The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 418 (918)

Is "the pandemic is over" Biden's "Mission Accomplished" banner? I wish I could take credit for that thought, but I can't. It came from one of several tweets or blogs of various doctors and scientists. Leana S. Wen, medical consultant to CNN and columnist for The Washington Post was the only commentator I read who agreed with POTUS. Most everyone else disagreed. It has not been overlooked that even though the pandemic may be over, the public health emergency remains in effect, the emergency that gives the government various powers it would not otherwise have.

As for the finished pandemic, we are still seeing over two million confirmed new cases in the last month, with the caveat that the actual total could be five times that. Every other rich country has double the booster rate we do, and being told that the pandemic is over is only going to encourage vaccine hesitancy or refusal. If the pandemic is over, why does a person need a vaccination or booster? Well, new variants continue to surface. One, BA.2.75.2, cases of which are growing, is better at evading the immune system than any other variant. 

Covid remains the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, Infectious disease experts say that covid will be a leading cause of death indefinitely. That does not sound to me like a pandemic on its way out the door. And while it may be that covid has become truly endemic in one country, that does not end the pandemic. The world will be coping with covid for some time now. Since the declaration of a pandemic was for the whole world, let's not say we're done with it and wave good-bye to the rest of the world, you know, the countries that are handling things better than we are.

As for my personal experience with covid, my personal doctor agrees with the CDC that given I am no longer feeling the symptoms I was two weeks ago, I am no longer contagious despite testing positive for 16 days in a row.