COVID narratives and state of play

List of COVID mismessaging in 2022

How did so many in the US end up desensitized to mass death and disability, angrily opposed to almost all means of mitigating an occasionally fatal airborne virus, and willing to accept so little from the powerful? This list helps explain.

NEJM article covers the current situation

There is

 a widespread assumption, fueled by political and economic priorities, that the pandemic is behind us — that it’s time to let go of caution and resume prepandemic life.

The reality, however, would starkly contradict such a belief. Covid-19 currently results in about 300 to 500 deaths per day in the United States — equivalent to an annual mortality burden higher than that associated with a bad influenza season. In addition, many people continue to face severe short- or long-term Covid-19 illness, including people who lack access to vaccines or treatment and those with underlying conditions that impair their immune response to vaccines or render them especially vulnerable to Covid-associated complications. The ever-looming threat of the evolution of a new variant, one that can evade our vaccines and antivirals, remains very real. These facts support the assumption that SARS-CoV-2 will continue to play a major role in our lives for the foreseeable future. This new reality compels us to navigate a more complex social, economic, political, and clinical terrain and to take to heart the lessons learned from the Covid-19 response thus far — both the successes and the missteps.

We can’t just wish it away

Here’s a good article from Dec22 with lots of sources