by JIM GERAGHTYOn the menu today: After nearly two years of warning readers about how menacing and contagious Covid-19 is, The Atlantic magazine runs an essay declaring that Americans are testing themselves for the virus too much; the U.S. reaches more than 1 million new cases in a day, while many communities find tests in short supply; and there’s a good chance that by the time the Biden administration gets all of those tests it ordered, the Omicron wave will have come and gone.
Oh, Now The Atlantic Decrees Americans Are Paranoid about Catching Covid
If you’re worried about Covid-19, then there’s an excellent chance that at least once over the past two years, either you’ve read an article or someone has sent you an article about the pandemic from The Atlantic magazine. Day after day, week after week, that publication offers at least one article or personal essay that warns you that, as bad as things may seem, they’re actually much worse and will probably get even worse tomorrow, all with a headline perfectly calibrated to go viral, no pun intended, among the most Covid-concerned: “Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice.” “We Know Enough About Omicron to Know That We’re in Trouble.” “Covid Is Not Endemic Yet — And May Not Be for a Long Time.” “You Can Get COVID and the Flu at the Same Time.” “America Can’t Beat Omicron One Booster at a Time.”
The only thing that scares the staff of The Atlantic magazine more than Covid-19 is Kevin D. Williamson.
And now, seemingly out of nowhere, The Atlantic runs an essay by Benjamin Mazer, a physician specializing in laboratory medicine, headlined with the imperative, “Stop Wasting COVID Tests, People”:
Many of those queuing up for tests this week have little choice about the matter; negative results can be required for travel or school or access to public venues. But other types of COVID screening — before and after family gatherings, for instance, or while visiting nearby vacation destinations — are optional. It might seem reckless to suggest that people undergo less surveillance; indeed, the standard expert’s take has been the opposite, that we all should screen ourselves as often as possible in order to help reduce community spread. But even with increased testing, we stand little chance of controlling Omicron this winter at the population level. And testing is, for now, a zero-sum game. Each unnecessary swab that you consume means one fewer is available for more important purposes — such as diagnosing a symptomatic infection. . . .
Everyone should do what they can to free testing resources for those with symptoms. We should also try to allocate tests based on underlying risks. The unvaccinated are, overall, most in danger of being hospitalized and dying from the virus, so they are also, overall, the people who benefit the most from having those around them screened for infection. Social bubbles being what they are, I suspect that many people with arsenals of at-home tests spend much of their personal time around other vaccinated and relatively low-risk individuals, making the public-health benefits of their personal screening programs marginal at best.
After nearly two years of articles warning people about the severity of Covid-19, how wildly contagious the variants are, describing the ailments of those with “long Covid,” and relentlessly spotlighting every other potentially dire outcome, The Atlantic runs an article about how people are being paranoid and testing themselves for Covid too much. Gee, I wonder how people ended up in that fearful mindset.
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The white stuff on the ground outside your window probably reminded you that this is winter — which means it is flu season and all kinds of colds and bugs are going around. The symptoms of Covid-19 are infuriatingly varied, with many being indistinguishable from the flu or the usual winter colds: fever or chills, cough, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headaches, sore throat, congestion, runny nose, nausea or vomiting — in addition to the more unusual loss of taste or smell — and serious shortness of breath or the more serious difficulty breathing,
In other words, it’s early January, everybody’s just come back from visiting or hosting relatives for Christmas, and in much of the country, cold, snow, and icy winter weather are keeping everybody indoors. It’s hyperbole to say that everybody’s sick right now, but . . . everybody’s sick right now! And lots of people — often for very good reasons! — want to know whether that tickle in the back of their throat or that congestion or that cough is just another winter cold, or whether they’ve caught, and could spread, Omicron. Remember what I wrote just before the Christmas break, about the roughly 1.8 million Americans diagnosed with cancer each year. About seven million Americans are immunocompromised. Even if they’re vaccinated and boosted, the immunocompromised have good reasons to try to avoid a run-in with Covid-19. And keeping the vulnerable away from an infection would be a lot easier if we knew who had Covid and who didn’t.
Yesterday, there were more than 1 million new Covid-19 cases reported — 1,017,376 to be exact. (I am glad that much of the media world has come around to the argument that the number of cases is not the best measurement for the severity of the pandemic — an argument that some of us were making long before the Biden administration started making it. But it is particularly convenient for the Biden administration that a rapid spike in cases is no longer deemed a presidential failure, because that certainly wasn’t the media’s mindset during the first year of this pandemic, now, was it?)
The vast majority of those million new Covid-19 cases live in a household, and now everyone in that household wants to know if they have Covid-19 or not. Those who were in close contact in the past day or so will want to know if they have Covid-19 or not. Is it safe to go to work? Is it safe to send the kids to school? (Assuming there is school.) How many days should everyone quarantine? Is one negative test a sign that the virus has passed through a person’s system?
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The Covid-as-pandemic farce is unraveling.
Our unelected government and the deep state are responsible for killing a few hundred thousand people by suppressing treatments for Covid-19, all while pushing a vaccine that isn’t approved, isn’t safe enough, and does not warrant the feverish, rabidly fascistic push brought about by simple Soviet-style lies and disinformation.
Those releasing Covid, both China and any foreign actors involved, must be brought to justice and held accountable for millions of deaths.
Biden, Democrats, the deep state, and their globalist donors must face genocide charges for killing Americans.
Trump was right, and was combatting the decease…not understanding the disease WAS the combat.
This is a bio-attack on the world by the new world order.
Rewind. Masks PPE Trump doesnt have masks, hey 3M whats the issue with N95s ,working on it, ok fixed.
Venilators ventilators, those making them we need more money, Trump no you dont and I have the power to make you make them at price agreed, working on it, ok fixed
Testing testing, ok fixed.
Bed space omg bed space Trump, working on it, ok fixed are you ever going to use it?
Biden tests we are running out of tests, Biden… Biden You bastids are using to many tests knock it off.
The only way Democrats can avoid failure is to redefine what failure is.
The pandemic is over and has been over for a considerable amount of time. Idiot biden and fauci have kept it on life support when it was not justified to do so.
“After nearly two years of warning readers about how menacing and contagious Covid-19 is, The Atlantic magazine runs an essay declaring that Americans are testing themselves for the virus too much” You think AJ, who so often invokes the lie that Trump tried to stop tests, will weigh in on this? Nah, I doubt it; he’ll have to avoid it like avoiding answering questions. Makes him look stupid… or rather, reemphasizes it.
Funny, when the most incompetent regime in US history just forgot to order tests, the Ministry of Propaganda comes to the rescue. Now, tests aren’t important and worrying about COVID19 is foolish.
This is a totalitarian regime by any possible definition.
If you go out and buy covid home tests you can test yourself and keep off the gov’t books.
If you want a “free” test your result get sent to the local hospital, your doctor, the federal and state government.
No wonder the feds want you to quit taking so many tests (after mandating that all unvaxxed workers be tested weekly or daily) as they are being outed as drumming up panic and fear out of whole cloth.
IF all those people are testing positive but only a few are sick, it pops their fear-balloon.