Thread by @ASlavitt

COVID Update: Denmark has effectively declared COVID over. There are merits and flaws to their thinking.

There’s also the simple matter of how the US is just not Denmark. 1/

Denmark is the first EU country to eliminate mask mandates, vaccine passports, isolation protocols & all the rest.

And it’s not because the COVID wave is over there. 2/

Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all rising in Denmark read all time highs with the US equivalent of 1000 daily deaths.

BA2 is on the rise in Denmark and is outcompeting the original Omicron.

Yet Denmark is leading the way to say its all over. 3/

There are arguments you could make in favor of or against a stance lessening restrictions but it’s a lot easier to do if you’re Denmark than the US— even in spite of their case growth. 4/

Denmark is different from the US in a few important ways:
-they have an 81% double vaccination rate & a 61% boosted rate
-they have manageable ICUs
-they have universal coverage
-they have a top flight surveillance capability 5/

The US is different.

The US doesn’t have enough people vaccinated, has full hospitals, has huge access challenges, massive inequality & has more people with names like
@🇺🇸LibertyKarenUSA🇺🇸 who believe COVID was developed in Tony Fauci’s bathtub & can be cured with Pine-sol. 6/

Different countries, different results. But you don’t have to look far in the US including governors in Colorado, California, Nee Jersey and Delaware to see people following similar footsteps to Denmark. 7/

These are responsible governors with states that have done a good job managing the pandemic. They have higher vax rates than in most of the country and the cultural fights over masks are at a relative minimum.

So what’s happening here is the same thing happening everywhere. 8/

Political leaders everywhere are either hopefully or optimistically calling this over. Not a lull but an end to restrictions.

The pandemic is most decidedly not over. We are in the midst of some transitions however that are important to recognize. 9/

1- The first transition is the transition from collective responsibility to individual responsibility.

In much of the country, the “individual” doesn’t give a shit about the “collective” so this actually won’t represent much of a change.

But in other parts, it will. 10/

Putting the onus on the individual works out great for those with the means, resources & access to protect themselves. And to whom COVID is lower risk.

If you’re sick or have a sick family member, have a frontline job, or haven’t had access to vax’s that doesn’t describe you.11/

It’s not entirely unreasonable to expect people to protect themselves when there are ample tools available.

The president sending out high quality masks & making free tests available along with abundant boosters are critical steps & pillars. 12/

But there are still gaps. Kids 0-5 are still in limbo although that could be worked out this month.

We are a few months from having an abundance of anti-virals.

Those exceptions aren’t small. But as they close down, expect these policies to accelerate. 13/

2- The next shift is towards a fatalistic attitude towards future variants & a death rate previously unimaginable.

When SARS-CoV-2 wants to spread, in its new forms, it’s contagious enough & acts too fast & before symptoms that we’ve decided preventing spread is too hard. 14/

At baseline experts tell me we will have 200,000 deaths per year at minimum in the US. And possibly 1 million globally.

The vast majority will be unvaccinated, a higher & higher percentage by choice. But today globally there are access issues.
15/

That doesn’t account for future waves from new variants. Our highly mutating & shape-shifting SARS-2 is marked more by its fitness characteristics than anything else @K_G_Andersen of @scrippsresearch tells me. (Also a Denmark expert!) 16/

We are transitioning to accepting this reality.
-Unvaccinated people will risk dying
-Occasionally COVID will make people already sick much sicker
-The rest of us will frequently get a bad bug or constant boosters.

We could expect to get the virus 2x year say some scientists.17/

The fatalistic approach isn’t a result of uncaring leaders as much those that have decided we can’t do better.

Given the intransigence of the public & the virus, it says in effect, we can put in all kinds of restrictions but aren’t confident we can produce a better result. 18/

The ground truth is the pandemic isn’t over, COVID isn’t in an endemic stage, and no political leaders can have confidence we won’t be faced with new & confounding variants.

The sea change is that despite those facts, political leaders feel the time is right to move on. 19/

Societies like Denmark make these decisions with the legitimate hope that people will take care of each other even if the law doesn’t compel them.

A society with 81% vax rates that is against mandates is one that doesn’t need them.

The US shouldn’t be so confident. 20/

Today SARS-CoV-2 is no longer a novel virus. Our immune system are familiar with it.

It does remain a tough & unpleasant virus— more than the common cold & the flu— and one that shape shifts & will continue to when under threat. 21/

The transitions we are entering in Denmark & elsewhere— pushing the burden on the individual, to those on the margins, & accepting of loss as beyond our control— aren’t transitions in the nature of the virus.

Right or wrong, they are our transitions simply of our choosing. /end