How the press manufactured consent for never-ending COVID reinfections
January 4, 2024 4:37 PM Subscribe
Julia Doubleday, The Gauntlet: How the press manufactured consent for never-ending COVID reinfections — Continual reinfection was not the "new normal" Biden advertised. How did we get here?
My beliefs throughout the pandemic have never changed: that vulnerable people deserve access to society, that mitigation must be prioritized, that great progress is possible with great effort, that community care is most critical in times of state abandonment. It’s hard to know where to go from here, at the nadir of a COVID response that vilifies and mocks any gesture toward prevention and care. But for those of us who are still here, education must start from a place of unpacking several years-worth of propaganda, while learning from disability justice activists who have reckoned with their social marginalization for decades.
Despite the multitude of falsehoods that continue to be poured over the heads of our comrades by outlets that can’t or won’t reckon with Biden’s failure, the truth has the advantage of being obvious, and patient. So we’ll continue to repeat it, until the people are ready to hear it: COVID is not mild. COVID is not harmless. COVID is not inevitable. COVID is not over. Stay safe out there.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Posters request -- travelingthyme
Why does this article begin with laying the fault of this at Biden's feet, and then repeating that charge repeatedly, when the real culprit was bad messaging early and repeatedly in the Trump administration about the pandemic for nearly a year before Biden even came into power?
That early messaging caused all the true damage. If Trump had stood up as a bastion of Best Practices And Good Empathy Toward Others for the 11 months he was in charge of this, the outcomes of not just our country but probably the entire world would have been different. Because so much of the rest of the world's bad behavior about masking and even later vaccines was based on what Trump was modeling.
This entire article is in bad faith from its first paragraph to its last. I don't want to read it again to provide more in-depth analysis but if the conversation here warrants it I will take the fucking thing down paragraph by paragraph.
I'm shaking, I'm so angry having read this.
Thanks for posting.
posted by hippybear at 4:57 PM on January 4 [19 favorites]
That early messaging caused all the true damage. If Trump had stood up as a bastion of Best Practices And Good Empathy Toward Others for the 11 months he was in charge of this, the outcomes of not just our country but probably the entire world would have been different. Because so much of the rest of the world's bad behavior about masking and even later vaccines was based on what Trump was modeling.
This entire article is in bad faith from its first paragraph to its last. I don't want to read it again to provide more in-depth analysis but if the conversation here warrants it I will take the fucking thing down paragraph by paragraph.
I'm shaking, I'm so angry having read this.
Thanks for posting.
posted by hippybear at 4:57 PM on January 4 [19 favorites]
Parts of this come off a little bit like the COVID denial conspiracists going on about how “they” lied about vaccines. Fact is, governments bungled a variety of things, and the result is we’re stuck with a new circulating respiratory virus, which is certainly not harmless, in fact sort of incalculably costly in the long term, but which is exactly the kind of long-term cost our societies are very bad at reckoning with. But it’s been a long time since it mattered whether anybody “consented” to it or not.
posted by atoxyl at 5:19 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 5:19 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
“…hopium-laced half-truths” is a brilliant expression that I’ve never heard before.
Hippybear, I think you’re right about the Trump administration's response being half-baked at best and flat out deliberately damaging in reality. Further, Trump himself said some absolutely ridiculous things that had consequence - wanna drink some bleach for the kung flu?
Covid was and continues to be incredibly harmful and in my opinion is going to continue to cause horrible damage for many years to come in the form of illness, death and in the societal repercussions that seem to be swept under the rug. Is Trump to blame? He is certainly a major factor but aren’t all governments following the political rulebook of minimizing the seriousness of COVID? Because politics is just as much about power and money as it is about taking care of people.
Covid and the response to Covid scares the shit out of me, to be honest and it’s all so complex that I fear it’s always going to be the way. I hope I’m wrong.
posted by ashbury at 5:20 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Hippybear, I think you’re right about the Trump administration's response being half-baked at best and flat out deliberately damaging in reality. Further, Trump himself said some absolutely ridiculous things that had consequence - wanna drink some bleach for the kung flu?
