If all it takes to start locking down the world again is cases rather than hospitalizations or deaths, we’re in for an eternity of Covid-19 disrupting our lives every few months. I say months since it’s cyclical right now and tends to move geographically from season to season. At the moment, areas like New York and other northern states are feeling the brunt of the winter wave. Internationally, the U.K. is experiencing a high number of cases as well despite a very high vaccination rate.
The problem with threatening restrictions, which is a code word for “lockdowns,” is that the cat’s already out of the bag. Between the Delta and Omicron variants, and the nature of winter gatherings, there probably isn’t much to be accomplished by forcing a small percentage of the population to comply, since most won’t. If vaccines and vaccine boosters aren’t enough to prevent severe disruptions and “restrictive” measures from Dr. Fauci, then nothing is.
As it stands now, if these case counts continue rising, you can see the writing on the wall from Fauci before we hit Christmas eve, especially with the Biden administration in charge:
Dr. Fauci opens door to more COVID restrictions:
‘We May Need To Be More Restrictive’
This man needs to be FIRED! pic.twitter.com/QOfsgjzCJf
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) December 17, 2021
That advice, on the potential for new lockdowns or stay-at-home restrictions, may not be met with a welcome tone from most of the country. According to new polling, more Americans tend to believe that there is no need for new restrictions given everything that we now know and the availability of vaccines for anyone who wants them:
Fauci’s remarks come shortly after a recent nationwide poll found that the majority of Americans oppose new mandates and restrictions to address the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19.
The survey, conducted by The Trafalgar Group and Convention of States Action between December 4 to December 7, asked 1084 Americans about whether they would favor restrictions to tackle the Omicron variant.
It found that 69.4 percent of Americans say “no new mandates or restrictions are required” for the variant, opposed to 30.6 percent who say the opposite.
It’s not clear what Fauci means by becoming more “restrictive.” Does that mean lockdowns? Business closures? Requiring vaccination for domestic air travel? Restricting travel between state lines? Anything and everything could be on the table as there are few guardrails under these circumstances.
What became obvious since March of 2020 is that “experts” don’t seem to have any clue as to where this all ends or how to control it along the way. Promise after promise keeps breaking.
Remember when disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised that restrictions would be lifted in New York once the vaccination rate reached 70%? Well, that time came and went, and here’s the new governor issuing a mask mandate even as the state pushes well over 80% vaccination rate. These arbitrary goals are meaningless against a mutating airborne virus.
There’s nothing to trust from politicians anymore because they simply don’t know how to govern through this ongoing mess. President Biden pledged to “shut down the virus” rather than the country. At this point, tell me which outcome you’d put your money on?
What we’re learning is that as variants pop up and look as if they could be vaccine resistant, we might as well be back at square one in March of 2020 again. It’s as if nothing changed when the Omicron variant was discovered.
Where this ends is totally up in the air. The Biden administration cannot afford to tank the economy nationwide with proposed lockdowns or shutdowns of any kind. Parents are livid that schools continue to suffer closings despite very little threat to children from Covid-19.
Fauci’s not concerned about that, though, he never has been. He sees disruptions and business closings as “unpleasant” if you miss a paycheck, but necessary. How many more paychecks have to be missed before we realize that Covid will be endemic and we need to figure out how to cope with it?
