Trying to keep straight the official information about children & COVID
1. Children don’t get or transmit COVID 2. If they get COVID, it’s just the sniffles 3. If it’s not the sniffles, it’s no big deal 4. If it’s a big deal, they had a pre-existing condition
5. If it’s a big deal & they did not have a pre-existing condition, you just didn’t know about the pre-existing condition (as per 2-4) 6. Maybe kids can transmit COVID, but not in schools 7. If it seems otherwise, it’s because schools reflect community transmission
8. It’s a coincidence if cases are higher when schools are open & lower when they’re closed 9. The fact that more kids than adults have been infected is due to transmission outside schools 10. Anyway, it’s good for our "immunity wall" that so many kids had this mild thing
11. What really harms children is being out of school. There’s absolutely nothing worse than that 12. Also, masks affect children’s development. All the non-existing evidence says so. Besides, who needs evidence when repeating something enough times is more effective?
13. Nothing is more important than seeing children’s smiles 14. During the (now over) pandemic, masks & lockdown kept other infections away 15. As a result, kids lost their immunity to them (or never had it) & many are now very sick
16. Immune dysregulation from COVID doesn’t explain that, as it violates axioms 2-3 17. Immunity debt does, especially if we ignore that, so far, there’s less RSV than last year 18. Immunity debt is well-established, way back from 2021. Next year, we may have immunity inflation
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1. Welcome. Today, we want to stress that, yes, the pandemic is over, but COVID isn't. This just means that we'll still have COVID, but no pandemic measures, to better infect you.
Hah! Just joking.... We really don't want you ill, as healthcare is collapsing.
2.
But no worries - it's not because of COVID. It's all those other pesky infections, especially among children. Kids have a huge immunity debt because of lockdowns. Absolutely.... And schools are very safe. As all parents know, no kid ever catches any disease there….
3. The problem is that kids haven’t been exposed to the usual pathogens, so their immune systems haven’t been properly trained. What? How can they not have been exposed to pathogens if 75% have had COVID? Did COVID not train their immune system -or did it damage it?
Reality: This virus is airborne
Govt propaganda: nah, that's too hard. Let it be droplets....
R: children transmit & some get very sick
GP: we really can't have that. We'd better say the opposite, very assertively
2
R: we can't get herd immunity with this virus
GP: fine. Let's invent hybrid immunity
R: we can't achieve that, either. The virus keeps mutating, & vaccine protection wanes
GP: what? We can't hear anything. There's to much noise here....
3
R: the virus causes post-infection problems in a substantial proportion of people
GP: let's not talk about that, as it screws up the narrative
R: it's getting too big to hide
GP: ok. We'll mention it -very occasionally, & with a grave expression
1
Welcome. We are delighted that most of you have come round to treating COVID like the flu. Yes, we know that you can treat a lion like a cat all you want and it'll still eat you🙄…. But that’s meaningless snark, as COVID is nothing like a lion, & you know it.
2
I mean, a lion will kill most victims right away, while COVID kills very few. What? There have been more deaths in 2022 than in the previous two years? Ah, but that’s just because there are more infections, not because it’s very deadly….
3
Yes, there are lots of infections, & there’s nothing we can do to stop that, because this thing is very infectious & people are tired. What? We should do something about cleaning indoor air, at least in schools? Nah…. Schools are perfectly safe as they are.
1
Welcome. As we take stock of our response, we’ve heard complaints that lifting measure because that’s “where people are” is not "following the science". Exactly. it’s following the people. Uh? How did they get over COVID before COVID was over? Well, we helped with that.
2
Just a bit.... We softened you with endemicity, learning to live with the virus, hybrid immunity (aka herd immunity 2), & mild omicron (versions 1 through 10). We also avoided talking much about the long-term risks of COVID. But (except for airborne) we didn't flat-out lie….
3
Take endemicity, for example: did we ever say it was a good thing? Nope -you assumed that. And we implied struggle in our bestseller slogan, “learning to live with the virus”. Seriously -who would say “we must learn to live” with clean water, or with ice cream? Exactly....
1
Welcome. As you know, after a long period of… uhm, illness, one of our dearest principle, prevention has left us. Public health owes much of its past success to prevention, and we are all the poorer for its loss.
2
Not long ago, common good complained to us of a hostile work environment. After thoroughly investigating this allegation, we found no evidence to support it. Sadly, common good, who had not been itself since contact tracing had gone missing, chose to retire....
3
We also had to let the precautionary principle go. Between its seniority & the budget it demanded, it was a major drain on our limited resources. More importantly, it was rooted in old -if charmingly quaint- values, and it was clearly unsuitable for the current times.
1
Welcome! We are here today to remind you that, thanks to our new “minimally invasive” public health approach, you won’t need to take any action even with two ongoing pandemics. That’s right!
2
Are you attending a COVID... -ehm- a convivial occasion? Trying to rebook a canceled flight? Waiting anxiously for that surgery? Whatever fun thing you’re doing, keep at it, because the *new* public health is based on individual choice, & your freedom comes first.
3
To those who claim most can’t evaluate their own risk, how hard is it, really? Look at the case statistics in your area & calculate your probability of getting infected based on what you’ll do. Oh, there are no stats? Well, just make up a number based on the info you have....