1 in 35 People Have Covid Now. Coming for Your Right to Wear a Mask, Nassau Co, NY, North Carolina [View all]

Daily Kos, Sept. 3, 2024. - Ed. (218 Recs, 111 Comments).

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Welcome back to some monthly highlights from a place I call Covidlandia. Here I present recent news, scientific discoveries, and medical knowledge that caught my attention and that is of interest to primary care. I try to highlight useful, actionable stuff monthly.
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Covid is still infecting about 1,000,000 Americans a day. - 1 out of every 35 people is currently infected (1 million x 10 day illness / - 350 million Americans). The curve is bending downwards, though, which is good news. Back to school will prolong these high rates, but one well-respected forecaster predicts rates will be down 40% by early October. We will take it, but half of these large numbers is still large. Maybe - 1,000 Americans are dying of Covid per week based on several sources I read, but it’s hard to confirm since hospital reporting is no longer mandatory.

Nonetheless we know that in general hospitalizations are up, as are new long Covid syndromes we can conservatively assume affect at least 5% of people each time they get sick, if not much higher. I’m just going to include 3 highlights from my Aug. report that I think are most relevant to Daily Kos themes: CARING ABOUT COVID IS SOCIALLY AWKWARD. The New York Times had a good piece last month about the problematic offramp from this pandemic. I really do see all sides: the strong desire to have some normalcy, the strong social pressures to let our guards down, the fact that each time we get this disease it’s a roll of the dice, for young and old, healthy and frail.

Five years into the Covid pandemic, a stark divide has emerged in how people respond to the virus, with many now treating it like a common cold despite surging cases and increased hospitalizations. This shift stems from growing immunity, fatigue with restrictions, and a collective overoptimistic fiction, creating social tensions as some still exercise caution. The CDC's relaxed guidelines reflect this new reality, but epidemiologists warn the virus remains unpredictable, leaving individuals to navigate a complex landscape where former norms clash with a desire to return to pre-pandemic life.

THEY ARE COMING FOR YOUR RIGHT TO WEAR A MASK IF YOU CHOOSE. Wearing a mask in Nassau County, NY is a now misdemeanor that includes a $1,000 fine and can include jail time. North Carolina enacted a similar ban. Here are two excellent opinion pieces about this problem...

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/3/2267439/-About-1-in-35-people-have-Covid-now-and-they-re-coming-for-your-choice-to-mask