There will be plenty silver linings as well; we'll be much better prepared to face future, potentially more dangerous pandemics. Car use may substantially fall. Smaller towns and cities will likely attract more investment. Issues of poor housing and social disparity in public health may be better addressed.
What evidence have you seen that give you the indication we (USA) will be better prepared for future pandemics? The risk of global pandemic was known and well documented prior to COVID. If anything the fact that COVID has a low death rate among the young could lead people to discount the dangers in future pandemics. Maybe on the (intelligent) individual level we are all better prepared, but I don’t really have any faith in governments at the local, state, or national level. We are still bungling basic things like supplies of PPE.
The vaccine rollout thus far has been slow with roadblocks that a layperson could’ve identified months ago (anyone who has a passing interest in disaster response or logistics could have predicted that the bottleneck wasn’t going to be in vaccine doses, but in syringes, PPE, locations to administer vaccine, red tape to process/document vaccinations, people to administer vaccines, etc).
I agree with your predictions about other societal trends. Disregard if you were speaking from a different country’s perspective.
@whitebelt - I don't know how it will play out specifically in the US, but in global terms I think we've learnt some valuable lessons, sometimes the hard way. Or maybe re-learnt them after a 100 year hiatus.
For example, we've known since at least the nineteenth century that overcrowded, unsanitary, poorly ventilated housing is a perfect breeding ground for contagious disease. I read some old Irish newspapers from ~150 years ago which rightly condemned the country's appalling housing standards for the high levels of TB outbreaks. Yet fast forward to 2020, ultra wealthy, ultra efficient Singapore inexcusably kept migrate workers in the same overcrowded conditions, which of course was a perfect place to spread COVID.
It's like we need a regular small crisis to keep us on our toes.
Interesting evolution of Expert Opinion on mask wearing. Europeans are kicking around requirements that people wear proper air filtration masks (e.g. N95s) and Fauci is now all "it's common sense to double mask."
Air passing into and out of one's mouth while wearing two masks would be equal to (unfiltered air from the sides) + (unfiltered air passing through the first mask)(conductance of mask 1) + (filtered air(conductance of mask 2) passing through the first mask)(conductance of mask 1)*. Air gaps on the sides are a mass flow short and the less common sense point would be to ask how that might render additional masks kinda useless as they are just decreasing the effective conductance of the mask assembly.
*+air filtered by mask 2 but unfiltered by mask 1, which should be a small term given the path the molecules should be traveling to get through the outermost mask. Also steady state condition assumed.
ETA:
I think the response of the scientists to this pandemic will go down as a huge win. My understanding is the quick roll-out of the vaccine was thanks to a bunch of basic science that had been done in the years leading up to the crisis, so the people getting the NIH grants were doing God's work. The public health experts leading the response, however, have engaged in a huge amount of FUD* and and rigid adherence to one policy on the apparent premise that all things are permissible as long as they plausibly drive down first order covid deaths.
*Good examples: (1) the ever-evolving story on masks. People were walking around with those creepy plague doctor masks back in the middle ages. I don't think we recently got some new knowledge on that subject. (2) Every report of a covid variant or study on immunity is a catastrophe or probable catastrophe.
Despite less than 10% antibody positive rate and less than 10% vaccination rate, the state of Michigan is opening back up. Gyms (?%), bars & restaurants (25%) and schools (100%) respectively.
"Double mask" very likely does nothing whatsoever, since seal is impossible for the second mask, and side losses strictly dominate straight transmission.
You know if "double mask" made sense why wouldn't they make all masks twice as thick? Answer the question and you will find new questions. Eventually you will understand why N95 and N99 standards exist in the first place. Unlike USA government.
A young woman was making an Uber Eats delivery to our building yesterday and I complimented her on her electric assist bicycle. We got to talking and she told me it was her first day doing Uber Eats. She said the reason she signed up with the app is to qualify for the Covid vaccine and explained that in our county the next tier for vaccinations includes food delivery workers. She was late 20s or early 30s so I am guessing she is jumping the line by eight months or more.
An optimized approach would be a single mask with two pairs of ear loops and two layers of differently-colored fabric sowed together askew so you get to look Fauci-approved, have the same level of effectiveness as the double masking, while still only carrying one object.
Or if the public health establishment really cared about masks as more than virtue signalling, they would push Biden to allocate money for N95 production. The non-MAGA states could have pooled money easily back in early 2020 and we would be up to our eyeballs in legit masks by now.
She said the reason she signed up with the app is to qualify for the Covid vaccine ...
When we were filling out the online form for extended family to get on the vaccine line, one person had a BMI of 29.2 and a 30 BMI puts you in the first tier. I changed their weight to make sure they hit 30 and told them to fatten up before they get the vaccine.
Interestingly, cystic fibrosis patients aren't in tier 1 in most states ... the reason being that CF patients haven't been overwhelmingly affected/infected. Of course, the reason for that is that CF patients immediately hunkered down when this started and were already equipped with masks/disinfectants and knew how to use them effectively, thus were better prepared to avoid the virus and the numbers demonstrate that. Unfortunately, knowing how to avoid covid has backfired because CF patients now have to wait until after uber eats drivers to get a vaccine in most states.
Unfortunately, knowing how to avoid covid has backfired because CF patients now have to wait until after uber eats drivers to get a vaccine in most states.
Florida is including grocery workers but not food delivery app drivers yet.
California might be different (tech companies have more say here).
Unfortunately it has always been that those who do right and display self agency will always receive no consideration (hello blanket student loan forgiveness). As a 48 year old with chronic asthma, I expect to be at near the very end of the priority list. Maybe I should just download the Uber App and make a couple of deliveries to areas where I am least likely to be robbed/mugged .
(No wonder the push to abolish electoral college, standards and norms of social interaction etc....the race to the bottom looks to be in full swing. No wonder eastern Europe sometimes seems so attractive!)
No doubt, but it is still the case that effective mass use/distribution is occurring incidentally to public health directives or efforts (though, apparently Biden did use the defense production act to get things going). To the extent they are mentioned at all, masks made to foreign standards have been discussed with a strong hint that they are sketchy.
Incidentally, Cuomo is also getting caught up in allegations that the number nursing home residents dying from Covid was intentionally undercounted. Another potential takeaway from this saga has been the failure of lesser-of-two-evils thinking. Poor performance was often masked by Not as Ridiculous as Trump.
North Dakota and South Dakota, after hitting peak infections a week before Thanksgiving, may reach herd immunity in a month or two since they have isolated populations, but the cost has been tremendous: 1-in-550 have died and 80-85% of those deaths happened since October 1.
Their deaths are still better off than the NE USA (NJ, NY, Massachusetts, RI, & Connecticut), where higher population densities and the earliest mass deaths occurred before treatment was refined. NJ, for instance, has exceeded 1-in-450 dead of COVID. Infections are still raging in these states at per capita rates equal to the UK's and not peaking, likely because of population density.
North Dakota and South Dakota now at 1-in-527 dead and 1-in-498 dead respectively after two weeks. NJ at 1-in-413 dead. 51 weeks since first USA death.
Infections finally slowing down across most states, but still climbing in places like Bronx County, NY.
I really don't agree with people with high BMIs cutting the line. Nope. They should go by age and other non-changeable aspects. If you're an overweight adult, well, the solution is right there. I've seen too many of my coworkers get hurt in health care just getting these people on and off the table.
.