Can They Reboot The COVID Panic?

It's been a long time since I've posted on COVID, but with the uptick in masking recommendations from the usual public health suspects and the reemergence of Dr Fauci, I decided to see what I could do to compare current COVID statistics with those from a couple of years ago. What I discovered was that I can't. As of even last year, there were daily statistical updates locally and nationally. Now, at best, they're weekly, but the California state breakdown by county that's at the top of this post is updated only monthly. The old graphs I used to copy are no longer posted.

Now and then I've done a quick check of how many people are wearing masks at Sunday mass. This would be a population that skews older and more prudent -- prudence is a cardinal virtue among Catholics, after all -- and as late as six months ago, I was gauging it at from 25 to 35 percent. Last Sunday, it was well down into single digits. By the same token, I've seen far fewer people wearing masks outdoors on the street. The old social-distance calibrations and footprint reminders on floors and sidewalks have long since been power washed away, for all the good they ever did.

As of this past April, LA County stopped requiring masks even in hospitals and doctors' offices. But can they make us all go back? In July, 2022, more than a year ago, I posted on LA County moving to the brink of reimposing an indoor mask mandate and stepping back at the last minute. At that time, I linked to a news account:

The threat of returning to the mandate stirred up controversy. Several cities, including Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Long Beach, and most recently El Segundo, had announced this week they would not enforce any mandate.

Additionally, two [of five] members of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors had indicated they opposed the reinstating of a the region-wide mask mandate.

In an open letter, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said “masking mandates lack empirical evidence to back their effectiveness, are unenforceable, polarizing, and take a huge toll on the social-emotional well-being of children and youth.”

I commented at the time,

It appears there was a massive back-channel campaign against restoring the mandate, given Supervsior Kuehl's remark about the "snowflake weepies" who were opposing it. Sounds like the snowflake weepies won the day, and I would guess the supervisors put a lot of pressure on "Dr" Ferrer to decide she needed to look more closely at the data before they themselves would be pressured to vote against reimposing the mandate, which would likely put[LA County Public Health Director Barbara] Ferrer's own job at risk.

Dr Ferrer so far is still choosing to err on the side of keeping her job. As of last Thursday, she announced,

“There’s nothing that’s changed. We’re not announcing new safety measures today,” assured Barbara Ferrer, Director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

But, when asked if officials would ever make masks mandatory again, Ferrer was less committal.

“‘Ever’ is not a word I’m comfortable with,” she said. “There’s not that level of certainty with this pandemic. I’m never going to say there’s not going to be a time when we all need to put our masks back on. I am going to say we certainly don’t all need to put our masks back on now. We are at a place where people make their own assessment.”

I think we're also at a place where the population at large has understood that public officials had been crying wolf, and they'd been crying wolf for a number of reasons. One was certainly to increase their budgets, salaries, and prestige. But another was to create an atmosphere of panic that put Trump's 2020 campaign at a disadvantage by ending his public rallies and linking a populist uprising with the idea of an epidemic and the need to fight a social malaise, to "heal our city".

I think one big indicator that this moral panic is over is the counterproductive effect of Trump's indictments: each one has driven Trump upward in the polls and spiked his fundraising. If the general attitude is "fool me once," I don't see a good prognosis. But Dr Fauci's holding on, at least for now:

CNN asks Fauci why the highest quality scientific evidence consistently shows that masks do not work?

"The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 —… pic.twitter.com/GUdGak0AZh

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) September 3, 2023

In contrast to Dr Fauci, his old sidekick Dr Birx is urging restraint:

"We don't need to mandate," Birx, who was a White House COVID response coordinator, told Newsmax on Saturday.

Birx was responding to an increasing number of hospitals and businesses requiring masks amid an increase in COVID-19 hospital admissions across the U.S.

"We need to actually empower people with the information that they need for themselves and their families because every family is different," Birx also said. "And by the way, outside is safe, and playgrounds are safe.”