[conspire] COVID at the end of 2021

[Akkana Peck]

Rick Moen writes (lots of great info and links including):
> Also, many lab
> people who do testing and data-reporting have been gone for the
> holidays, so we're suffering data blindness.
> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/were-about-to-lose-track-of-the-pandemic/621097/)

Plus, a lot of the testing now is by home rapid test that doesn't
get reported anywhere. So even after the holidays when the test
people go back to work, the reported case numbers will probably
continue to far underestimate the true numbers.

> Yeah, that.  That's _now occurring_.  Be grateful you're in the Bay Area
> (well, most Conspire members are), as it's not _yet_ bad here,

Here in my little NM small town, which mostly has been very sensible
and has a high vaccination rate and a fairly low case rate, the
County Council just announced they're going back to in-person meetings
starting next week. Can you imagine choosing *now* as the time
to resume in-person meetings? Do none of them read the news, ever?

At least the meetings will be hybrid, so people who disagree with the
in-person decision can still participate.

> In short:  The USA has at no point done the parts that actually work,
> such as real contact-tracing and large-scale testing.  And, we may
> remain screwed unless/until that happens.

I just finished reading _The_Premonition_ by Michael Lewis, about a
group of public health officials trying to fight the COVID pandemic,
and hitting walls at every turn. It's fabulous, best book I've read
all year (well, at least the best nonfiction book; Andy Weir's
latest, _Project_Hail_Mary_, was a lot of fun on the fiction side.)

One point it makes is:

> Schools:  They're dead-set on reopening after New Years Day.  Here's why
> that's going to be a debacle:
> https://www.tvo.org/article/you-cant-open-in-january-an-infection-control-epidemiologist-on-omicron-in-schools
> 
> I expect the USA will be in for a new round of wildfire infections after
> the schools re-open.

At one point in the _The_Premonition_, before COVID, they're running
simulations, changing things here and there, nothing makes a huge
difference but every little bit helps ... and then they try closing
schools:

    Each of the crude strategies had some slight effect, but none by
    itself made much of a dent, and certainly none had the ability
    to halt the pandemic by driving the disease’s reproductive rate
    below 1. One intervention was not like the others, however: when
    you closed schools and put social distance between kids, the
    flu-like disease fell off a cliff.

One of the main characters spends a day hanging out in a school
and finds out why -- kids spend most of the day packed together much
closer than adults would tolerate. But of course, closing schools
isn't an easy decision, and especially not for a politician.

        ...Akkana