Covid was and continues to be incredibly harmful and in my opinion is going to continue to cause horrible damage for many years to come in the form of illness, death and in the societal repercussions that seem to be swept under the rug. Is Trump to blame? He is certainly a major factor but aren’t all governments following the political rulebook of minimizing the seriousness of COVID? Because politics is just as much about power and money as it is about taking care of people.
Covid and the response to Covid scares the shit out of me, to be honest and it’s all so complex that I fear it’s always going to be the way. I hope I’m wrong.
posted by ashbury at 5:20 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
This entire article is in bad faith from its first paragraph to its last.
That's pretty close to my reaction, too. There are some good moments in there, but overall this is a terrible piece and it's unfortunate it is getting boosted with the link here.
As a measure of how concerned the public is, as of late December, only around 19% of people in the US bothered to get the most recent covid vaccine. Way more got the flu shot, so it isn't simple anti-vaccine attitudes, either.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:25 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
That's pretty close to my reaction, too. There are some good moments in there, but overall this is a terrible piece and it's unfortunate it is getting boosted with the link here.
As a measure of how concerned the public is, as of late December, only around 19% of people in the US bothered to get the most recent covid vaccine. Way more got the flu shot, so it isn't simple anti-vaccine attitudes, either.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:25 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
So, I'm pro-vax and pro-mask, and I would never criticize anyone for endorsing getting the most recent COVID vaccine updates or for masking in any setting and I do feel like basic cautionary guidance has fallen by the wayside. That said, I really dislike a certain genre of extremist COVID doomerism that I keep seeing, and which this article certainly follows.
This article projects new US COVID cases of 964,184 new cases per day. That's an insane number. Multiplied by 365 days, that's literally more than the entirety of the US population being infected with COVID each year.
That's... not correct. COVID is certainly a real threat, and we should still protect ourselves by getting the latest shot and wearing masks, and COVID will likely continue to be a threat even with best efforts, but those numbers are just literally wrong. Wildly, bizarrely wrong.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 5:26 PM on January 4 [8 favorites]
This article projects new US COVID cases of 964,184 new cases per day. That's an insane number. Multiplied by 365 days, that's literally more than the entirety of the US population being infected with COVID each year.
That's... not correct. COVID is certainly a real threat, and we should still protect ourselves by getting the latest shot and wearing masks, and COVID will likely continue to be a threat even with best efforts, but those numbers are just literally wrong. Wildly, bizarrely wrong.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 5:26 PM on January 4 [8 favorites]
I'm unclear why this person is credible on the topic she's writing about, which is vexing because it's a very high-stakes topic.
posted by german_bight at 5:30 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
posted by german_bight at 5:30 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Wasn't this always the end-game? Covid becomes endemic as the population develops resistance to it (with the initial kick-start from the vaccines helping us catch up), and it becomes just like any other cold or flu. We were never going to have lockdowns forever.
posted by xdvesper at 5:32 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
posted by xdvesper at 5:32 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
hippybear: I had the same reaction, especially given the link to national politics and business. The retail, travel, and hospitality industries were clamoring for a return to 2019, and to the extent that they weren’t run by Republican loyalists in the first place they certainly weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to get what they wanted without having to take the heat for leading the public push against safety measures – we’re just big fans of freedom here at the Appleback Steak Factory! – and everyone else was generally exhausted.
The CDC’s reputation alone will take a decade to rebuild, and a lot of public health agencies were hit worse. That more than anything else is going to cost us next time because they were for inexplicable reasons so slow to adjust their messaging, even when it wasn’t really political - the year and change refusal to accept the evidence that COVID was airborne didn’t benefit anyone except the hand sanitizer manufacturers – and the masking debacle seems likely to be featured in textbooks as a “how not to” cautionary tale.
