COVID Update September 4: There’s a disturbing new underground movement to undermine COVID response.

And it’s working. 1/

Occasionally I see something which makes me realize COVID isn’t our toughest enemy any more.

There is a growing refusal to participate in any public health activities— not just social distancing:masks—but testing & contact tracing. And it definitely means no quarantining. 2/

Take this lovely wedding in Minnesota.

First I’d like to wish every happiness to the bride & groom.

And the joy of your 275 indoor guests I’m sure was overwhelming. Starting out life in a nice warm embrace of friends & family. Special. 3/ https://www.grandforksherald.com/newsmd/coronavirus/6646149-1-wedding-275-guests-0-masks-56-COVID-cases-in-9-Minnesota-counties

Also the nice warm embrace of 56 cases of COVID including teachers, people who work in nursing homes, hospitals & near the prison.

“Spreading the love” was the wedding theme & it will be remembered by many even some not present for years to come. 4/

Of course this jewel shares the communal feeling the happy couple began. Not only was the dress long & strapless & the event indoors & maskless, but guests won’t get tested. 5/

“We want to keep the numbers low” reminds of something @byron_auguste said once:

“It feels like you’re flying until you hit the ground.” 6/

Colleges are now infamous for kids who are testing positive refusing to allow contact tracing.

I asked Deborah Birx about this and she estimates the rate of compliance at colleges at about 0%. 7/

Then there was this nice message from a family medicine doc here in Minneapolis.

Thankfully individual rights protect us from telling other kids or parents they’re in danger or pulling a kid out who is infectious. 8/

This kind of liberty makes everybody feel good! The liberty to know you’ve infected someone who might infect someone else & not have to tell them!

This is what Kirk Cousins of the Vikings calls “the survival of the fittest.” 9/

Kirk believes if number 1 feels safe from the virus, number 2 on the rest of you. 10/

The truth is Kirk I actually agree with you in part. I too couldn’t care less if someone infects you. If you don’t, why should I Mr. Fit?

Here’s the part I do care about. You infecting other people. 11/

A lot of this thinking are people disciples of political advisor & herd thinning afficianado Scott Atlas. Scott’s opinion on it being ok to infect others was sought out not because of who Scott is, but because he was willing to have that opinion. 12/

Not only must we go about our lives, uninhibited by masks, but Scott believes testing is a giant waste of time. And he got the CDC to go along with it. 12/

Wedding planners, political advisors, college kids, quarterbacks, parents of school kids— you are from the Boris Johnson and the late Herman Caine school of virology. That is to say, you have no degree. 13/

Our brains do not process exponential function very well or understand incubation periods, or vector control, or human mobility.

That’s why we have scientists. 14/

And the reason we have laws and regulations is because of people like Cousins.

This is not survival of the fittest. This is survival of the heartless. 15/

Unless you just must breathe on other people, solving the virus without killing people is pretty easy to solve while we let science do the work.

And if you have the virus or even might, do you want to be the last link in the chain or elongating it? 16/

But this movement not to test, not to contact trace is going mainstream with Atlas & his coopting if the CDC. This movement to let the virus spread undetected because the herd with create immunity & it will thin. 17/

Our visibility into the virus is going to get less and less just as colleges, weddings & gatherings take off.

Unlike before don’t expect to see sickness in the case numbers for a while. That’s the idea. Don’t test, don’t know. 18/

You can expect more people will have it than will tell you, then will want you to know, and will even know themselves. 19/

The people not testing & contact tracing think of themselves as revolutionaries, as rebels, as people who won’t be cowed by these rules that cut into their space.

They will add months or years to the virus, add to its reach, add to its misery, add to its toll. 20/

On the other hand these public health rules have saved lives for centuries. They are tried and true. They are not controversial.

But now we have people who know better. /end