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canyonwalkerRecently someone close to me had Covid-19 and just ended quarantine. (Details are in this blog earlier this evening, which is locked to friends.) They ended quarantine despite still testing positive for Covid-19. Ridiculously irresponsible? No, they followed the rules! The latest CDC guidance states:
When they told me about that guidance I didn't believe it. I assumed they made a mistake reading it. Certainly the CDC would not advise leaving quarantine until a negative result is obtained. I mean, that used to be the rule.... But no, they read it correctly. They read the bullshit, weaksauce guidance correctly. It's like we, as a country, have so much given up the will to fight Coronavirus that even the government, the Democratic run administration, has watered down its guidance to the gentlest possible rules in hopes that enough Americans will listen to them at all instead of ignoring them entirely.
BTW, this isn't just my sense of scientific and policy indignation speaking. By chance today I spotted an article in The Atlantic, America is in the "Figure it our yourself' era of the pandemic (The Atlantic, 27 Jun 2022). The second paragraph in the article reads like a bingo card of all the governmental failures I've written about in past months and then some:
I... I can't even. I can't figure out why or even how I should care when our elected leaders on both sides have thrown in the collective towel.
Welcome to Coronavirus in 2022: Figure it out yourself. Or don't. The government's already given up.
Ending isolation if you had symptoms
End isolation after 5 full days if you are fever-free for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medication) and your symptoms are improving.
When they told me about that guidance I didn't believe it. I assumed they made a mistake reading it. Certainly the CDC would not advise leaving quarantine until a negative result is obtained. I mean, that used to be the rule.... But no, they read it correctly. They read the bullshit, weaksauce guidance correctly. It's like we, as a country, have so much given up the will to fight Coronavirus that even the government, the Democratic run administration, has watered down its guidance to the gentlest possible rules in hopes that enough Americans will listen to them at all instead of ignoring them entirely.
BTW, this isn't just my sense of scientific and policy indignation speaking. By chance today I spotted an article in The Atlantic, America is in the "Figure it our yourself' era of the pandemic (The Atlantic, 27 Jun 2022). The second paragraph in the article reads like a bingo card of all the governmental failures I've written about in past months and then some:
Across the country, almost all government efforts to curtail the coronavirus have evaporated. Mask mandates have been lifted on public transit. Conservative lawmakers have hamstrung what public-health departments can do in emergencies. COVID funding remains stalled in Congress, jeopardizing supplies of tests, treatments, and vaccines. The White House and the CDC have framed COVID as a problem for individuals to act upon—but action is hard when cases and hospitalizations are underestimated, many testing sites have closed, and rose-tinted CDC guidelines downplay the coronavirus’s unchecked spread. Many policy makers have moved on: “We’re heading into the midterms, and I think there’s a real desire to show confidence that they’ve solved this,” Céline Gounder, an infectious-disease specialist and the editor at large for public health at Kaiser Health News, told me.
I... I can't even. I can't figure out why or even how I should care when our elected leaders on both sides have thrown in the collective towel.
Welcome to Coronavirus in 2022: Figure it out yourself. Or don't. The government's already given up.
