"... on a pandemic that, while easing, is still killing more than 1,000 people every day across the United States.... 'It feels like we’ve truly been left to die,' said Elizabeth Kestrel Rogers, a writer in Mountain View, Calif., with cystic fibrosis. 'It seems too much too soon, like people are giving up because they can’t be bothered anymore.'... 'We just haven’t learned,' Dr. David Goldberg, 32, an internal medicine physician, said as he and his wife took their 1-year-old daughter, Isabel, for a walk through their neighborhood in Richmond, Va. Parents of children younger than 5, who are not eligible to be vaccinated.... He said he was standing in line at a grocery store recently when a man next to him complained that he did not feel well. 'I was like, Dude, what are you doing?' Dr. Goldberg said. 'I feel for parents who are just waiting. They feel left behind. Kids can get sick and they can die.'"
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85 comments:
The COVID response was always about control.
It had nothing to do with preventing death or spread.
That is why they focused on stupid nonsense measures like masks and lock downs while forcing COVID positive patients into nursing homes.
Only the quickly dwindling number of democrat voters are too stupid to see how stupid and evil our institutions were.
It is possible to take personal action and keep wearing a mask. You just can't insist others do so for your sake, just like they can't insist you stay home and out of society while they enjoy it.
"After 2 Years of Pandemic Life, Turn Toward Normalcy Is a Shake-Up/As the Omicron variant recedes, cities and states with the longest mask and vaccine mandates are rapidly lifting them. The abrupt shift has unsettled the most vigilant Americans"
"Vigilant."
Democrat voters are certainly "Vigilant" alright.
People feel "whipsawed" because they didn't expect something.
Everyone with higher than room temperature IQ saw this coming for months.
If only those masks did something! Take a look at the Omicron variant. Mask rules were put in place in Illinois last fall, and then cases and deaths skyrocketed--notwithstanding that we all were wearing masks. The after a rapid ascent, cases and deaths plummeted as rapidly as they rose while we were wearing masks. Masks did not make any difference. Cases went up, cases went down. The same thing would have happened without masks.
Masks are a totem of the Left.
Even the NYT knows the game is over. This is from their March 9th Morning News Digest, via email:
Daily life in red and blue America has continued to be quite different over the past few months. It’s a reflection of the partisan divide over Covid-19. Consider:
In the country’s most liberal cities, many people are still avoiding restaurants. The number of seated diners last month was at least 40 percent below prepandemic levels in New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and Cambridge, Mass., according to OpenTable.
By contrast, the number of diners has fully recovered in Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Phoenix, Charlotte, N.C., and Austin, Texas, as well as in Oklahoma, Nebraska and New Hampshire.
Residents of liberal cities like New York, Washington and San Jose, Calif., are still spending significantly more time at home and less at the office than before the pandemic began, according to Opportunity Insights, a Harvard-based research group. In more conservative places, the rhythms of daily life have returned nearly to normal.
During the Omicron wave, schools in heavily Democratic areas were more likely to close some classrooms or require that students stay home for extended periods.
Mask wearing remains far more common in liberal communities than conservative ones.
These stark differences have created a kind of natural experiment: Did Omicron spread less in the parts of the U.S. where social distancing and masking were more common?
The answer is surprisingly unclear.
Nationwide, the number of official Covid cases has recently been somewhat higher in heavily Democratic areas than Republican areas, according to The Times’s data. That comparison doesn’t fully answer the question, though, because Democratic areas were also conducting more tests, and the percentage of positive tests tended to be somewhat higher in Republican areas.
No single statistic offers a definitive answer. When I look at all the evidence, I emerge thinking that liberal areas probably had slightly lower Omicron infection rates than conservative areas. But it is difficult to be sure, as these state-level charts — by my colleague Ashley Wu — suggest:
[Four charts showing Winnie Xi Flu progress in high-mandate areas is indistinguishable from low-mandate.]
The lack of a clear pattern is itself striking. Remember, not only have Democratic voters been avoiding restaurants and wearing masks; they are also much more likely to be vaccinated and boosted (and vaccines substantially reduce the chances of infection). Combined, these factors seem as if they should have caused large differences in case rates.
They have not.
News which hasn't been news to Althosers for nearly two years.
"Kids can get sick and they can die."
Yeah, but not many. Has that doctor looked at the numbers? In Illinois, with over 13 million people, there have been--wait for it--38 deaths of young people under 20 from COVID, and most of them had other serious illnesses.
I understand that most public health people think that no one should ever get sick, but that is not the way the world works.
This is what you get when you have absolutely no sense of perspective. Or maybe have just no sense.
