Paul Campos has a rundown on the current state of endemic Covid. Biden took some shit for saying that the pandemic is over, but...the pandemic IS over. We are now in endemic Covid. It's everywhere and it's still pretty lethal...if you're unvaccinated.
I've had my third booster - the Omicron, bivalent booster - a few weeks ago. Kind of like how I'm getting my annual flu shot in a week or two. But basically, if you're over 65 and haven't been vaccinated at all, well, I don't know what to say. Your risk of dying of Covid is as great as ALL forms of mortality for those between ages 55-64 combined. Covid is circulating around and it could very well kill you. If you're under 65 and double (or triple) boosted you're not going to die of Covid, except in very rare circumstances.
Even though my own experience with Covid was fraught, I really don't focus much on it anymore. I do wonder, though, with about 100,000 excess deaths a year mostly concentrated in the elderly, what impact this will have on American society. I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that these deaths are concentrated among those over 65 and those who lean Right or Far Right. Will that have an impact on electoral politics? The long term prospects for Social Security and Medicare?
It feels like a question no one really wants to answer: What are the practical implications of having 100,000-150,000 additional dead Americans every year?
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