The Covid-19 pandemic is over, right? We're all supposed to be "getting back to normal," and anyone who doesn't go along with the party line on this is a "doomer" who needs to stop "living in fear." It seems the elites who gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the 2023 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) missed the memo that Covid-19 is in the rearview mirror.
A hullabaloo broke out on "doomer" Twitter when information about Covid-19 mitigation at the WEF Annual Meeting spread. The fuss seems to have begun when journaliast Andrew Lawton (who is covering the conference) tweeted the PCR testing requirements to enter the conference venues. According to Lawton, “Everyone at the World Economic Forum annual meeting — including journalists and participants — has to take a PCR test upon arrival. If you don’t take a test, the chip in your ID badge is deactivated. If you test positive for Covid the badge is also deactivated.” The public health arm of the Twitter Detective Agency got on the case, and soon images from the conference emerged, showing HEPA filters (which clean the air of contaminants, including viruses) in rooms with unmasked participants. Some people were pictured wearing heavy coats inside, perhaps a sign that windows are being left open to ventilate the spaces. Masks are also readily available at the conference.
What is happening in Davos demonstrates that "doomerism" is par for the course for the über-wealthy and the people in their sphere. They're not taking the risk of being infected and are using relatively cheap technology to avoid the possibility. Ongoing, on-demand rapid PCR testing may be too expensive over time for many organizations, but are masks? HEPA filters aren't exorbitantly priced, and there are cheaper alternatives, like Corsi Rosenthal boxes that a competent DIYer can assemble. It costs nothing to open a window.
The pandemic is NOT over! The super rich acknowledge this and use their wealth to create safe zones for themselves. The peasants? Let them eat plague. To say this is class warfare isn't hyperbolic. It's one thing to hoard wealth, but it is particularly despicable to hoard public health measures, while a global disinformation campaign spreads lies to everyone else about their safety. Governments are to blame here. Our leaders have abandoned us.
Why were we told the pandemic is over?
If "individual risk assessment" is the (incredibly stupid and destined to fail) plan, why hasn't the data on Long Covid and other post-infection health issues been shared widely with the public?
Why on earth were mask mandates dropped?
Why won't global and national public health organizations admit that the virus is airborne?
Why weren't we inundated with instructions to open a damn window and put a fan on to ventilate our rooms?
Why weren't we unrelentingly educated about HEPA filters and other air filtration systems?
Has public health ever failed this badly in the modern era?
In late 2020, the British Ministry of Defence received mobile irraditon units to eradicate the virus from the air in its buildings. I suspect similar interventions have taken place in buildings that house the powerful all over the world. The virus can't evolve past high-quality filters and UV radiation the way it has mutated to escape immunity. Don’t let anyone lie to you and tell you our leaders were ignorant about this. The numbers were crunched and our disposability was deemed acceptable.
In related news, an American insurance executive described a 40% increase in the death rate of working age Americans. According to the industry's data, a 10% increase would be a 200-year event. Insurance companies have been paying out on many more death and disability policies than they expected to. In response, insurers have begun raising premiums in areas with low vaccination rates. What will happen to the cost of premiums when almost everyone has a Covid-related pre-existing condition? As usual, the costs of the malfeasance of the powerful are being expertly shifted to the people who can ill afford them.
The chickens of this massive public health failure will be coming home to roost for decades. So much has to change to wrestle this mess into submission. As individuals, we can try to do our best not to get (re)infected. We can mask and use other mitigation measures (physical distancing, air filtration, ventilation, etc.) to hopefully eliminate or significantly lower the inhalation dose of the virus. If we can afford it, we can upgrade from surgical masks to KN95s or spring for N95s or another model that includes a respirator.
Even if government policies and recommendations turn on a dime to acknowledge the full reality of the pandemic, the most difficult part of this battle will be dealing with the results of the disinformation campaigns that will still be running. Refusal to acknowledge Long Covid left a vacuum to explain the excess deaths and illnesses we're seeing. Anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists have rushed to fill that gap. It is notoriously difficult to dissuade people from these beliefs once they latch on to them. We have a long road ahead of us. Perhaps the exposure of the hypocrisy in Davos is the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.