Failing The Test
"The pandemic is a test and the world is failing," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday, in the course of warning that "19 months into the pandemic, and seven months since the first vaccines were approved, we are in the early stages of another wave of infections and deaths."
It was a dour assessment and it came during an address to the International Olympic Committee In Tokyo, which recorded the most new COVID cases in six months on Wednesday. 1,832 was the highest dai
Infections in NY State up 154% since June 30. Anecdotally, most are of the mild variety, but, as in the first 2-3 waves, hospitalization rates and deaths are rising. An analogy for how we (the world) are handling COVID might be: Like the NY Jets of public health.
Check worldometer for the recent figures in USA:
new cases July 21st: 56 525
new deaths July 21st: 416
Speaking of jets, I was on a five hour flight Monday. Every seat occupied. I drew the short straw, as the passenger next to me never went 3 minutes without coughing throughout the flight. Wore my mask tight for the whole flight except for quick sips of water. Spent a lot of time standing in the back, but we had a lot of turbulence so I was required to be in the seat for much of the flight. The most interesting aspect of it was that nobody else around the coughing passenger seemed to care. The passenger on the other side, who was not traveling with the coughing passenger, in fact spent most of the flight with their mask down under their chin.
Seemed to me emblematic of how, as The Who director says, we’re failing the test.
Airlines received whole piles of money in order to survive this crises. If they refuse to make passengers follow the rules (and ware facemasks) they should refund the large amounts !!!!
The words of the WHO director general give me pause. Bottom line, folks: As long as a preponderance of virus exists unaddressed across across the world, those viruses will mutate. That’s what they do. The Delta variant is only the current version of the ongoing existential threat we face. Virus mutations evolve as we speak in places where effective vaccines remain unavailable. As we continue to open economies around the world, additional mutations will likely haunt us all for some time to come to the extent they are not addressed. I’m hoping to queue up for a booster shot soon, once it is agreed and approved. I’m not an authority on this. Just concerned. I reckon drug companies will make more money by creating variations of current treatments to address future variants. But long term, it’s distinctly possible we won’t actually beat this viral beast, only minimize it. Just sayin’…
See Joey’s comment to this post on 20 April … https://heisenbergreport.com/2021/04/20/to-go-out-is-to-get-infected-in-india-a-nightmare/