We're approaching a milestone when, on 11 MAY, the National Public Health Emergency is lifted. Unfortunately, despite indications that society seems to think this will be the final chapter of this Pandemic, the virus has not yet spoken. Considering we're still seeing 1200+ deaths a week, although declining, we're still above the level of influenza deaths per week, especially since influenza has long ago settled into a seasonal outbreak pattern.
CDC is making changes to its COVID Tracker website, as seen here: https://www.airfinity.com/articles/a-strong-pandemic-defence-system-could-reduce-the-chance-of-another-covid
Public Health policy and laws continue to be reviewed and changes mandated reducing the ability of public health professionals to act in the public's best interests.This is really not a great picture. As noted in https://www.airfinity.com/articles/a-strong-pandemic-defence-system-could-reduce-the-chance-of-another-covid, the world has a 27.5% probability of seeing another pandemic within the next 10 years if steps are not taken to prepare now, and then must be maintained.
This should be a topic for conversation over the next few months. What are we going to do… not just those of us who’ve been following the science and the course of SARS-CoV-2 in our own echo chamber, where we exchange information based on literature and clinical reports, instead of paying attention to the other voices, those who don’t believe any of this is real, or that our reports are exaggerations. Who fear, distrust or simply don’t believe vaccines are useful (with particular emphasis on COVID-19 vaccines. Who don’t believe the excess death numbers for the last three years. Who don’t have the experience to completely understand the material in the various research reports, but skim what they think they know anyway.
Our echo chambers, on #med-twitter, Substack Notes, and Mastodon have proven valuable. We can rapidly exchange ideas and new knowledge with peers and colleagues, but we also attract those who feel a need to disagree, or worse, attack. Just keep up the work you’ve been doing. If you’re a researcher, clinician or scientist, keep up with the literature, and the hands-on work. Tell the truth. Don’t shout something from the parapet unless you’re certain it’s good data, and preferably corroborated.
Excellent state of the union. Wish it were a union! The echo chambers are really valuable, and different tiers of health are emerging between those who listen to experts and those who don’t. But as they say, “no one is safe until everyone is safe.” Staying hopeful amid all the persistent gloom!
I think part of the problem is that regardless of how you feel about our current state of affairs, a "forever emergency" isn't really tenable. What we need to do is move whatever we can from executive orders - which by their nature, are fragile and volatile - to statutes, enacted by competent legislative bodies. We can work towards incorporating as many parts of the PHE as we can into more permanent law, and it's going to be hard. Personally, I think it's something we should have started on a long time ago - anticipating an expiration date.