Late 2023 update on the Rona

 As of December 24 2023, the Coronavirus seems to have completely vanished from the public consciousness.  That is to say, COVID-19 is still present, but no one seems to be worried about it.  The Texas DSHS has the coronavirus weekly update buried somewhere in the depths of its site and the news rarely mentions it.  It's still the #1 topic on the CDC's site, with the lonely bureaucrats probably longing for the heady days of 2020 and 2021 when they were rockstars, but the general public has just lost interest.

Personally, I notice people at work occasionally wearing masks, but not consistently. It's hard to know what criteria they are using to wear a mask or not since there's no clear way to know if cases are going up or down.  Perhaps there's another reason like allergies.  I only ever got the 1st two rona shots and never got boosted for subsequent variants and, from what I've seen, no one else is, either. Pfizer and Moderna's stocks have been on a downward slope as demand for the jab has cratered.

Our politicians in Texas, ever eager to be useless while appearing brave, recently passed a law that prohibits local governments from imposing mask mandates, vaccine mandates and business-related closures related to the Rona.  That's fine, I guess, assuming that Covid-19 is the only virus that will ever sweep the nation.  The RINOs in the House declined to pass actual legislation that would actually make a difference: like banning all restrictions for any disease, or limiting the power the Governor to shut down the state.  Other states with functioning legislatures were capable of passing laws like that, so maybe there is enough to put the breaks on nation-wide foolishness next time. I'm not confident: the power of needing to do something can be overwhelming for the mini-tyrants that run for office.

In the Fall, the CDC started chirping about a dreaded Triple-Demic for this winter, comprising of Covid, the Flu and a previously unheard-of virus called Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) that would lay waste to the nation.  Surprisingly, our excitable media didn't much care about that and barely mentioned the warning.  And the general populace treated this warning of the end-times with the same caution that they normally treat the CDC: with a yawn.  As of now, the CDC is still warning that the nation hasn't peaked yet for either of those illnesses, but I've not heard of anyone who got them.  And I still don't really know what RSV is (and don't want to find out).  There was even a flurry of news articles early in the year about the emergence of "Monkeypox" among gay men.  Monkeypox was quickly renamed "MPOX" because ... well just because.  But then the disease just kind of went a way with no explanation.  The media only half-heartedly reported it when it came out and just kind of lost interest after a while.

So what's different now?  Why does the media not trumpet these warnings day and night and pressure spineless pols to do destructive things to the country like they did in 2020?  Is it because there's not an Orange Ogre in Office that they need to displace this year?  Or are health warning Sooo-2020 and they can get better ratings by alarming the public with other topics?   It's hard to know.  

Actually, that last option is likely correct. The world seems like shit now, with war in both Ukraine and Israel, and inflation still taking a chunk of people's paychecks, rampant homelessness in many large cities, crime out of control and deteriorating infrastructure.  I've noted several times over the past year or two that the general situation reminds me of The Gunslinger by Stephen King:  the plight of inhabitants of a world that's slowly dying -- machinery breaks down, people die young and women become barren -- and their frequent observation that "The world has moved on."  In that context, a plague that seems little worse than a cold for most people doesn't really rate.

I started this series saying that the 2020 Covid public health initiative was surely the most successful public policy initiative of all times.  But  now, the current PR efforts are possibly the LEAST successful, possibly even worse than "exercise" or "nutrition" because of the general advertising of gyms and diet plans.

As of today, I actually feel kind of empty when thinking about all that happened in the last three years.  It all seems so anti-climatic.  There was never an "end" to the rona. No big parties to celebrate life returning to the streets.  No official announcement that we could emerge into the light.  But also no Truth Commission type hearings to hold those responsible for this bullshit accountable.  It just fizzled out.  As soon as the vaccines were available, it guess people felt bulletproof and went back to their normal lives, even though the vaccine efficacy is contested to this day.   I just wish there was a final chapter to the whole thing, or some finish line that we crossed and could point to as the specific point that life went back to normal.  I suppose that's the nature of disease. As long as someone gets it, it hasn't gone away (people still get polio, after all).  And the restrictions were lifted piecemeal across the country so you could be free in Texas, but have to be vaccinated to go to a museum in New Mexico (as happened to us in 2021 or 2022).

In fact, it's not unlike my experience with cancer and since both started in 2020 perhaps I can't separate them.  When you have cancer, you never really stop having it. You just don't have it today.  It can always come back.  At some point you quit worrying about it, but it's not like you can point to a specific day when you were "cured".  You just have 50% less anxiety one day, then a year later you have 75%, then 80% and at some point you quit looking over your shoulder.  At least I hope so, I still glance back once in a while and the week or two before my next checkup is a little tense.