Since, per Yeats, we seem to be slouching toward the holidays, I thought we’d attack the COVID issue one more time before this writer takes his traditional Christmas through New Year’s Day column break.
Despite the mounting evidence against our medical “experts’” consistently baseless COVID conclusions, they persist in their feverish attempts to cry “wolf” and bring us right back to those pointless masked lockdown days. Thankfully, without the Grand Cheeto to serve as a foil, their pleas are falling on politically expedient deaf ears.
But because those socio-political sands can shift so swiftly in these lightspeed digital days, per the great Albert Camus, it pays to be vigilant because we know “the plague never disappears for good.” And by “plague” we mean two things – the disease itself as well as “cure” that’s been so much worse.
With that in mind, let’s get to the task at hand.
No one has the nerve to say, “Put the fork down!”
In what can only be described as a case of truly bad karma, not only does my teacher wife have to put up with me, but last week she came down with her second bout of COVID. Middle school children are nothing if not pint-sized Petrie dishes.
But because she’s been boostered up the ying yang, she gets enough sleep, she avoids all the dietary pitfalls, her weight is exactly where it should be, and she’s the epitome of a moderate drinker, she was ready to get back to the classroom in two short days. It was the school that insisted she stay home for a week.
Then there’s her 64-year-old irascible not-nearly-a-scion-of-virtue husband.
I could stand to lose ten pounds, I drink a little more than I should, and I’m not exactly renowned for my laissez-faire attitude towards the lesser vagaries of this existence. But the dogs get a daily mile-plus walk regardless of the weather, I do the Rouvy road bike thing at least three times weekly, I get enough sleep, and I prepare six reasonably healthy dinners each week.
But even though I’ve opted out of the booster process after the first one because that rapidly expiring protection makes it a pointless proposition, and I kissed my wife goodnight when she was at her contagious best, I did not contract the disease.
Again, my point isn’t to hold out my wife, myself, or anyone else out as some sort of Platonic medical ideal. No! My point is to point out that the best defense against the “triple-demic,” or any of the diseases that always make winter far more fascinating, is to forge the kind of robust immune system that’s not unlike Gandalf facing down the balrog in the bowels or Moria. Waiting for an effective RSV vaccine or hoping this year’s influenza inoculation team got it right is not really the best health care strategy.
But despite the straightforward sixth-grade science involved in my immunological conclusions, aside from a smattering of individual doctors, I haven’t heard a single medical “expert” say any of the following in regard to staving off this wither’s triple threat:
- Avoid processed and fast foods
- Stay hydrated (not with soft drinks)
- Obesity is the leading factor in contracting a severe case of flu/RSV/COVID
- Take the dog for a walk once a day
- Get at least eight hours of sleep
That contradictorily narcissistic Dr. Fauci has been particularly silent on the subject.
Regardless of that strange silence, the general bottom line here is quite simple. If you take care of your body, it will take care of you!
But the lupine caterwauling continues!
If our medical “experts” and professionals aren’t going to make it better, then didn’t they take an oath that they wouldn’t make it worse? All Hippocratic promises aside, there’s at least two Tribune op-eds a week authored by medical “experts” who claim the only way out of this tripledemic is by resorting to the same mask wearing insanity that got us here in the first place.
I’m really starting to think that some of those folks took a “hypocritical” oath.
To be fair, these medical wolf criers aren’t calling for remote learning or shutdown orders, but they are “encouraging” a return to indoor mask wearing, which, at best, only serves to forestall the inevitable, or at worst, instigates the most severe RSV and flu seasons in over a decade.
Even I used to believe that masks should be the sole prerogative of the wearer, but recent evidence makes it abundantly clear that, unless you’re elderly or have specific risk factors, masks suppress and compromise your immune system making you even more susceptible to next year’s batch of nastier pathogens.
It’s that whole whack-a-mole dynamic.
If, after all of this, you still don’t believe these persistently perilous “expert” proclamations are all about power and not about public safety, then I wouldn’t be able to convince you the sky is blue on my best day.
How does that old joke go? What’s the difference between God and an MD? God doesn’t think she’s a doctor. And this absurd god complex relentlessly rages on regardless of the abrupt new Chinese reality.
Under their former “Zero COVID” policy, that country applied the most draconian mitigations on the planet, but it failed miserably. When their populace literally revolted after three years of torture, the autocrats finally relented and the coronavirus is running through that country like sliders through a goose. Beijing is a ghost town, many cities are returning to remote learning, panic buying has left grocery store shelves barren, and restaurants are empty. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Meanwhile, the U.S. is well on the road to pandemic recovery because, whether by intention or a happy political accident, we finally realized the only way out of any pandemic is herd immunity. Vaccines? While they certainly serve a reducing the severity purpose for folks like teachers and nurses consistently exposed to COVID-19, unless you plan on getting a shot every six months for the rest of your life, even that possibility has its limits.
But the fact that the political will to bring back mandatory masking doesn’t exist right now has no bearing on what might happen in February. So, it behooves us to remain vigilant for the slightest perceived shift in those fickle political winds.
And that’s exactly what this journalist intends to do.
The saddest part of the pandemic is I’ve lost nearly all of the respect I once had for teachers, school boards, and medical professionals.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
On that note, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Furious Festivus, or whatever event you choose to celebrate, as well as a very happy and safe New Year. My resolution is to continue the conversation which we’ll do on January 3, 2023.
Meanwhile, in the words of the inimitable Sherman Potter, “Here’s to the New Year. May she be a damn sight better than the old one.”
