Mass testing a great strategy - six months ago. Plus, Trump & vaccines; power of local journalism
By Gary Abernathy
Mass testing ‘a drop in the bucket’ in the covid tsunami
It’s difficult to understand the sudden urgency of providing covid testing kits to everyone, especially when the new omicron variant, while highly transmissible, has been the mildest form of the novel coronavirus, according to studies.
The New York Times reported just days ago that studies are confirming earlier suspicions that omicron is comparatively mild:
Three separate teams of scientists on two continents have found that Omicron infections more often result in mild illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus, offering hope that the current surge may not be quite as catastrophic as feared despite skyrocketing caseloads.
While the sheer number of omicron cases will, by extension, result in appreciable numbers of serious illness, encouraging everyone to get tested seems counterproductive. If tests are sent to homes, or made otherwise easily accessible to everyone, almost everyone will, naturally, take the test, if only out of curiosity. Then, a lot of people who are completely without any symptoms but discover they have covid will grow worried, show up at their local emergency room or flood the phone lines with questions even though they’re fine. In other words, encouraging everyone to get tested will increase unnecessary panic.
Instead, logic might suggest that we encourage people to get tested only if they think they have symptoms or need treatment. In fact, new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines announced this week — for those paying attention to them — say now that fully vaccinated and boosted people who are exposed to the virus “may not need to quarantine at all,” as CNN reported. The CDC also reduced quarantine guidelines in other circumstances.
Some will argue that the reason to get tested is to prevent spread to others. Isn’t that horse already out of the barn? Hasn’t covid — and especially the omicron variant — spread so fast that trying to contain it is wishful thinking? A Dec. 23 Reuters story makes that point, with a top health expert saying of Biden’s testing push, "Unfortunately, it’s late in coming and will be a small drop in the bucket compared to the tsunami of cases on the horizon."
Fortunately, the weaker omicron variant — weaker especially among the vaccinated — likely signals the beginning of the end of the pandemic. According to a story in The Oregonian based on various wire reports, omicron experiences from around the world lead experts to be optimistic. As one South African doctor put it, “The rapid rise of new cases has been followed by a rapid fall and it appears we’re seeing the beginning of the decline of this wave.”
The Biden administration is scrambling to come up with something to say it has contributed to the covid fight and save face for a president who, as a candidate, promised to end this. “I will take care of this. I will end this,” he promised. It seems that what he’s doing is too little, too late. The best advice remains to get vaccinated and, as soon as eligible, boosted.
Trump feted for promoting vaccines, as he has often done
It was interesting watching former president Donald Trump get some rare positive press for promoting vaccines recently. It was especially strange since Trump has always promoted the vaccines he helped make a reality.
As I noted in a Washington Post column last week:
Trump has often been unfairly maligned for not promoting the coronavirus vaccine. While he has refused to get behind mandates, a position he reiterated this week, he began touting the vaccines long ago. Back in February, Trump told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to “go get your shot.” In March, he told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo, “I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it, and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly. … But it is a great vaccine. It is a safe vaccine, and it is something that works.”
Still, his appearance with former Fox host Bill O’Reilly and an interview with conservative pundit Candace Owens in which he promoted the vaccines drew media attention, along with praise from President Biden and his press secretary, Jen Psaki. Biden even, for once, gave the “previous administration” credit for rushing the development of the vaccines.
By the way, people are always saying to me that Pfizer took no federal money through Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” to develop its vaccine. While that’s technically true, Pfizer admits that it still benefited from the program. As CNN reported last year in a fact check:
…it was not accurate for Pfizer to suggest that it is operating entirely apart from Operation Warp Speed; the company has a major agreement to sell at least 100 million doses of its vaccine to the federal government, and Pfizer acknowledged in a Monday statement to CNN that it is in fact "participating" in Operation Warp Speed through this deal. Also, at least some independent experts say the Trump administration deserves partial credit for Pfizer's progress… Three experts told CNN that this purchase promise may have played an important role in expediting Pfizer's vaccine development process.
In other words, knowing it had a guarantee from the federal government to buy at least 100 million doses of its vaccine undoubtedly helped Pfizer to decide to risk its money on vaccine development. So let’s end the nonsense that “Operation Warp Speed” had nothing to do with Pfizer’s vaccine.
Manchin interview shows power of local journalism
My new Washington Post column out today promotes the importance and power of local journalism, using the great Hoppy Kercheval as an example. Hoppy is a longtime journalist and host of “Talkline,” a radio talk show in West Virginia carried statewide on 24 stations.