The Dem Party has no use for indulging these peoples' paranoia anymore. So sorry.
"'We just haven’t learned,' Dr. David Goldberg, 32, an internal medicine physician, said...""
The good doctor doesn't know how right he is: Most of us have learned, that these measures had a negligible effect. Goldberg hasn't learned this and somehow hasn't noticed that young people were never at much risk.
'I was like, Dude, what are you doing?' Dr. Goldberg said.
Wunnerful… a Valley Girl Doctor.
Simple solution: anyone who wants to wear a mask can do so, 24/7 if they want. Those who want to stay at home can stay at home.
Problem solved.
Nobody is prohibiting these “unsettled” Americans from settling in place, in their homes, for as long as they want, keeping out whomever they want. Why should your “unsettled” state keep the rest of settled Americans from resettling back in to their pre-pandemic routines?
That’s an interesting adjective: “the abrupt shift has unsettled the most vigilant Americans.” You could identify a lot about a person by leaving a blank before “Americans” and asking them to fill in the most appropriate word. Vigilant is not the one I would choose.
Don’t they know that the science (very conveniently) changed?
"Dr. Goldberg said. 'I feel for parents who are just waiting. They feel left behind. Kids can get sick and they can die.'""
Ahh, doctor? I've got news for you…
The "most vigilant" Americans...
I guess "vigilant" is, for some uses of the term, a synonym for "living according to the precautionary principle."
Most vigilent americans. HAHA. You mean the most hysterical and borderlne mentally ill Americans who want everyone to suffer so they can reduce their chance of dying from CV 19 disease from .0001 to .00009.
Kids can get sick and they can die.
The risk to kids from COVID is minute. Less than driving them to school, soccer, or the grocery store.
I wish we could return to the days when no one got sick and died.
Omicron is the best vaccine we've had. It cost no taxpayer dollars to develop, didn't require long-term studies to legitimize, one couldn't refuse to take it or lose their job if they didn't, and it provided more long-term antibodies than any MRNA vaccine.
When democrat politicians muster the courage to use the public health pros to examine our homelessness issue in as much detail as they sicced those pros on our nation's mental well-being and economic health, then they might deserve some respect.
The latest COVID daily death number is approximately 1,700. Yet, these are deaths WITH COVID. That is a death of someone tested positive for the virus. Given that everyone in hospitals are tested and the virus is widely spread the number is not surprising. I actually would expect it to be higher. Yet, what matters is deaths DUE TO COVID. I suspect that is approaching zero.
COVID was literally the only issue on which people agreed w/ Ds; giving up that issue can't help them, and - as you see here - will hurt them w/ some of their core supporters. This is going to be an epic blowout, assuming the election occurs.
I think the word is paranoid, not vigilant.
Dr. David Goldberg should have learned in medical school that children can get sick and die.
An internist who worries that his one year old could die from Covid is an idiot.
Read Kevin Roche’s blast at Power Line today. For two years he has been urging rational and informed policy on Wu Flu and pointing out how often the public health experts and our political betters have made arbitrary, fear-driven, ignorant, cruel, destructive decisions; imposed them by force and without apology; and now are pretending they’ve been wise and consistent all along.
You can have a free society, or a risk-free society.
I feel for the morons who believe these public health tyrants and cannot think for themselves, nor do math.
'We just haven’t learned,' Dr. David Goldberg, 32, an internal medicine physician, said
Who's "we", Doctor? And what is it that "we" haven't learned? Because what it sounds like is that *you* haven't learned anything new about COVID, the ineffectiveness of every NPI used, the minuscule risk COVID presents to children, or basic principles of risk management since March 2020.
I feel for parents who are just waiting. They feel left behind. Kids can get sick and they can die."
Of course you "feel for" those parents; you identify with them because they share your neurosis. Yes, kids "can" die from COVID in the sense that it has happened a non-zero number of times to kids with a laundry list of comorbidities. But unless you're also constantly griping and wringing your hands about all the many other potential causes of death for your 1-year-old daughter that have a higher chance of killing her than COVID, all you're doing is demonstrating a profound irrationality and susceptibility to having your mind manipulated by media narratives. I pity your patients.
"Vigilant?" Or just nutty? Or perhaps innumerate? Or narcissistic? Or all three?
As the pandemic winds down, a lot more people who were once merely careful are now sounding COVID-zero, which is not a rational position. There will always be people arguing for more caution. Which is fine, they play as important a role as do the people arguing for less caution. We should listen to them, but we should not put them in charge.
I was whipsawed by "two weeks to stop the spread" strung out to two years. Who's going to write a column about people like me?
Medical science or political science?
