Tepid virus panic and tired mask advice return to American media as the CDC prepares to recommend annual Covid vaccinations for no reason

Addicen Bauer, American Studies major at Wellesley College and aspiring virus explainer for Slate.

It will never stop.

Addicen Bauer, a literal college student who knows nothing yet somehow is permitted to write for the wretched online news magazine Slate, wants you to to be worried that “COVID Hospitalizations are Going Up” and asks if the country is “in a surge.”

Under the panic headline we find that not much of anything is happening. In fact there is no “surge”. Infections are trending slightly upwards. Hospitalisations have increased in some regions from very low to merely rather low.

Nevertheless, Bauer is concerned:

[E]ven a small increase in cases and hospitalizations means more people have the disease, which isn’t great. [Virus-crazed medical journalist who will say anything Céline] Gounder and [Boston physician Jeremy] Faust [who “diagnosed a few more patients with COVID than usual so far this week”] both noted that elderly people and immunocompromised people have been at increased risk of hospitalization throughout the pandemic, and that remains true.

I don’t know how to break it to our senior “orientation mentor,” but elderly and immunocompromised people “have been at increased risk of hospitalization” or its equivalent since the beginning of time, long before SARS-2 was even a twinkle in Ralph Baric’s eye.

A little caution given the rise in cases might be prudent even if you are ok with getting COVID yourself. [Egregious virus clown Bob] Wachter recommends “keeping a mask with you and when you’re in a crowded, indoor, poorly ventilated space, putting it on”—it’s the “highest yield thing that would make a difference.” Protecting yourself and your community against COVID isn’t all or nothing. And, as ever, vaccines (and boosters!) prevent us from having severe infections.

This is of course all about the vaccines:

Integrating a yearly COVID booster into our fall flu shot season seems to be the track we are on, Wachter told me. When you get your flu shot this fall, get your COVID shot too. The updated booster is set to roll out in early October. People over 60 and immunocompromised people will also be getting RSV vaccines this year, which are new.

While our current COVID booster shot prevents severe illness for almost a year, it protects from infection for only a few months. Faust is hopeful that this fall’s upcoming reformulation of the booster will prevent infection for a longer period of time, which will encourage more people to get the booster. Right now, a few months out from a new booster, we are in “our least immune moment” says Faust.

To call the present decayed Covid discourse cultivated by regime outlets like Slate mere misinformation is far too kind. Waning vaccine immunity has zero to do with the slight virus blip the United States is seeing right now. This is nothing but the standard climatisation wave we’e seen since the pandemic started in 2020. It will shock many to read this, I know, but vast sectors of the United States, particularly in the south, get very hot in late summer. Americans who live in these regions retreat to cool, climatised indoor environments, which favour virus transmission. That’s all this is.

Otherwise, I note that old Americans, who until now merely had to deal with the annual nuisance of totally useless flu shots, will now be urged to line up for three separate jabs every year, because reasons. All media narratives will now be constructed to promote this novel threefold autumnal vaccination liturgy against the evil pathogens which plague us, and we will studiously ignore the fact that these secular rituals do nothing to stop viruses and actually make a nontrivial number of people sicker than necessary.

UPDATE: Valued commenter Zelkova points us to this Teen Vogue testimonial in which Addicen (or Addison) Bauer explains her reasons for participating in the farcical 2017 Women’s March:

When Trump was elected, I was stunned. I was unable to believe that a man who has voiced his hatred for just large groups in our country, abused his rights and treated women like toys could be chosen to be the leader of the free world. The results hit me hard — I thought of the millions of people whose rights would be stripped from them, and the number of people who would have to live in fear under his administration. I wanted to make a difference. When I heard about the march, I knew that this would be the perfect opportunity to show my beliefs and bond together with tons of others who share my concerns and my hope for peace in America.

I will march for my rights as a woman, but I will also march for the rights of all marginalized groups and people who feel threatened by Trump’s policies. I will march to insure that Mike Pence doesn’t torture innocent people because of their sexual orientation and in hope that refugees are not denied entry into our country based on an assumption. I march to show that us women are not objects to grab, but human beings who are brave and willing to fight norms, stand up to people who don’t believe in our abilities and let our voices be heard by anyone and everyone.