The one big area I’d criticize Biden on was around vaccines and spread reduction. Delta/Omicron did change the game but the first vaccines did not have evidence supporting some of the strong claims they made about preventing spread, but that really supported the “it’s over” messaging and ensured that critics had a really big error to point to for years to come. We’re likely to see true sterilizing vaccines soon, and we’re going to have a ton of knobs saying “that’s what you said the first time” for many years to come.
posted by adamsc at 5:33 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
The CDC’s reputation alone will take a decade to rebuild, and a lot of public health agencies were hit worse. That more than anything else is going to cost us next time because they were for inexplicable reasons so slow to adjust their messaging, even when it wasn’t really political - the year and change refusal to accept the evidence that COVID was airborne didn’t benefit anyone except the hand sanitizer manufacturers – and the masking debacle seems likely to be featured in textbooks as a “how not to” cautionary tale.
The one big area I’d criticize Biden on was around vaccines and spread reduction. Delta/Omicron did change the game but the first vaccines did not have evidence supporting some of the strong claims they made about preventing spread, but that really supported the “it’s over” messaging and ensured that critics had a really big error to point to for years to come. We’re likely to see true sterilizing vaccines soon, and we’re going to have a ton of knobs saying “that’s what you said the first time” for many years to come.
posted by adamsc at 5:33 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
I toured a fairly upscale assisted living community recently. I wore a mask, and I saw two office workers, four maintenance workers, two health aides, the beautician, and eight residents doing the same. On the fourth floor, on the way to the sun-drenched arts & craft room, my group passed a door marked "Isolation Room." When I asked about it, the guide/sales rep said, "Oh, that. Well, we've got a couple cases of Covid at the moment..."
The year-end special rates will carry into 2024, for an incredible savings opportunity, and there's no waiting list.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:34 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
The year-end special rates will carry into 2024, for an incredible savings opportunity, and there's no waiting list.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:34 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
I thought that the author made some valid and good points but the tone of the article was off-putting to such a degree that any validity she may have had disappeared, at least to me but I'm sure that a ton of people are going to jump on this particular bandwagon, ride it into town and make a huge fuss. It never seems to end.
posted by ashbury at 5:38 PM on January 4
posted by ashbury at 5:38 PM on January 4
Why does this article begin with laying the fault of this at Biden's feet
Because at this point we can't get the former guy to fix it, he's no longer around and honestly he do more harm anyway. Biden had a small window to get things.....pointed in the right direction and then....just kinda went with the wrong messaging and then went full into Return To Office. In my mind he's doing to bare minimum, and if somehow Trump or another GOPer wins the Presidency, we'll lose even that small bit.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:42 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Because at this point we can't get the former guy to fix it, he's no longer around and honestly he do more harm anyway. Biden had a small window to get things.....pointed in the right direction and then....just kinda went with the wrong messaging and then went full into Return To Office. In my mind he's doing to bare minimum, and if somehow Trump or another GOPer wins the Presidency, we'll lose even that small bit.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:42 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
The moment that I pinpointed as our national COVID response shifting from "we should all do our part" to "good luck, suckers" was in May 2021. That was when the CDC put out new guidance that fully vaccinated individuals no longer should feel required to wear masks in public places or practice social distancing.
It was intended as a carrot-on-the-end-of-a-stick to encourage mass vaccination. Instead, it was the green light for big businesses practicing voluntary mask mandates to drop those policies. It shifted "look at that weirdo" from those without masks in public to those still wearing them, on a national level. While the guidance stated that unvaccinated people should continue to wear masks, those were the people most likely to never, ever, ever wear one except at gunpoint in the first place, and who now had carte blanche to reenter public places barefaced without being questioned. Nobody disdainful of masks got that far in the guidance; they saw the "no more masks" part, skipped over "if you are vaccinated" and went, hey, it's pizza party time!
It was the foot being taken off of the prevention gas pedal, and many jumped at the opportunity to make sure that it would never be depressed again.
