Coronavirus week 98A: More on moving to endemic; Omicron BA.2

Last week, for the second time, I talked about the transition from pandemic to endemic on COVID (and talked about possible politics being involved on this and related issues).

At the Atlantic, Benjamin Mazer says, when we do move in that direction, COVID still won't be like the flu: It will be more like smoking.

The pandemic’s greatest source of danger has transformed from a pathogen into a behavior. Choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID is, right now, a modifiable health risk on par with smoking, which kills more than 400,000 people each year in the United States.

Interesting thoughts. Mazar goes on to compare demographics of the still-smoking and the unvaccinated. And, despite elite Green horseshoers and such, they match up to a fair degree. (They're not a great correlation, though, either.)

Sadly, a certain amount of Arlie Russell Hochschield type librulz still, I think, don't want to call it a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

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Meanwhile, the Omicron BA.2 subvariant could maybe be as bad as Delta? If so, either put "endemic" on hold or else see just how much politicians (including unelected ones) will play midterm politics.

The Fifth Circuit, through a per curiam, has put a twist in United Airlines' vaccine mandate re religious exemptions. See this Twitter thread for receipts on teh stupidz. Reminder: Neither the pope, nor the leader of any major or semi-major Protestant church, nor leaders of Orthodoxy, nor any Jewish or Muslim leader of note in the US, has said there's a religious problem with the COVID vaccine.

Why WON'T the CDC release to the public most the data stockpile it's hoarding, which includes information on booster shot effectiveness, COVID by demographics and more? The "not ready for prime time" claim is bullshit; GET IT ready for prime time if it really needs work. Beyond that, as noted, a lot of this parallels work the CDC has done for years with influenza tracking; there really can't be that much new, can there? What you're doing now is fueling conspiracy theories as well as hamstringing local and state governments.