You know who felt whipsawed? Susan Leyden, that's who.
This is hysteria:
'We just haven’t learned,' Dr. David Goldberg, 32, an internal medicine physician, said as he and his wife took their 1-year-old daughter, Isabel, for a walk through their neighborhood in Richmond, Va. Parents of children younger than 5, who are not eligible to be vaccinated.... He said he was standing in line at a grocery store recently when a man next to him complained that he did not feel well. 'I was like, Dude, what are you doing?' Dr. Goldberg said. 'I feel for parents who are just waiting. They feel left behind. Kids can get sick and they can die.'"
Imagine that child at age 21.
It's shame that hysterics have any role at all in forming the government's response to covid.
"Vigilant Americans." Now there's a loaded term. Kudos to the NYT for coming up with that one. It's actually a synonym for paranoid, irrational, suspicious, distrustful, fearful, insecure, controlling, micromanaging bullies with severe anxiety disorder.
. 'It feels like we’ve truly been left to die,'
It's TRUE! and Your Only Option, as someone that CARES.. Is Ritual Suicide
Society has Turned the Page and is not willing to suspend civil liberties to make you feel 'safe'.
Show the World, How MEAN it is! End your life, End it NOW!
Once you and your compatriots have done yourselves in; the Rest of the World, will Realize its Error
(or, not; but at least you will be gone, and the rest of us can get back to work)
A lot of Karens may lose their will to live.
Well, sure. You spend two years panicking the emotionally weak and they’re not going to be able to let go of it in an instant.
‘Cause if the threat wasn’t great then they were willing stooges in their own marginalization. They’ve got a lot invested in their fear.
Whenever I see someone masked while they’re driving alone with the windows rolled up, I get a little angry. Not at that poor frightened soul, but at the depraved motherfuckers who whipped up the hysteria that produced that poor frightened soul.
“Kids can get sick and they can die”.
Yes, but not in any perceptible way. Kids are at higher risk from the flu and car accidents.
CDC COVID demographic data
The people dying now are antivaxxer Trumpism Putin apologists. No one cares about that. They had their chance.
Kids can walk in front of a bus, too. That's why they aren't allowed outdoors. Ever.
But I'm sure the good doctor would be happy to cut some kid's dick off. That's why he wentot medical school, to learn to ease suffering.
Shorter version, It's hard to be a Karen, today!!
Short version: you have been played.
Very well played.
A more focused response that supported and protected the truly vulnerable would have looked very different and been at least as effective as this, but it would not have served our #SerenePoliceState of Our Big Blue Government Experts.
A Dr. That has no clue about risk assessment. So much for asking his opinion.
The NYT is schizoid on the subject. I suppose they have to keep catering to the irrational fears of their base, but just last week David Leonhardt reported that major differences in mitigation measures across states should have resulted in "large differences" in case rates--but "they have not." Evidence of any effectiveness is "surprisingly unclear." You'd think its reporters would now put the burden of proof on advocates of "safety measures."
I only got through the first few paragraphs before the paywall intervened. Is the NYT doubling down - again - on masks forever, lockdowns, boosters x whatever, etc.?
"Vigilant"
Interesting synonym for "paranoid." Or is it "fanatical." It can be difficult to tell the two apart these days. Maybe it combines both.
From the part you excerpted, the only reasonable thing is the objection to the person who did not feel well being in the store. If you are sick, you should stay home until you feel better if at all possible. Of course, that applied prior to COVID. I'll further add that I do not know how this person did not feel well or when said person did not fell well; for all I know said person has a headache that just came upon him.
As for the fact that kids can get sick and die, yes, they can. They can get sick and die of all sorts of things. However, of all the things they can die from, COVID is very low down the list unless the child has serious health issues. This is not a reasonable position.
on a pandemic that, while easing, is still killing more than 1,000 people every day across the United States.... 'It feels like we’ve truly been left to die,' said Elizabeth Kestrel Rogers, a writer in Mountain View, Calif
wow! over 1,000 people a day!
Assuming that's the US, we'll multiply by 365 and round up, and that gets us to 400k a year.
US population is 330 million
330,000,000 vs
400,000
Roughly 1 person in 1,000.
Elizabeth Kestrel Rogers is an innumerate lunatic, and a scientific and health ignoramus
1: That number will continue to go down because the flu season is ending. Just like the infections and deaths went up in all the "Blue" lunatic areas that "did all the things to fight Covid", it's now going to go down even in the places that ignore all teh Blue tribal rituals, because none of those rituals matter
2: So, we've got "vaccine requirements", mask requirements, "social distancing" requirements, an economy severely damaged by all the "protections" forced on us by "the experts", and the death rates are really no different than they are other that idiot Trump when we had none of these things.
