The following documents outlining a strategy of declaring a win over covid while waving the white flag to the virus, dated Feb 2022, can be downloaded from the US house of representatives). Now almost a year later, the long covid and death toll keep on mounting docs.house.gov/meetings/VC/...
Back in Sept. the estimate was 18 million Americans had or had had long Covid. abcnews.go.com/Health/18-mi...
Two new CDC reports, published Tuesday, found that 6.9% of adults and 1.5% of children have had long COVID in the U.S.
All of the "trends" cited in this paper are a direct result of the Biden administration's own (disastrous) public health messaging as well! It's a closed loop, making recommendations based on societal results of the administration's own failed public health policy - and calling it a win. Shameful.
It's only the *fourth* leading cause of death, not one of the big ones /s
The document talks about how people are "worn out" by covid restrictions (but apparently not by constant reinfection and vascular & immune damage), but it advocates for shifting goalposts (don't set zero-covid as victory condition) and manufacturing consent "push for feeling and acting more normal"
on the other hand... there are a lot of lingering confusing medical conditions we don't know how to deal with. hell, have we gotten together a Lyme vaccine yet? i probly catch THAT shit every year. i wonder if there are other widespread well travelled spp that suffer from accumulating parasites
The upcoming election doesn't help either. There is a real fear I think of playing into the hands of the right, were we to push back on normalization in any way that appeared to be (re)politicizing the virus. Even if this is ultimately circular reasoning or appeasement, it's definitely a factor.
I can't help but wish much suffering for the people who wrote that. And I have zero regrets for having that wish.