12 Comments
User's avatar
UM Ross's avatar

The only acceptable response to anyone who says, "New normal":

https://i.imgur.com/hyPcbVu.png

Expand full comment
SimulationCommander's avatar

Shoot, I've been using this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4qPOndBCFU

Expand full comment
Julia Lerner's avatar

So they want to make every winter an emergency now instead of just increasing hospital capacity to deal with any bad flu season? This is insane and they will destroy us all unless we stop them.

Expand full comment
Guttermouth's avatar

>> The authors write that policymakers should “retire previous public health categorizations” and “focus on a new category: the aggregate risk of all respiratory infections.” The nation, they said, needs to figure out how much hospitalization and death will overload health care systems, and then use that metric to trigger emergency measures.

Holy shit, this terrifies me. This is permanent lockdown; this is the pathologization of absolutely normal biological reality; this is the verbal gymnastics that lead directly to literal totalitarianism.

This is TERRIBLE, frightening news. This policy framework is a permanent state of emergency enforced through biofascism.

Expand full comment
Diana's avatar

I assume the oral treatments for covid they refer to are NOT the oral treatments I used for covid!

How many Americans have vaccinated their schoolchildren? It's considerably fewer than the (20%ish) vaccinated 5-11, since we're looking at a number of sibling groups. (For instance, I know families of 2-4 kids who were all vaccinated; if all kids who were vaccinated have one vaccinated sibling, only about 10% of U.S. families have vaxxed their kids.) My gut feeling is that mandating the covid vaccine products for schoolchildren will be even less popular than Joe Biden. So I can't decide whether I want these people to shut up because what they're saying is so stupid or keep talking because what they're saying is so stupid.

Expand full comment
Martha's avatar

"Zeke Emanuel promotes the "Complete Lives System" as a way to decide who gets treatment and who is denied", which is a slick way of denying medical treatment based on age. Too old? Too bad. I don't want Emanuel involved in national health policy at all!

Quote from: http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2009/08/ezekiel-emanuel-complete-lives-system.html

Expand full comment
SimulationCommander's avatar

Totally not death panels.

Expand full comment
The Ungovernable's avatar

Blah Blah Blah....just shitcan the whole lot of 'em! Turns out if you threaten someone's job, it gets their attention!

Expand full comment
T Coddington's avatar

In a vacuum, I'd love to applaud Lori Lightfoot on this, but here's the problem.... Chicago & all of Cook County will now require all 5 year olds and above to show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, health clubs, public libraries (!). Lightfoot is firmly behind these policies. If those policies are warranted, who could blame the teachers for thinking the schools would be unsafe? Of course, I reject all of this nonsense, but seems to me Lori can't have it both ways.

Expand full comment
SimulationCommander's avatar

Yep! Tomorrow's update will be about Chicago and their hospitalization rate.

Spoiler alert: "Covid hospitalizations" have doubled while total occupancy has gone down.

Expand full comment
Arne's avatar

Sharp increases in Covid hospitalizations is what you expect when there are sharp increases in positive tests. If 10% of Chicago is testing positive, "Covid patients" will account for at least 10% of hospital patients.

Expand full comment
SimulationCommander's avatar

Exactly the case, and the fact that the leaders are just now coming around to this realization (and only for political reasons) is terrifying. Here in WA our total hospital usage stayed flat all year, regardless of the number of covid patients in the system.

Expand full comment