Great COVID News: We Have Nothing to Worry About!

By Vincent Boom-Batz, M.D.
Medical Editor

Great news: we don't have to worry about COVID anymore.

Lots of people are telling us this, from white male gasbags to airline presidents to a bent unqualified Former Loser Grifter judge in Florida to – uh, a real doctor.

That's so great, except for one little thing, as reported every day in The Boston Globe:

 

That case count is nearly quadruple what it was a couple of months ago, and the reported positivity rate (not including the positive tests people take at home and don't report) is over 4.5%, which does not compare especially favorably with the record of the entire pandemic:

With the pandemic still raging, although with death rates down due to vaccination and more effective treatments, of course we are still taking sensible no-downside precautions like masking in crowded public places, like planes, trains, and buses, right?

Wrong, aerosolized virus breath!

First, the considered judgments of the Centers for Disease Control, acting under its statutory authority to limit the transmission of communicable diseases were chucked out by a bent judge rammed through on a party line vote after the Tangerine-Faced Grifter, who nominated her, had been voted out of office and was spending his days plotting sedition:

Mizelle's judicial qualifications are evident

In her ruling, Judge Mizelle adopted a narrow interpretation of the authority Congress granted to the C.D.C. to issue rules aimed at preventing the interstate spread of communicable diseases.

The law says the agency may take such measures as it deems “necessary,” and provides a list of examples, like “sanitation.” The judge wrote that this power was limited to things like cleaning property — not requiring people to take hygienic steps. 

We're just lucky the TFG didn't appoint Jeannie Pinot Noir Pirro to a lifetime judgeship, although according to the American Bar Association, she would have been no less qualified than Mizelle, who owes her life-tenured position solely to her willingness to embrace insane reactionary judicial activism:

President Trump appointed Judge Mizelle to the bench in November 2020, after he had lost re-election. A former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, she was 33 at the time, making her the youngest person Mr. Trump had appointed to a life-tenured judgeship. The American Bar Association declared her not qualified because of her lack of experience, but Republican senators confirmed her in a party-line vote.

As a result, everyone on an airplane or an Amtrak train must be permitted to spew the contents of their lungs all over you on your next 14-hour flight, because...freedom!  The airlines tout their great ventilation while the engines are turning, which they are not most of the time the plane is sitting on the ground, like when you board, squirm in your seat waiting for the airline to scare up a pilot, or push and shove to disembark without getting a concussion from some putz's overstuffed bag:

“When planes are at the gate, their ventilation systems aren’t always running,” Allen wrote. “If they’re not running, there is no air coming into the cabin, and, importantly, no air running across those great HEPA filters. Combine that with high-occupant density and a small volume space, and you have a recipe for transmission. 

As for Amtrak – probably better not to ask.

That masks in public indoor places help limit transmission of COVID is an unquestioned scientific fact.   The Centers for Disease Control, the core agency for protecting us from infectious disease states flatly: “Masking is a critical public health tool for preventing spread of COVID-19, and it is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask.”

Fortunately, in America 2022, wherever there's unquestionable science there's a white man who knows better:

A frustration with mask discourse: when public health experts make the case for (say) continued masking on planes, I never know what they think the tradeoffs are--i.e., how many lives do they expect it to say or infections to avert? I'd find that helpful in evaluating their case.

— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) April 19, 2022

We're just the same way: we don't stop for red lights unless we have a printout that we have reviewed in advance rigorously quantifying the number of lives that are likely to be saved by said red light so that we can weigh the benefit of stopping vs. the undeniable assault on our freedom as a white man to put the pedal to the metal and barrel right through the intersection.

If one of these positions sounds stupider than the other, maybe ask yourself why. 

Fairness compels us to note that you don't have to be a white man to have an idiotic view on the continued value of masking in a time of pandemic.  Leana Wen, MD, come on down:

 

Why, ffs?  Here's her answer:

So long as hospitals have good capacity and vaccines still work well against variants, mask requirements and other government mandates should not be reinstated.

It's OK to expose someone needlessly to a case of COVID so bad they have to be admitted to the hospital as long as there's a bed?  Even if the case could have been prevented by wearing a mask on a plane or train?   Hoh-kay. As for the immunocompromised or children under five (who aren't eligible for vaccination), well f*** 'em. And the millions still grappling with long COVID and a possible lifetime of injury and suffering, for Dr. Wen, that' s too bad, so sad.

Don't see any transmission here

It's perhaps this kind of thinking that got her s**tcanned from her previous gig as President of Planned Parenthood.  Maybe since she lives in Baltimore, she knows her life is at risk every time she walks out her door.  A plane full of coughing covidiots probably seems salubrious by comparison.

The airlines were naturally thrilled not to have to enforce public health mandates because once the passengers shuffle off the plane, their future suffering and death is someon else's problem.  But why were transit agencies not at all subject to Judge Auda Herass's injunction so eager to drop their mask mandates?  Have the pols who run these systems ever ridden on them at rush hour?

For example, the MBTA couldn't wait a day to drop its mask mandate, on the illogical grounds that it follows federal guidance, and the CDC was now prohibited from enforcing the federal mask mandate.  But the CDC guidance hasn't changed:  “CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in indoor public transportation settings at this time.” 

Despite the endless whining from the usual reactionary sources, in fact the majority of people would be perfectly happy to wear masks as long as the pandemic rages:

The normal rejoinder, regarded as brilliant by those who say it is to ask how long we think the mask mandates should remain?  Forever?   

The answer is not hard: we'll rely on the judgment of infectious-disease experts, not known to be paid off by Big Mask, the same way we rely on the judgment of our health professionals for other health care matters.  If your doctor says it's time for your tetanus shot, do you ask to see the peer-reviewed research estimating how many lives would be saved by a tetanus shot?  Or do you get the f***in' shot?

It's important to remember that infectious disease control and public health is not the same as say managing the Red Sox.  In the former case, not everyone is qualified to express an opinion, and sadly some of those who claim expertise turn out to be auditioning for the revival of Baltimore's favorite show: Homicide.