But that doesn't mean they don't work! Shouts the religious lunatic
It’s tiresome, these people who value safety over everything else.
Forget the supposed safety measure were not just worthless, but harmful to everything else that makes life, well, life.
Usually people are happy when the war is over. Why don’t people who like wearing masks just go back to fighting capitalism, raising taxes, and fiery but peaceful protest for enjoyment like they used to do.
More than two years into this and people are still acting like it's the plague.
If you're so afraid, stay the fuck home and hide under your bed.
Your health and safety ain't my GD responsibility. It never has been. It never will be.
"Kids can get sick and they can die."
Of influenza? Of measles? Why doesn't this garbage ever get tagged as COVID misinformation?
Don Henley sez.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViZIBhlBkcQ
"Gotta stop sometime so why don't you quit"
Get Over It
M.D. friend has said the "Young Doctors" of today get woke leftist transfusions in medical school as a bonus with a degree.
"Leftism is the fastest growing religion today" - Dennis Prager
You can have a free society, or a risk-free society.
No you can't, on the latter point. You can have a free society, but you cannot have a risk-free society - that's how it should have been written.
The choice is not between freedom and lack of risk. The choice is between living in reality and living in a COVID-zero, dystopian fantasy.
Kids can get sick and die. Well that's nothing new.
My late mother was born on a ranch in Western Oklahoma in 1918. The nearest town and doctor was a long day's ride away from the ranch. Her parents had six children--four boys and two girls. My mother and her sister survived. All four boys died before the age of 5.
The people who are feeling whipsawed are control addicts recovering from pandemic panic porn--and withdrawal and recovery is hard.
You can have a free society, or a risk-free society.
My S-I-L was really neurotic about her daughters getting sick while they were growing up. The two oldest were home schooled until HS and she wiped everything down with disinfectant, everything, all the time. She did not let them play with other kids to avoid flu and cold.
Her husband (ironically an MD) chided her about the kids need to develop immunities. She ran the house and did not listen to him. When the two oldest girls went to HS they were sick all the time. The youngest was fine. Now the girls are all out of college and doing fine. She has finally relaxed.
The WuFlu pandemic has created a similar level of neuroticism in people who should know better. This will be an ongoing problem.
Alas, 11.5 million people died in the world year to date, 97,000 from flu. Over 300,00 from AIDS! 97,000 died today. So far.
There are people still afraid to fly because of 9/11.
For a laugh read the NYT comments on any article on Covid, masks, etc. Donald Trump will come up. Of course. And there will be virtue aplenty.
Ask Doc Goldberg what his Covid treatment approach has been.
But they told me, they promised. Does Uncle Joe know? (Stalin reference on purpose)
"The people dying now are antivaxxer Trumpism Putin apologists."
I have to admit the way you packed so much hate into one little sentence is quite remarkable.
Obama has Covid. Per the Car Radio. Why that was important enough to report along side the Ukrainian russian war is anyone's guess. BTW, Michelle does not have CV-19.
So, we can all sleep tonight.
Some doctor! Guy says he feels sick and the doc's immediate response is catastrophic (for the doc)!
"Fuck you dude, what about my kid!"
In the course of the entire pandemic 137,016 children under age 10 have had COVID in Virginia, and 8 have died(less than 1 in 17,000). In the past three months there have been zero deaths in that age range from 69.824 cases.
“The people dying now are antivaxxer Trumpism Putin apologists."
That should make you happy. Except that there really isn’t any credible data showing that projab face diaper wearing pro FJB fascists, like yourself, did any better, overall. And that doesn’t even address your side’s likely higher death toll from vax side effects.
"M.D. friend has said the "Young Doctors" of today get woke leftist transfusions in medical school as a bonus with a degree".
My neice, whom I previously thought was brilliant is this person. The first time I brought up how viruses and immunity works, referring to everything every damned one of us learned growing up, she said...nah...it's two odd years down the road and as she's gone from her college volleyball all American playing weight to a solid 300 plus, she's still stuck in 2020. She's a doctor, she doesn't know how virus' work.
GERMS!... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gLLZ_D1Lqw
I have some acquaintances who took all available steps including blaming Trump in every third sentence. Masks. Staying home. Jabbing. All but the second-most Karening of them got the Chinee lung mung down to the grandkids. Nobody seriously ill.
Fortunately, we have Ukraine to keep up the skeer, so they should be okay if the crud disappears from the news.
The polls for the upcoming election signal that mandates are not popular. This trumps (haha) any number of people dying.