The article described those in charge saying "we were wrong, but we're refining our theories and this is what we recommend now" as being political suicide. And there is truth to that. But painting on a brave face instead did far more to encourage the Ivermectin-and-FREEDOM crowd than encouraging continued vigilance could have.
posted by delfin at 5:42 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
It was intended as a carrot-on-the-end-of-a-stick to encourage mass vaccination. Instead, it was the green light for big businesses practicing voluntary mask mandates to drop those policies. It shifted "look at that weirdo" from those without masks in public to those still wearing them, on a national level. While the guidance stated that unvaccinated people should continue to wear masks, those were the people most likely to never, ever, ever wear one except at gunpoint in the first place, and who now had carte blanche to reenter public places barefaced without being questioned. Nobody disdainful of masks got that far in the guidance; they saw the "no more masks" part, skipped over "if you are vaccinated" and went, hey, it's pizza party time!
It was the foot being taken off of the prevention gas pedal, and many jumped at the opportunity to make sure that it would never be depressed again.
The article described those in charge saying "we were wrong, but we're refining our theories and this is what we recommend now" as being political suicide. And there is truth to that. But painting on a brave face instead did far more to encourage the Ivermectin-and-FREEDOM crowd than encouraging continued vigilance could have.
posted by delfin at 5:42 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
This article projects new US COVID cases of 964,184 new cases per day. That's an insane number. Multiplied by 365 days, that's literally more than the entirety of the US population being infected with COVID each year.
How do you know this is incorrect? Isn't it just that we're at about the peak of a wave, like with the huge wave of Omicron? The virologists and fairly reputable commenters on the UK and Europe have said things like "right now one person in twenty has covid", although I haven't seen anything quite like that for the US.
posted by Frowner at 5:55 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
How do you know this is incorrect? Isn't it just that we're at about the peak of a wave, like with the huge wave of Omicron? The virologists and fairly reputable commenters on the UK and Europe have said things like "right now one person in twenty has covid", although I haven't seen anything quite like that for the US.
posted by Frowner at 5:55 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
I want to know what the scientific credentials of the author are, because I read this, found it upsetting (I'm an autoimmune patient, I am not currently immunosuppressed because I'm off my meds in preparation for surgery to remove cancer, so maybe about to be really immunosuppressed), and all I can find about the author is that she's a political consultant who worked for Beto and Bernie and now works on COVID policy.
I don't think concerns about public health being subordinated to economic concerns are wrong, exactly, but I want to hear the public health side from people who know the HEALTH side of public health policy and not just the POLICY side.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:55 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
I don't think concerns about public health being subordinated to economic concerns are wrong, exactly, but I want to hear the public health side from people who know the HEALTH side of public health policy and not just the POLICY side.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:55 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Or to put it another way -- we expected disaster under Trumpian leadership and we got it, with what progress and successes we enjoyed against COVID being more in spite of Trump and his mob than encouraged by them.
We expected better from Team Biden, and we should have; the grown-ups were back in the big chairs again. And on a multitude of issues, Team Biden has delivered substantial improvements over Trumpvania. That much is not in question. Putting The Other Guy back in is so far beyond not being an option that I would walk through napalm to help ensure that it does not happen.
But if I consider where I am right now and ask myself, in a COVID-specific context, am I better off now than I was this time in 2021? And I look around me at $10 COVID tests even at pharmacies, at vaccines with pitiful uptake rates, with state governments having done everything humanly possible to ensure that if we ever DO need another lockdown, it will not happen, with friends and family having had it several times each and shrugging that off, with my wife and I often being the only N95-ing people in a given public place, and... well... I don't always want to say yes.
And that worries me.
posted by delfin at 5:56 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
We expected better from Team Biden, and we should have; the grown-ups were back in the big chairs again. And on a multitude of issues, Team Biden has delivered substantial improvements over Trumpvania. That much is not in question. Putting The Other Guy back in is so far beyond not being an option that I would walk through napalm to help ensure that it does not happen.
