Dr. Lucky Tran 
Your regular reminder that COVID is a bipartisan failure.
[empty]@luckytran I fear people may not recognize the change there
kb@allanb @luckytran what change?
@donkeyblam @luckytran exponential vs. logarithmic? Probably due to free vaccines being pushed hard in the 2nd administration, along with accumulating resistance due to infection. Plus death.
@allanb @luckytran I don't think that trump would have been any better, and probably would have been worse, but the democrat party really really really hasn't been handling the ongoing pandemic well, they would sooner have mask bans than mask mandates.
@donkeyblam @luckytran I don't think Democrats favor mask bans. I don't and we don't.
I do think the aggressive (and very socialist) approach to mass vaccination paid off in safely reducing the spread of serious illness to a manageable level, especially around the 3rd dose.
Technically, it's kind of endemic right now.
@allanb @luckytran Afaik no state has any mask mandates, and the democrat governor of New York is wanting a mask ban.
@donkeyblam @luckytran Then the Governor of NY is an idiot and at odds with most people in his party, who favor freedom to wear masks.
Mask bans originated as a Republican thing, and are an absurd revenge movement of anti-science people.
@allanb @luckytran Well here's the thing - are there any fringe examples of democrats having mask mandates still?
My point isn't that the democrat party want to all ban masks, but that they don't care to help people or lift up the human spirit, instead compromising and doing damage control constantly in what they *think* will benefit them the most even if it hurts them and brings other people down with it.
@donkeyblam @luckytran I know of no mask mandates outside of health care settings, but it's not a political thing, it's a practical/risk attenuated thing.
Both my dentist and vet require masks on their employees, so I guess you could call that a mask mandate?
Outside of HC you have to use your own judgement. Being endemic, infections will likely flare-up again in the fall/winter when people are indoors more.
@allanb @luckytran It is both a political and a technical problem - the reality of the situation is that Covid is still an active pandemic, and it is preventable, and the next parallel pandemic (likely bird flu) will also be preventable.
@donkeyblam @luckytran yeah, not sure about Covid's status now as a pandemic. A pandemic is basically an epidemic that is global, so I guess it is, at least partly.
Very clearly, it is not overwhelming the US health care system right now. This is not to say it won't in the coming months, but if I understand what virologists are saying, enough people (in developed countries) have memory T-cells now to prevent it from being the high-magnitude killer it once was.
So endemic, but pandemic.
@allanb @luckytran It is not endemic.
