Any guesses on when they stop publishing numbers entirely? I feel like that's the point where I'm going to be completely screwed.
Any guesses on when they stop publishing numbers entirely? I feel like that's the point where I'm going to be completely screwed.
I don' work in a hospital a this point, but from what I've been hearing through the grapevine they've long since stopped using N95 masks in general, there's basically no testing of staff unless they're symptomatic, and masking is more of a suggestion than a rule for visitors. The LTC facility I work at is one of the few places in the region that has a medical director that still takes COVID seriously but he's basically fighting an uphill battle against the rest of administration that wants to ease the precautions. There's a reputation that we have a lot of COVID, but it's mostly because we're like the only place that still regularly tests people. The hospital sent us a patient just this week that was having COVID symptoms but hadn't quite tested positive. When we checked them, they were positive. I see a lot of people just absolutely exhausted by the never ending COVID. We might go a couple weeks without it, but it always keeps coming back. I work with a rather vulnerable patient population as well since they're just out from the hospital and usually have a stack of comorbidities.
I see it as just people adjusting to the new normal, we're all tired of dealing with COVID. A lot of people are just wanting to turn a blind eye to it or just pretend to be back to normal because it's very obvious that it will only continue to get worse. The systemic response has been so botched that nothing we can do will fix it at this point and as GrantGreen says, consent has been manufactured. People don't think of it as severe anymore. Doctors see it as just another flu. Between just being sick of dealing with COVID and the very obvious fact that it's not going anywhere people have just decided to go along with the "mild" thread. Like was stated somewhere before in an essay I don't remember the name of, people have to actively want to believe the fake stories when consent is manufactured for imperialism and through their vested interest in imperialism they'll believe it. It's the same concept with nursing and wanting to go "back to normal."
I’m so fucking sick of hearing this. This is just not true. At any point we could do a hard 1 month lockdown and mass testing and it’d be mostly over. The solution is exactly the same as it always has been even if it’s slightly more difficult than it would’ve been in April 2020.
The solution is obvious and clear, but impossible under capitalism.
There was a window for agitation in the US, and we used it, sometimes successfully. That window existed because liberals could be rallied against Trump to do local politics things against liberals.
Then Biden was elected and everything was fine again and criticizing the government was gauche or naive again.
But at the heart at all of it is real estate and failing businesses. Real estate taxes make up huge amounts of local and state budgets. Lockdowns disrupt rent payments as well as the overall resale profitability of real estate. Failing businesses have a similar situation regarding tax bases and also directly employ people. Local and state governments are the ones that stopped doing lockdowns, they crunched the numbers and listened to their real constituents (capitalists) and halted lockdowns, which were always incredibly weak ones in the US, way back in 2020.
In order to reinstitute a lockdiwn, you'll need one of two things:
A completely different material base for government, i.e. the abolition of capitalism itself (or at least a dotp situation).
A new variant or pandemic that forces a lockdown because it's a greater threat to short term profits.
I was referring to nurses being unable to fix a systemic problem, but honestly I don't see a way to put the cat in the bag at this point.
Looking at the material reality around us, it is unfeasible. There is no infrastructure that would allow a mass lockdown at this point that wouldn't just be another way to brutalize minorities. The population as a whole has since given up on trying, believing the pandemic to be over. Even if we should see a miracle where the US decides to do another lockdown, it's still going wild in other countries and will continue to mutate. On a global scale the only thing that would possibly have a chance is a large global revolution that would simultaneously overthrow all the main seats of power in one fell swoop allowing for a large global collaborative effort to lockdown for a period. As it stands though, there's not any political will globally to make such a sweeping decision. So I stand by what I said that there's nothing we can do that isn't assuming a massive shift in how the world works when there's close to nothing in motion that would see it happen.
No political will != not possible
There's no political will for pretty much anything we advocate for here
Still doesn't change the fact that without a global response, nothing will change. China gave up on zero COVID as a result of nothing else happening globally beyond letting COVID just rip through people. I"m not against doing a month long lockdown either globally, I just don't see it as a feasible reality within my lifetime.
Ngl I still think zero-covid-in-one-country is still a totally feasible strategy and I think China fucked up big time by dropping it and the people in China that advocates for dropping it did not understand what they were asking for.
I’d happy be locked down 1 month out of the year the rest of my life in exchange for not getting sick anymore. I usually spend more than a month out sick anyway.
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There was a post around here that dug deeper into what happened with China dropping zero covid and if I'm remembering right, China didn't intend to drop zero covid, but instead local governments misunderstood something, opened up, and then the cat was out of the bag. This also goes against the narrative that the Chinese government is an oppressive regime, but that doesn't matter to westerners.
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