But if I consider where I am right now and ask myself, in a COVID-specific context, am I better off now than I was this time in 2021? And I look around me at $10 COVID tests even at pharmacies, at vaccines with pitiful uptake rates, with state governments having done everything humanly possible to ensure that if we ever DO need another lockdown, it will not happen, with friends and family having had it several times each and shrugging that off, with my wife and I often being the only N95-ing people in a given public place, and... well... I don't always want to say yes.
And that worries me.
posted by delfin at 5:56 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
I'm unclear why this person is credible on the topic she's writing about, which is vexing because it's a very high-stakes topic.
I'm with you here.
Searching her name provides no links that show any actual basis for saying she's an expert on this, and this MetaFilter post comes in in the top 20 of the links attached to her name.
Why exactly are we regarding her as credible?
Even her bio on the website where this article is posted offers ZERO support for why we should listen to her on these matters. She's listed as having worked for Beto and Bernie campaigns as her c.v. there.
posted by hippybear at 5:58 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
I'm with you here.
Searching her name provides no links that show any actual basis for saying she's an expert on this, and this MetaFilter post comes in in the top 20 of the links attached to her name.
Why exactly are we regarding her as credible?
Even her bio on the website where this article is posted offers ZERO support for why we should listen to her on these matters. She's listed as having worked for Beto and Bernie campaigns as her c.v. there.
posted by hippybear at 5:58 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Here's her bio from The Gauntlet:
International and domestic politics; Deputy Director, Committee LLC; co-host @committeepro; Julie Oliver for Congress 2020, Beto for Senate 2018, Bernie 2016
Nothing here means she knows what she's writing about in this article.
posted by hippybear at 6:00 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
International and domestic politics; Deputy Director, Committee LLC; co-host @committeepro; Julie Oliver for Congress 2020, Beto for Senate 2018, Bernie 2016
Nothing here means she knows what she's writing about in this article.
posted by hippybear at 6:00 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Also THE GAUNTLET IS HER OWN PUBLICATION.
Okay, yes, this is a bullshit thing.
posted by hippybear at 6:00 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
Okay, yes, this is a bullshit thing.
posted by hippybear at 6:00 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
Eric J. Topol, "Opinion: The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?" L.A. Times, 4 Jan 2024:
By wastewater levels, JN.1 [the currently dominant variant] is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.posted by Gerald Bostock at 6:02 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]
... There is, however, some good news about this big wave of infections. It has not resulted in the surge of hospital admissions seen with Omicron. ...
All of this is occurring on top of the flu and RSV waves, both of which are at very high levels, not clearly having peaked yet, with some people experiencing two of these infections at once.
With all three respiratory viruses circulating at full force, you would think we’d be seeing people wearing masks everywhere in public. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The state of denialism and general refusal to take simple steps to reduce the risk of infection can be seen everywhere.
Okay, here's her bio from Slate. No expert.
Here's her LinkedIn. No expert.
This woman is a political hack who worked for three failed political campaigns in a row who pivoted in November 2022 [after the last election] to write about COVID. She knows nothing about what she writes, she's writing to market her name for a buck as a name in the COVID commentariat sphere.
When you google her name, half the links about her are links by others linking things she's written in the past year, and the other half are equally meaningless.
posted by hippybear at 6:05 PM on January 4
Here's her LinkedIn. No expert.
This woman is a political hack who worked for three failed political campaigns in a row who pivoted in November 2022 [after the last election] to write about COVID. She knows nothing about what she writes, she's writing to market her name for a buck as a name in the COVID commentariat sphere.
When you google her name, half the links about her are links by others linking things she's written in the past year, and the other half are equally meaningless.
posted by hippybear at 6:05 PM on January 4
Trying to use the case numbers as part of a response to counter the article in itself, imo, a weak defence as it's very much contingent on sociopolitical factors established in the article and elsewhere as not being established or maintained, especially with a variant that is more infectious apparently, though with variability on fatality and some strong certainty on long-term degradation of health outcomes.
posted by cendawanita at 6:08 PM on January 4
posted by cendawanita at 6:08 PM on January 4
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posted by Windopaene at 4:53 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]