One day, I will no longer write about covid.
But today is not that day.
After two years of covid lockdowns, restrictions, and progressive virtue signaling with promises of being able to contain an uncontainable virus, the country is seeing a surge in covid cases.
Laughably, officials say they “know how to manage it.”
Top U.S. health officials warned Tuesday that a surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant BA.5 has arrived, but stressed that the country has the tools — like vaccines and antiviral treatments — to prevent people from getting seriously ill.“We know how to manage it,” Dr. Ashish Jha, coordinator of the White House’s COVID-19 response, said at a virtual press briefing. “We can prevent serious illness. We can save lives and we can minimize disruptions caused by COVID-19.”
As I predicted, the world will experience wave after wave of covid until we have built up enough immunity so future variants will join the very long list of common cold viruses. In fact, in my personal experience, I know many people who are now recovering from covid infections who did not believe me when I said that we would all, eventually, get the disease.
I have heard the phrase, “Leslie, you were right,” quite a bit in the last three weeks.
But the reality is not stopping the Biden administration from extending the covid emergency.
The Biden Administration is set to extend emergency measures that enable people to ward off or fight an infection with the novel coronavirus, according to a new report.The public health emergency has been in effect, with extensions, since January 2020.Besides providing access to Medicaid for millions of Americans who wouldn’t otherwise be eligible, the measures help clear vaccines, medications and diagnostic tools for use. An emergency declaration also makes telehealth services more accessible.The declaration also boost pandemic-response funding, which has been ebbing as existing money is spent.
The Biden administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera claimed there was a strong chance positive cases would increase…just in time for this year’s midterm elections.
His statement comes after Joe Biden urged preparations for a second pandemic during a recent press conference despite his campaign promise of “shutting down the virus.” The secretary’s claims about a resurgence has sparked criticism online with many poking fun at his concerns about a “midterm variant.”Recent polls show only 21 percent of Americans are concerned about a new variant. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that scientists have suggested a new strain of the virus could potentially stand against vaccination status and immunity.
Meanwhile, in one of the looniest parts of California, mask mandates are poised to return in 2 weeks.
Los Angeles County is on track to enter the “high” COVID-19 community level as soon as Thursday, in which case an indoor mask mandate would return two weeks later, the public health director said Tuesday.If the county continues at its current pace, masks could be mandated indoors again by July 29.
The press is duly playing up the “worst variant” angle. That is, until the actual variant before the midterms are identified.
What makes BA.5 different? Eric Topol, a cardiologist and professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, has called BA.5 “the worst version of the virus we’ve seen.” He explained in a recent newsletter: “It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility,” well beyond earlier versions of Omicron.In other words, BA.5 can easily evade immunity from previous infections and vaccines, increasing the risk of reinfection. Though the variant does not appear to lead to more severe illness, in an interview with CNN on Monday, Topol said that given the extent of BA.5’s immune evasion, he expects to see an escalation in hospitalizations, as we’ve seen in Europe and elsewhere that the variant has taken root. “One good thing is it doesn’t appear to be accompanied by the ICU admissions and the deaths as previous variants, but this is definitely concerning,” he added.
And the vaccinated and boosted Dr. Anthony Fauci, who recently recovered from covid after creating all the nation-crushing policies Americans have been forced to endure for the past two years, is back and recommending masks.
Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to lead the White House’s public messaging on COVID-19 this week after his own battle with the disease — urging Americans to again wear masks and get boosted amid the threat of waning immunity against surging new variants.The administration’s 81-year-old chief medical adviser has been lying low since testing positive in mid-June.Now recovered, the quadruple-vaccinated infectious disease expert gave a series of interviews Tuesday to warn of surging cases sparked by the latest Omicron variant, BA.5 — and caution Americans that even those recently recovered from an infection are likely still at risk.“The threat to you is now,” Fauci warned during a White House briefing Tuesday.
After doing it Fauci’s way for two years, how about doing it my way:
Finally, end the ridiculous “public health emergency,” which at this point is a “political health emergency.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY