The long “final” stage of the pandemic – Another January 6th participant pleads guilty – Evening statistics
From a social point of the view the pandemic is over already. The mask mandate, of course, has been overturned and people are deciding for themselves whether or not to wear masks. As I could perceive while performing various shopping errands, several are not bothering. Today, for instance, I went to a supermarket, where not only were the majority of the customers mask-less, but the cashiers, while nominally each wearing one, tended to let their masks slip continually to expose their noses and mouths, thereby rendering the masks useless. The anti-vaxxers continue to denounce the “conspiracy” of the pharmaceutical companies and to promote alternative quack remedies, but only occasionally. They seem to be realizing that they have lost their self-imposed battle: over 75% of everyone in the country 18 years or older are fully vaccinated and nearly 50% have received at least one booster.
The omicron variant of COVID is one of the most infectious diseases among humans known to science, but its mortality rate and that of its sub-variants remain relatively low. The mortality rate of the omicron variant is about 0.13%, as opposed to 4.25% during the height of the pandemic, when the delta variant was dominant. The rate is not quite at the level of seasonal flu, which ranges from 0.06% to 0.09%, but it is at any rate comparable to a disease that has long been accepted as endemic. And indeed the status of COVID greatly resembles the status of influenza in this nation at this point. It is now regarded as severe, but not so severe as to warrant disrupting everyday activities, while people are more or less becoming resigned to the prospect of getting a COVID vaccine periodically just as we now receive annual influenza vaccines.
Our health care system is no longer undergoing the great strain it endured while the pandemic was at its height. Hospitalizations of patients afflicted with COVID have declined by nearly 90% since January. Many countries, such as the U.K., Denmark, and Spain, are treating COVID as an endemic disease already. Dr. Fauci said last week that we are currently out of the pandemic phase, although he later back-pedaled, saying that we are “out of the full-blown explosive pandemic phase,” but that he was not officially declaring COVID to be endemic yet.
We appear to be at the point where fluctuations in the disease cause only minimal change in people’s economic and social behavior – what is sometimes referred to as “individual endemicity.” But we have not yet reached the stage at which COVID-19 exists at a predictable level and does not require society-defining intervention, nor are we quite at the stage where the economic impact of the disease has resolved. The difficulties we are currently enduring as a result of supply chains being under stress is an example of the economic aftermath of COVID that we are still enduring. That is likely to last for some time even after the pandemic comes officially to an end.
This official pronouncement is not likely to occur in this week or even within the next several weeks. We do not know at this point when significant new variants will emerge, nor whether they will be comparable with omicron or more severe or milder. And while the rate of infections is steadily declining in most parts of the world, it is still rising in several nations, chiefly those in Latin America and Africa.
In other news, William Todd Wilson has become the third Oath Keepers member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy for his participation in the riot of January 6, 2021. Fellow-members Joshua James and Brian Ulrich pleaded guilty to the charge earlier this year and agreed to cooperate with the government. This enterprising vacationer drove to DC on January 5 equipped with an AR-15-style rifle, a pistol, ammunition, body armor, a camouflaged combat uniform, pepper spray, a large walking stick intended for use as a weapon, and a pocketknife: the sort of gear that I must admit many visitors to the nation’s capital in the past have decided to be most appropriate for touring the city. The Wikitravel website contains an extensive entry about Washington, but it does not mention assaulting and beating up law enforcement officers as one of its attractions: an inexplicable omission, which Wilson and other holiday-makers of his stamp will doubtless be glad to correct whenever a new edition of the entry is required. During this week alone, Thomas Webster, a retired NYPD officer, was found guilty of injuring a DC police officer with a flagpole during the attack on the Capitol; Kevin Creek, a former Marine from Georgia, pleaded guilty to hitting and kicking a police officer; and Marshall Neefe, a civilian from Pennsylvania and a member of QAnon, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers during a court hearing. Neefe’s case is especially noteworthy: he had brought nothing more than a wooden club to proceedings, proclaiming after the attack that he would be “bringing the next time.” But he along with several of the other wayfarers hoisted and pushed a large metal sign frame, at least 8 feet tall and 10 feet wide, and “supported by large casters that were approximately the size of a man’s head” into a defensive line of Metropolitan Police Department officers attempting to prevent the crowd from further advancing on the west front plaza of the Capitol. The image on the sign was a large photo of Donald Trump, which certainly is a most suitable insignia for hindering and maiming members of the police.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 515,203,960; # of deaths worldwide: 6,268,096; # of cases U.S.: 83,336,115; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,022,329.