Mission Accomplished… Not

 

When the Spanish Flu exploded during WWI, its mutations eventually burned the disease out. The virus just got weaker over time, but it took years. A fortuity of happenstance that took place in an unfortunate time. We found containment options for HIV, which is still with us, but it took decades, and the virus did not mutate to uncontrollable levels of treatment resistant infection. SARS and its immediate progeny were nasty but lacked the ferocity of its newly evolved off-spring, COVID-19. And the subsequent mutations have only made the virus stronger. We still face a growing litany of bacterial infections that defy existing antibiotics, and these are propagating with alarming speed. Sexually transmitted diseases that have treatment/cure resistance are spreading rapidly as well.

Many, and I am one, believe that this “plague” driven Horseman of the Apocalypse is just one of nature’s efforts to contain (“cull the herd,” if you will) an animal species (mankind) that has grown to somewhere between double and triple natural and sustainable limits and whose energy requirements have resulted in massive climate changes that threaten most other species with irreversible ecological disruption. In short, nature is trying to kill off as many human beings as it can as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Since humans have no natural predators, and wars and homicidal criminal activity have not offed enough of us, nature has turned to “other means.” Famine, an offshoot in substantial part of increasing desertification, is wreaking its havoc, but our modern plague – COVID-19 – is proving a much more effective tool to reduce the population. A Malthusian nightmare!

As human beings, with creative intelligence, struggle to battle nature’s proclivities, nature benefits in its killing quest to the extent human beings fail to apply that intelligence to survive. Antivaxxers – whether to injections in general or the specific COVID-preventative vaccines – and people who believe that somewhere in our Constitution or through some God-given right, they can ignore the virus, live without concern or without responsibility for their actions, have become de facto “super-spreaders.” Politicians who sense that embracing this philosophy is “good,” but very selfish, politics have become nature’s servants in the quest to keep COVID alive and mutating to resist our efforts to contain the virus. And kill us.

The King of Stupidity, at least here in the United States, is Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. With just over 6% of the US population, Florida has 20% of all active COVID infections and over half of all new infections, mostly from an evolved COVID variant. Its hospitals are filling rapidly, with the largest number of infected individuals skewing under 40, now including many children. And yet DeSantis has issued executive orders forbidding any city or public school from issuing mask mandates and has pledged to keep the state wide open for all aspects of business, education and recreation.

All of us now face that India-born Delta COVID-19 variant. Virtually all new infections are the product of this vastly more transmissive and virulent incarnation of the virus. And while most US-distributed COVID vaccines, particularly the mRNA Pfizer and Modern varieties, prevent almost all deaths and serious hospitalizations from the Delta variant, the CDC tells us that even inoculated individuals can become infected (often without symptoms) and transmit the disease. As much as Joe Biden hoped to achieve herd immunity, at least in the US, red state resistance coupled with vaccine skepticism all over the country have pretty much assured us that we are simply going to have to learn to live with this virus for the foreseeable future. 

Politicians seeking votes from those believing they have rights (not to wear masks, socially distance or get inoculated) or that the virus will not further erode our economy are clearly making a bad problem incredibly worse. Not to mention the mutation risks from a planet where most of the world still does not even have access to the vaccine. New deadly variants are already waiting in the wings, like the new lambda variant just identified in Peru. Fewer people inoculated means dangerous mutation risks simply accelerate.

So, we need to face some realities: we are not going to achieve herd immunity anytime soon (treatments need to evolve, a la HIV… probably from monoclonal antibodies), the economy cannot be detached from the impact of spreading COVID infections, there will not be major new lockdowns (as even Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledges), the Delta variant will get a boost as schools reopen and weather cools off and life is simply not returning to “normal” anytime soon. What is particularly disturbing about the Delta variant is its ability to infect children, most of whom (those under 12) are still not eligible for inoculation.

Writing for the August 2nd Los Angeles Times, Hayley Smith and Deborah Netburn explain: “New evidence about the Delta variant’s ability to infect and spread even among those who are fully vaccinated has been particularly alarming for parents of young children who are still not eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Many parents who thought their children faced limited risks of getting the coronavirus are now reassessing their stance. Health experts said parents should be extra careful with the highly contagious variant, which is causing rising infection numbers in Los Angeles County and many other parts of the country… But several also stressed that it’s important to keep the risks in context, adding that children could still go back to school with proper precautions.

“‘Children need to be in school,’ said Julie Swann, a health systems engineer at North Carolina State University. ‘Those of us who have experienced last year, we know it.’… Dr. Katherine Williamson, a pediatrician in Orange County [California], said she has seen an increase in coronavirus cases among young patients in recent weeks, as well as an uptick in parents who are vaccinating eligible children — both of which she attributed to the rise of the Delta variant… ‘Parents should be making sure that they’re doing everything they can to keep their kids safe when they have an unvaccinated child in their family,’ Williamson said…

“‘It’s crystal clear that vaccination rates among younger people across the board in L.A. County are much lower than they are for older people, and with more opportunities for intermingling,’ L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said during a news briefing Thursday [7/29].” But can parents keep their school aged children safe? Really? With idiots like Ron DeSantis running so many red states? Don’t hold your breath.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the massive self-destructive stupidity or just plain ignorance based on disinformation that has plagued our own national belief system threatens to prolong our COVID agony for a very long time.