In the USA, at least, according to the CDC, cases, deaths per week, and hospitalizations are the lowest it's been since the pandemic began.
In early 2022, when at-home testing kits availability became widespread, I was a bit worried that we'd see COVID cases being under reported, since people doing a test at home likely wouldn't get tracked in the statistics. You can sort of see evidence of it as the number of reported COVID cases in May/June/July flattened out, yet hospitalizations continued to rise, though deaths was almost flat.
The simple fact is, COVID, like the flu, will never go away. But it's followed the trend viruses tend to do: becoming less severe so they don't kill their host before they can spread it.
(Summary is that there was a "Russian Flu" epidemic in the 1890s that raged around the world for a couple of years and then faded. This was probably not really a type of influenza but instead OC43 which people still catch but it's just one of many varieties of a "cold".)
So what was a global contagion that affected several lives, businesses, and introduced trillions in debt is no longer an emergency? I would expect a big post-mortem to be done on such a destructive force if it's in the rearview mirror.
It's too easy to predict what those post-mortems would look like.
The right will claim we destroyed businesses and created trillions in debt, and yet still millions died, so the monetary losses were pointless, and therefore we shouldn't shut everything down at the next pandemic.
The left will claim that the shut downs didn't go far enough, and so we still had millions dead, and therefore we need to shut down even harder and for longer to save lives.
I think trivially a pandemic response team might not be disbanded right before a pandemic. But I flew a lot in late 2019 / early 2020 and there were signs everywhere in terminals about did you recently fly to China? So clearly the threat was well known and communicated to "decision makers"; what would a pandemic team have done differently?
Moderna was in clinic trials in March [1] thats over a month before USA's Operation Warp Speed [2]. I'm not sure they could've sped up vaccine development that much.
I see a lot on the right still denying anyone died at all from covid. My friend still says lockdowns actually killed the people, despite some countries with lockdowns having no excess mortality at all.
I don't really get the meaning of debt on a global scale.
If I have have $1, it means someone owes $1. That's what money is. On a global scale, money is worthless, it only has meaning on a local scale, as a way to keep tabs on who owes what.
So an increase on global debt can mean that there is more money in circulation, i.e. inflation, essentially a tax collected by those who print money. But inflation was rather low during the pandemic, so probably not that.
If it is not inflation, then it means that more people owe more to other people. So, more interdependence. I wonder if it is a good or a bad thing. Probably both.
You're missing the most defining feature of fiat currency: If you have $1, it means someone owes $1 plus interest. It's a particularly profound distinction and one that should alter your rationalizations and conclusions. On a global scale, it isn't meaningless.
Interesting perspective. How about the fact that money is owed across time - by present generations to future ones? Viewed in that sense, debt surely remains impactful, even if considered on a global scale.
"The White House recently received a sobering warning about the potential for the coronavirus to come roaring back, with experts reaching a consensus that there’s a roughly 20 percent chance during the next two years of an outbreak rivaling the onslaught of illness inflicted by the omicron variant. A forecast from one widely regarded scientist pegged the risk at a more alarming level, suggesting a 40 percent chance of an omicron-like wave. "
I for one am ignoring official COVID stats and focusing on excess deaths and wastewater readings since the government is winding down collection guidelines. Hospitals no longer report infections acquired while receiving care, there no lo longer subsidized PCR test sites, free COVID rapids are no longer available after May 11th.
In early 2022, when at-home testing kits availability became widespread, I was a bit worried that we'd see COVID cases being under reported, since people doing a test at home likely wouldn't get tracked in the statistics. You can sort of see evidence of it as the number of reported COVID cases in May/June/July flattened out, yet hospitalizations continued to rise, though deaths was almost flat.
The simple fact is, COVID, like the flu, will never go away. But it's followed the trend viruses tend to do: becoming less severe so they don't kill their host before they can spread it.