After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) dropped the bombshell on “Fox News Sunday” that he was a “no” vote on the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” legislation, it was on Hoppy’s show the next day that he let his unbridled feelings be known. As I pointed out:
On “Talkline,” which is based in Morgantown and carried statewide on 24 stations, Manchin said that Democratic Party leaders “figured surely to God we can move one person. Surely, we can badger and beat one person up. Surely, we can get enough protesters to make that person uncomfortable enough they’ll just say: ‘Okay, I’ll vote for anything, just quit.’ Well, guess what, I’m from West Virginia. I’m not from where they’re from and they can just beat the living crap out of people and think they’ll be submissive.”
I note that “Talkline” should be bookmarked by anyone interested in Manchin’s thought process. It’s where he goes to express himself to home state voters, letting his guard down to a greater degree than in national interview settings.
Over his years as a state legislator, secretary of state, governor and U.S. senator, no one has been a more consistent guest on “Talkline” than Manchin. After Manchin rocked the political world with his “Fox News Sunday” stunner, Kercheval immediately lined him up for the next day’s show. “You know, [Sen.] Bernie Sanders said Manchin was going to have to explain himself to West Virginians,” Kercheval told me. “Well, that’s what Manchin wanted to do. Joe Manchin is pretty in touch with his constituents. … I think he comes on my show because he’s very comfortable. He knows he’s talking directly to West Virginians.”
You can read the column here. Subscription may be required if you’ve exhausted your free articles for the month.
Post columnists choose pop culture that made an impact
Finally, to make it a Washington Post trifecta, the Post asked its columnists to share one book, TV show, movie, album, video game or other piece of culture, broadly defined, that had a big impact on them in 2021.
My choice was the Apple TV show “The Morning Show,” which tackled the #MeToo movement and cancel culture in general. As I concluded, “‘The Morning Show’ poses such questions without always providing definitive answers — and that alone makes it refreshing.”
You can read all the selections at this link.
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Dear Gary ABERNATHY,
Next Text :
SPIRITUAL REMEDIES FOR THE SICK
(*This is written about 85 years ago)
[This treatise was written as a salve, a solace, and a prescription for the sick, and as a visit to the sick and a wish for their speedy recovery.]
It describes briefly Twenty-Five Remedies which may offer true consolation and a beneficial cure for the sick and those struck by disaster, who form one tenth of mankind.
FIRST REMEDY
Unhappy sick person! Do not be anxious, have patience! Your illness is not a malady for you; it is a sort of cure. For life departs like capital. If it yields no fruits, it is wasted. And if it passes in ease and heedlessness, it passes most swiftly. Illness makes that capital of yours yield huge profits. Moreover, it does not allow your life to pass quickly, it restrains it and lengthens it, so that it will depart after yielding its fruits. An indication that your life is lengthened through illness is the following much repeated proverb: “The times of calamity are long, the times of happiness, most short.”
SECOND REMEDY
O ill person who lacks patience! Be patient, indeed, offer thanks! Your illness may transform each of the minutes of your life into the equivalent of an hour’s worship.
For worship is of two kinds. One is positive like the well-known worship of supplication and the prayers. The other are negative forms of worship like illness and calamities. By means of these, those afflicted realize their impotence and weakness; they beseech their All-Compassionate Creator and take refuge in Him; they manifest worship which is sincere and without hyprocrisy.
Yes, there is a sound narration stating that a life passed in illness is counted as worship for the believer-on condition he does not complain about God. It is even established by sound narrations and by those who uncover the realities of creation that one minute’s illness of some who are completely patient and thankful becomes the equivalent of an hour’s worship and a minute’s illness of certain perfected men the equivalent of a day’s worship.
Thus, you should not complain about an illness which as though transforms one minute of your life into a thousand minutes and gains for you long life; you should rather offer thanks.
THIRD REMEDY
Impatient sick person! The fact that those who come to this world continuously depart, and the young grow old, and man perpetually revolves amid death and separation testifies that he did not come to this world to enjoy himself and receive pleasure.
Moreover, while man is the most perfect, the most elevated, of living beings and the best endowed in regard to members and faculties, through thinking of past pleasures and future pains, he passes only a grievous, troublesome life, lower than the animals.
This means that man did not come to this world in order to live in fine manner and pass his life in ease and pleasure. Rather, possessing vast capital, he came here to work and do trade for an eternal, everlasting life. The capital given to man is his lifetime. Had there been no illness, good health and well-being would have caused heedlessness, for they show the world to be pleasant and make the Hereafter forgotten. They do not want death and the grave to be thought of; they cause the capital of life to be wasted on trifles. Whereas illness suddenly opens the eyes, it says to the body: “You are not immortal. You have not been left to your own devices. You have a duty. Give up your pride, think of the One Who created you. Know that you will enter the grave, so prepare yourself for it!”
