It's Terrifying Because Nothing Happens
It's Terrifying Because Nothing Happens
A new study from the believers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center…
…warns us about a dangerous new problem with Covid-19: “a lack of infection awareness.” It’s pretty scary stuff:
Findings In this cohort study of 210 adults with evidence of seroconversion during a regional Omicron variant surge, 56% reported being unaware of any recent Omicron variant infection.
Meaning Findings of this study suggest that low rates of Omicron variant infection awareness may be a key contributor to rapid transmission of the virus within communities.
Importance Some individuals who were infected by the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant may have been completely unaware of their infectious status while the virus was actively transmissible.
The researchers go on to suggest that we need to work harder to control transmission of a variant that infects people in ways that prevent them from knowing they’ve been infected. From a hospital press release:
“Our study findings add to evidence that undiagnosed infections can increase transmission of the virus,” said Sandy Y. Joung, MHDS, an investigator at Cedars-Sinai and first author of the study. “A low level of infection awareness has likely contributed to the fast spread of Omicron.”
Stripping the performative neurosis from the discussion, what “a low level of infection awareness” means is that the majority of people who are infected with the Omicron variant don’t get sick, and the rest mostly get the sniffles. People don’t notice infection because infection isn’t noticeable. As always, the possible exception remains the frail elderly in congregate living facilities. For the rest of the population, the threat is that you’ll be infected by a virus that won’t do anything to you — and public health researchers are warning that this is a very bad thing and we need to do something about it. And so we get this:
…alongside this:
The crisis is a crisis of interpretation: doctors in hospitals who shrug at the current severity level, speaking into the noise made by administrators in public health offices who caterwaul in terror at the same numbers. And now we have the added bonus of hearing from researchers who warn us about the serious problem of people being infected with something unnoticeable, which we have to work harder to prevent.
We’re trapped in the language of a generalized crisis, at a moment when the crisis is gone. We’ve got to work harder to prevent people from being infected from this virus that…
…they won’t notice.
The habit of emergency has set in, even after the emergency has ended. The answer to this problem, of course, is more boosters:
To protect from the infection that you won’t know you have, because it won’t make you sick.
I just went to the supermarket in Wokeville, and masking was back up over half. There's a terrifying new variant!
A virus so terrifying that you need to be tested to know that you have it due to your total lack of symptoms.
Of course, the covidians would say that some people ARE at risk, and if you catch it and pass it on without realizing you'll have blood on your hands. Which narrative preserves their own status as morally pure brahmins, while also preserving their excuse to force us into masks and jam needles into our arms.