Guest Blogger, Jeffrey Verasano

Covid is here on Earth to stay. The vaccine may have partially succeeded in reducing morbidity but it has failed at any dream of eradicating the virus like we eradicated smallpox. Delta is partially outside its reach, it doesn't last that long, jabbed people can still transmit, etc. Herd immunity was estimated to be 70% -80% with the alpha variant but with Delta, it's essentially 100%. We have nothing else in the pipeline that can resurrect the idea of herd immunity.

Herd immunity can be put aside as a strategy. It will not happen. 36% of Americans according to the CDC already had covid by May 31st 2021, so it's at least 40% today. All of the remaining ones will encounter the virus just like we all get colds and flu.

You can stop blaming your neighbor because you can get it from someone who is vaccinated and masked. You will get it and it doesn't matter who you get it from. Therefore lockdowns, masks and vaccine passports are essentially pointless. At best they delay the inevitable. And they do so at the price of creating social discord, depression, continued recession, and empowering power-hungry bureaucrats.
Focus on your own health, your weight, your immune strength, take whatever prophylactics you want such as vaccines, ivermectin, vitamin d, etc. These are all about of equal effectiveness. The vaccine is no more so than the others.

Musings and opinions

A former in-law writes: “The Hunt Club tavern is still packing them in at its small location. I get pissed every time we go by it.”

Yes, it’s too bad when people can still go to bars, but not to church. However, this whole lockdown would have made more sense if it involved keeping people our age at home—we are the people with age, heart conditions, lung problems, obesity, diabetes, etc. If you were out and about, I hope there was a good reason, and that no one could have done that errand for you.

The good news is that although cases are on the increase, the fatalities are below 1%, which means that those getting Covid now are much better off with the newer treatments and more knowledge that those who got it in March and April. Our president has been successful and cut about 15 years off the approval schedule for a new drug that should be delivered to health care workers in early December. We will still have people who fear vaccines, but hopefully we’ll have more herd immunity besides that which we’ve developed through the spread of the disease. 95-99% success for a vaccine is unheard of. Let’s see if it works that well on the general public. Every media outlet will announce every side effect, or death with anxious faces and whispers, when they never paid attention to flu deaths, or shingles side effects, or falls among the elderly. They may even demand on Twitterverse that immunizations stop until NO ONE has any side effects, although if Biden takes office in January, those alarm bells will stop so the end of the pandemic can be attributed to him.