According to the CDC, the expected (typical) number of US deaths is around 60,000/week or 3,120,000/yr out of 325,000,000 population. The excess deaths ranged (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm) from a few thousand per week to a max of about 20,000/wk. During march 2021 through aug 2021 there were never more than a few % excess deaths. Eyeballing the chart above, the excess deaths per year in the US is about 250,000 or half of the total covid deaths (so half of the covid deaths were likely to occur anyway). Even if you take the higher covid total of 500,000/yr as all being excess, this is a 16% excess which is not the end of the world (ie not the black death).
Lem,
Why should your “unsettled” state keep the rest of settled Americans from resettling back in to their pre-pandemic routines?
Why, indeed. Because people who are forced to self-confine or quarantine are happier by far when everyone else on the planet is forced to do the same, would be my guess. Misery really does love company, the more the merrier.
What? Some people are still stupid enough to expect honesty and consistency from Democrats and then advertise their denseness by complaining about their disappointment. So?
This is news to the purveyors and readers of NYT bullshit. Normals have seen it for years from Democrat enablers and dupes.
There's the problem, Richard. It should be every other sentence due to waning.
" ... a pandemic that, while easing, is still killing more than 1,000 people every day across the United States ... "
And then there's heart disease about which the CDC tells us, "About 659,000 people in the United States die from heart disease each year—that’s 1 in every 4 deaths." That's more than 1,800 people dying every day across the United States.
Heart Disease Facts
While there's no vaccine for heart disease, we do know how to reduce our risk. And just like some people won't get vaccinated for Covid, some people won't reduce their risk of dying from heart disease. We are sometimes-irrational animals.
Michael K said, "An internist who worries that his one year old could die from Covid is an idiot."
I wonder what else he believes that would it wise for his patients to find another doctor.
Blogger Howard said...
The people dying now are antivaxxer Trumpism Putin apologists. No one cares about that. They had their chance.
Howard shows us what sarcasm is. That was sarcasm, Howard? Right?
"M.D. friend has said the "Young Doctors" of today get woke leftist transfusions in medical school as a bonus with a degree".
I am afraid, from what I have read, that this may be true. I am glad I quit teaching 6 years ago. I did meet the Dean of Diversity before I left. She seemed nice.
The AMA, which has been useless since 1980, is now fully in with the Woke movement. That does not help confidence.
'...most vigilant Americans.'
You mean the biggest hypochondriacs?
Blogger Achilles said...
"The COVID response was always about control.
It had nothing to do with preventing death or spread.
That is why they focused on stupid nonsense measures like masks and lock downs while forcing COVID positive patients into nursing homes.
Only the quickly dwindling number of democrat voters are too stupid to see how stupid and evil our institutions were. "
Have another vodka, Ivan.
I think the Northeast and West Coast should stay masked up, vaxxed up, and locked up. We'll try to manage without them, while we in the rest of the world carry on.
The Doc should teach his kid to riot for George Floyd. That will protect the kid from covid.
He can ask his fellow doctors in NY, if he doesn't believe me.
Blogger Howard said...
"The people dying now are antivaxxer Trumpism Putin apologists. No one cares about that. They had their chance."
Shhhh. Shhh. You voted for Biden. Don't talk. There should be a Biden, "I did that!" sticker on your forehead.
I find it even more amazing that online experts in virology and public health are also experts in eastern European politics, warfighting and history. Such a breadth of knowledge is to be admired.
I am sympathetic to the worried parents. I am friends with a family whose oldest girl has cystic fibrosis. If you could design a virus (like the chinese did with this one) that would target kids with CF, covid-19 would be it.
These parents have lived the last two years in dire fear for their daughter. COVID took their normal, everyday fear of her death to eleventy. But part of that is because she is already living on borrowed time - time afforded to her by the amazing medical technologies and practices that have kept her alive far past the norm for kids with CF. They know that CF is the comorbidity of comorbidities for COVID. Any cold/respiratory virus in 2019 could have killed their daughter, so COVID in its earlier variants was a step change in the wrong direction.
They are more relaxed now that we're into Omicron and there are more and more effective treatments available. But they still live in fear and have not been able to shake it.
The one thing they never did was demand that everyone else live according to their dictates. If we wanted to visit they did ask that we have been tested and wear masks, things that I was happy to do to help them feel more comfort and perhaps prevent bringing COVID to their home. But they never supported full lockdowns, kids out of school, etc.
For all their fear, they knew infection control for their daughter's environment was their responsibility, not everyone else's.
"It is possible to take personal action and keep wearing a mask."
Sure, but that only helps protect others from you. You are not protected others.
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