We Must Stop the Virus NOW

Most of the country – both governments and people – has diddled over the course of the last 17 months while the virus has taken its toll, surged again, taken its toll, and surged again.  With the availability of effective vaccines last January (I hate to say it, but thanks to Trump's urgency), we all breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that if the vast majority of people get vaccinated, the virus would be stopped, even if not eliminated. 

But there was a major problem with this scenario:  almost half the people did not want to get vaccinated for one reason or another.   Whether the reason was political, misinformation, or fear, the result is the same.   And despite the best efforts of government and NGOs to turn this around, nothing to date has been effective. 

The only solution, short of declaring a national health emergency and forcing everyone to get vaccinated, is to separate the vaccinated from the unvaccinated to the extent possible.   Requiring a vaccine passport to enter any indoor establishment that is not essential, including airplanes.   For essential indoor venues, like grocery stores, it means mandating masks for everyone..

Airplanes must be included because if you look at the New York Times hot spot map, what is clearly happening in the coastal south is that unvaccinated tourists are bringing the virus to resort areas and from there it is spreading.    To control unvaccinated people driving to resort areas, hotels must be told to require proof of vaccination (that was done in New England earlier in the pandemic).

This must be done nationally, not left to the states.  And it must be done now.   States like Texas and Florida are actually prohibiting both vaccine mandates and mask mandates by local governments.   There  can be no hesitation.   We know what hesitation brings.  Actually, we have already hesitated again and the horse is out of the barn, but the virus can still be corralled. 

If people continue to choose not to get vaccinated, then they cannot be allowed to infect others.  This is not about their freedom not to get vaccinated to protect themselves; it's about their not having the freedom to infect others.    They must pay the price for their socially irresponsible behavior by being segregated. 

The Present Holding Pattern

I haven't written a post in a month.   The reason is that there is really nothing new to post about.   

1.   Republicans are being true to their conversion to Trumpism, whether at the national or state level (although it is more rabid at the state  level).   In Congress, they are either just interested in blocking Biden's agenda, regardless of the interests of their constituents, whose interests they are supposed to represent.   Or they continue to further the falsehood that Biden won the election fraudulently and the January 6 storming of the capitol had nothing to do with Trump and the people in the riot were just patriots. 

I would love to see a video that juxtaposed Speaker McCarthy's statements on January 6 and immediately thereafter, and his statements now.   You can't even call it a shift.   It's a total reversal from truth to lies.  The man and his party have no shame, no ethics.

2.   The virus is doing its thing, and the millions of unvaccinated people in the US are enabling it to have another surge with the Delta variant which is causing, in areas with low vaccination rates, numbers of cases to rival the worst part of the pandemic.   And when these unvaccinated people get infected and travel to areas with high vaccination rates and partake in crowded indoor activities (restaurants, bars, dance clubs), even those vaccinated (who aren't wearing masks anymore) get infected. 

There is no indication that anything much will change on this front.   Many people who choose not to be vaccinated are adamant.   Some are undecided still, and so perhaps they will get the shots, but the majority are in the first group. 

Bottom line, while we were never going to be free of the virus, it looks like our return to normal in most areas of the country is a thing of the past.   Even the vaccinated will have to wear a mask indoors, certainly in a reasonably crowded venue.   

Some places, like Broadway theaters, are requiring people to be fully vaccinated and wear masks in order to attend.  Some employers are requiring works to be vaccinated,  All indoor venues, except those that are essential, should have this requirement.   This includes airlines.   And if they aren't essential, all visitors must be required to wear a mask. 

3.   No news on the climate change front.   We continue to experience increased numbers of and severity of natural disasters, whether it's heat, rain, flooding, drought, wildfires, etc.   As with the virus, too many people take no responsibility for their actions and efforts by the government will have minimal impact, and too late.   We are it seems past the tipping point and the only question is how bad will it get.   That's the only thing we/government can impact now. 

So we as a country and as a government are in a stalemated, holding, pattern.   It is in all regards a sad state of affairs.   Whatever euphoria and hope there was after Trump lost the election are long since gone.   For the foreseeable future,  posts will come when matters warrant or there is some important observation to make.

The Continuing Need for a National Health Policy

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post about the need for a national health policy regarding the pandemic.  Obviously that hasn’t happened.

As the President and state governors have been talking about slowly opening up the economy again, stepping back from the restrictions on people’s movements, and in a few cases taken such action, I need to repeat my call for a national health policy.

When it comes to controlling a pandemic, the fact of states’ rights makes no sense.  Since all states are connected in many ways, but especially commerce and freedom of movement, it is critical that there be a national policy controlling the actions of people.

