life if you rolled into my emergency room at 3am, I promise you that you’d rather face the oncoming Omicron wave vaccinated,” Spencer concluded.”

    I probably can’t convince the unvaccinated at this point, but for those that got one or two jabs, put the boost on top, there’s still time and you can benefit. If Moderna, it’s a half jab so side effects somewhat diminished. If J&J, put Moderna on top, best to mix on that one, IMO, and many leading Doctors more importantly.

  10. frank stetson

    For all you tighty-whitey-righties :>) out there, this one’s for you. I am very sad at these results since it is deadly obvious what the effect of the political decision not to vaccinate results in. It pains me to see such unnecessary pain and lost and my heart goes out to our Next Millennium Greatest Generation of HealthCare workers to Grocery Clerks who have to suffer because of the bad choices of these people.

    Read it and weep: I did: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/28/us/covid-deaths.html?referringSource=articleShare
    It’s titled “Why Covid Death Rates Are Rising for Some Groups” and you can guess which groups lead the pack. It ain’t just the old anymore.

    And you are right Joe, I didn’t need 20/20 Hindsight to know these folks were never going to survive. They didn’t have a chance once they made their choice.