Thus, from this point of view, illness is an admonishing guide and advisor that never deceives. It should not be complained about in this respect, indeed, should be thanked for. And if it is not too severe, patience should be sought to endure it.
FOURTH REMEDY
Plaintive ill person! It is your right, not to complain, but to offer thanks and be patient. For your body and members and faculties are not your property. You did not make them, and you did not buy them from other workshops. That means they are the property of another. Their owner has disposal over his property as he wishes.
An extremely wealthy and skilful craftsman, for example, employs a poor man as a model in order to show off his fine art and valuable wealth. In return for a wage, for a brief hour he clothes the poor man in a bejewelled and most skilfully wrought garment. He works it on him and gives it various states. In order to display the extraordinary varieties of his art, he cuts the garment, alters it, and lengthens and shortens it. Does the poor man working for a wage have the right to say to that person: “You are causing me trouble, you are causing me distress with the form you have given it, making me bow down and stand up;” has he the right to tell him that he is spoiling his fine appearance by cutting and shortening the garment which makes him beautiful? Can he tell him he is being unkind and unfair?
O sick person! Just like in this comparison, in order to display the garment of your body with which He has clothed you, bejewelled as it is with luminous faculties like the eye, the ear, the reason, and the heart, and the embroideries of His Most Beautiful Names, the All-Glorious Maker makes you revolve amid numerous states and changes you in many situations. Like you learn of His Name of Provider through hunger, come to know also His Name of Healer through your illness. Since suffering and calamities show the decrees of some of His Names, within those flashes of wisdom and rays of mercy are many instances of good to be found.
If the veil of illness, which you fear and loathe, was to be lifted, behind it you would find many agreeable and beautiful meanings.
FIFTH REMEDY
O you who is afflicted with illness! Through experience I have formed the opinion at this time that sickness is a Divine bounty for some people, a gift of the Most Merciful One.
Although I am not worthy of it, for the past eight or nine years, a number of young people have come to me in connection with illness, seeking my prayers. I have noticed that each of those ill youths had begun to think of the Hereafter to a greater degree than other young people. He lacked the drunkenness of youth. He was saving himself to a degree from animal desires and heedlessness. So I would consider them and then warn them that their illnesses were a Divine bounty within the limits of their endurance.
I would say: “I am not opposed to this illness of yours, my brother. I don’t feel compassion and pity for you because of your illness, so that I should pray for you. Try to be patient until illness awakens you completely, and after it has performed its duty, God willing, the Compassionate Creator will restore you to health.”
I would also say to them: “Through the calamity of good health, some of your fellows become neglectful, give up the prayers, do not think of the grave, and forget God Almighty. Through the superficial pleasure of a brief hour’s worldly life, they shake and damage an unending, eternal life, and even destroy it. Due to illness, you see the grave, which you will in any event enter, and the dwellings of the Hereafter beyond it, and you act in accordance with them.
That means for you, illness is good health, while for some of your peers good health is a sickness…”
SIXTH REMEDY
O sick person who complains about his suffering! I say to you: think of your past life and remember the pleasurable and happy days and the distressing and troublesome times. For sure, you will either say “Oh!” or “Ah!” That is, your heart and tongue will either say “All praise and thanks be to God!”, or “Alas and alack!”
Note carefully, what makes you exclaim “Praise and thanks be to God!” is thinking of the pains and calamities that have befallen you; it induces a sort of pleasure so that your heart offers thanks. For the passing of pain is a pleasure. With the passing of pains and calamities, a legacy of pleasure is left in the spirit, which on being aroused by thinking, pours forth from the spirit with thanks.
What makes you exclaim “Alas and alack!” are the pleasurable and happy times you have experienced in the former times, which, with their passing leave a legacy of constant pain in your spirit. Whenever you think of them, the pain is again stimulated, causing regret and sorrow to pour forth.
Since one day’s illicit pleasure sometimes causes a year’s suffering in the spirit, and with the pain of a fleeting day’s illness are many days’ pleasure and recompense in addition to the pleasure at being relieved at its passing and saved from it, think of the result of this temporary illness with which you are now afflicted, and of the merits of its inner face. Say: “All is from God! This too will pass!”, and offer thanks instead of complaining.
SIXTH REMEDY
{(*): This Flash occurred to me in a natural manner, and two remedies have been included in the Sixth Remedy. We have left it thus in order not to spoil the naturalness; indeed, we did not change it thinking there may be some mystery contained in it.}
O brother who thinks of the pleasures of this world and suffers distress at illness! If this world was everlasting, and if on our way there was no death, and if the winds of separation and