But Jha’s “nothing to see here” response is, in many ways, the logical outcome of Biden’s decision to essentially throw in the towel when it comes to Covid. Thanks to the official ending of the Covid public health emergency, millions—particularly low-income people—are now on their own in terms of access to the ubiquitous-in-Jha’s-mind-only tools of Democratic lore. So why bother telling anyone to worry when they might not be able to get the help they need? Instead, better to tell them that everything’s fine, that masks don’t need to be in the picture—or even that they “don’t need to know what virus they have and don’t need to be buying tests all the time,” as Shira Doron, the chief infection-control officer for the Tufts Medicine health care network in Massachusetts, told The Washington Post.
Jha and Doron and their ilk can speak so soothingly because they are part of the class that is much more insulated from the worst effects of Covid. People like them—the ones with money and access—can afford the expensive Covid tests. They can ensure that Paxlovid reaches their door quickly. They’ll be first in line for the new boosters. Some of them even have a concierge physician on speed dial for when things get hairy. Meanwhile, they offer the rest of the country the policy equivalent of “You do you” and “Let them eat cake.”
Absolute ghouls.
In his 1992 book The Culture of Contentment, a series of essays that ring very true today, the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that “individuals and communities that are favored in their economic, social and political condition attribute social virtue and political durability to that which they themselves enjoy. That attribution, in turn, is made to apply even in the face of commanding evidence to the contrary.”
This is the exact problem we face now: a favored class that sees its own comfort as a sign that everything’s fine. As a result, the members of the Church of the Contented Establishment—from the White House to Jha and his Brown colleague Emily Oster, to David Leonhardt at The New York Times and Leana Wen at The Washington Post, to even infectious-disease doctors like Monica Gandhi at the University of California San Francisco—are pushing a narrative about Covid and our public health that, thanks to its influence within elite circles, is more subtly corrupting and poisonous than anything that outright Covid denialists like Ron DeSantis have come up with.
The Adults Are In The Room Now.
Can’t wait for the Plague 2.0 to cripple us again. Without anything even close-to-resembling a zero transmission plan, it will mutate again, and eventually, hard enough to beat our vaccines again. My bet is by 2040, the contiguous US states will have a new moniker: the Plaguelands.
I’ve read about how the 1918-20 flu pandemic was made worse via spread/mutation in WW1 battlefields. Under modern crapitalism, everyday life is the hostile battlefield generating new super-strains.
There were “Long Spanish Flu” symptoms, as well as disabilities, that I believe to be the first victims of the Nazi euthanasia programs. The phrase Life Unworthy of Life was coined in 1920.
EDIT: I forgot about the study showing Spanish Flu deaths led directly to Nazi support.
If I wrote what I want to happen to Jha the FBI would show up at my door
archived version here : https://archive.ph/OFS4R
Damn, it’s a bit late for me to land a job with healthcare for this round. Selfishly I’m annoyed that I finally started to recover something of a jam circle after 2020 kinda did its thing. But also, that long covid is no fucking joke. I got the rona almost a year ago and I think it had some lasting effect beyond the two months of recovery.
We will not wear the cuck muzzles
Your personal fantasies are showing; you’ll have to explain to people here what you’re foaming about.
I take it that you think GMOs are a plot by the lizard men to control our minds?
Your factory processed le epic bacon meat products are so much healthier for you and have no harmful additives