A national health policy does not mean “one size fits all.”  It means that there are national standards that will be applied.  Under those standards, some states may be allowed to open up before others, and those decisions would be made in concert with the governors, but it must all be coordinated under a federal standard.  

For those who say that under the constitution states have to be left to go their own way … nonsense!  The interstate commerce clause allows the government to regulate anything that impacts interstate commerce.  This has been read broadly and is the basis, for example, for federal civil rights laws.  Certainly it would provide a basis for a national mandated policy on efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic.  To not have a mandated national policy in situation would be madness.

People are the key to either containing the virus or spreading it.  There is thus only one effective way of controlling the virus.

When we come out of the lockdown phase, all experts agree that testing and contact tracing combined with quarantine is key to insure that the virus does not spike again.  Everyone who has symptoms should be tested, and if that is not available, should self-isolate on the assumption that they have the virus.  Under CDC guidelines, once they have been fever free for 3 days without medication, have had no symptoms, and it’s been more than 7 days since the onset of symptoms, they can assume they are virus free and can come out of quarantine.

Every contact someone has had (which could be as minimal as being in the same room or talking) with someone who is infected needs to be traced and told to self-isolate for 14 days, the incubation period, and be tested before being free to be out and about since one could be asymptomatic and still pass the virus to others.

In addition, because experts agree that the rapid spread has occurred in part because asymptomatic people have not been tested and quarantined, yet have passed the virus on to others, random testing should be done of a large percentage of the population to insure that asymptomatic cases are detected and quarantined until they test negative.

Ideally, all people who test positive and who live together with family or other communal situations, would be removed from their home and placed in an environment where they will be isolated so as to remove the threat of an entire family or living group becoming infected.  This is especially important if people are living in crowded environments with no private space available.  This will probably only be possible in limited situations for a variety reasons, and so following guidelines for separation in the home are critical.

Everyone arriving in the U.S. by plane or any means of transportation must at a minimum be temperature screened for the virus before being allowed to enter.  Interstate travel should be restricted to critical travel and all arriving passengers should be temperature screened.

What to do about people who travel by car interstate?  If everyone could be counted on to follow the rules, to keep to their quarantine, then one could assume that anyone traveling is free to move about.  However, that would be a naive assumption, plus testing is likely not to be as rigorous as it should be.  That means that people crossing state borders by car should be temperature screened.  This will felt as a burden on states and invasive to travelers, but the government must take every necessary action to contain the virus.

But all of this leaves the question … when and how do we end or ease the lockdown restrictions.  One suggested guideline has several criteria:  new cases falling consistently over 14 days; hospitals no longer maxed out; capacity to test all who should be tested; and the capacity to trace all those who should be.  Added to that list should be the ability to isolate outside the home those who are living in severely crowded living spaces.

Although ideally there should be no opening up until most everyone who needs to be has been tested or contact traced, and isolated if necessary, that is not feasible.  The ramped up testing and tracing will have to be done while people are beginning to move about.

Thus, when restrictions are loosened, everyone must continue to wear a mask when out in public and continue to practice social distancing to limit the number of new cases because the inescapable fact that some people will still be walking around with the virus.

Even Now Trump Doesn’t Get The Pandemic

President Trump still doesn’t get it.  To contain the pandemic we must be ahead of the epidemic, not behind it.

Unfortunately, from the start, Trump has been behind.  First he belittled the threat and did nothing.  During the month before he restricted travel, 380,000 Chinese entered the country with no screening, many unwittingly bringing the virus with them.

Second, we didn’t have enough tests and so we turned to lockdowns, at a huge cost to the economy and the welfare of our citizens.  

Third, we still don’t have enough tests or testing capacity or tracing capacity.  We really don’t know what the scope of infection is in the U.S.  There are critical states, like California, which have done much less testing per capita, yet looking at the volume of passengers that flew into LAX during January, it is hard to believe that the numbers aren’t much worse than they are reported.

Fourth, he continues to refuse to order a nation-wide shelter-in-place policy.  Doesn’t he understand that people travel, and when people travel so does the virus?  Remember that 25% of infected people don’t know it because they have no symptoms.  And false negative test results are a troubling 25%.

Fifth, it’s critical that everyone follow the new CDC advisory and wear a mask when out in public.  But our President says he’s not going to do it; it’s completely voluntary.  He neither has any concept of leadership nor an understanding of the danger we face.

Finally, when the numbers stabilize and talk turns to returning back to normalcy, all experts agree that can only happen if we have the testing and tracing ability to examine all new cases of virus infection.  Otherwise we risk having another explosion of cases and a return to lockdowns.  What is the plan to achieve that capacity?  There is none.  Again, Trump just doesn’t get it.