Pfizer gave us the great news that their COVID pill can prevent 90% of COVID deaths and hospitalizations. Merck announced its own treatment, with impressive but less robust effects.
This announcement ought to elicit parades and celebrations. It ought to set the stage to end all mask mandates, all vaccine mandates, all capacity limits, all absurd mass-quarantines, and more or less every restriction placed on normal life due to COVID.
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We already have three very effective vaccines and more in the pipeline. There is also growing evidence that prior infection provides robust immunity on its own and in conjunction with vaccination. We also have multiple pills, multiple antibody treatments, increasingly available at-home tests, and knowledge of how immune children are to serious disease from this virus.
So let’s all stop pretending that life needs to stand still.
We know that coronavirus will never be eradicated. It will spread forever, and everyone will get it. But thanks to vaccines and treatments, almost everyone who gets it will be fine. It will kill people and hospitalize some people, but that’s what disease does. Disease is part of human existence. Living with COVID is now much more feasible, and we need to adjust our policies accordingly.
We won’t, at least not in some jurisdictions. But that is because so many people have a religious rather than a scientific fear of this disease. They feel that getting the virus is contamination in some spiritual sense.
Treatment cannot stop you from getting COVID, many worry. But guess what? Nothing can! That’s acceptable because vaccines, pills, treatments, et cetera make getting COVID not so bad.
President Joe Biden is promising a vaccine mandate starting in January. Washington, D.C., still has an indoor mask mandate. My own county lives under constant threat of restored mask mandates any time there’s a surge in cases, even if hospitalizations and deaths remain incredibly low. Countless schools require children to wear masks, a requirement for which there is no scientific basis whatsoever.
Biden should use these pills to declare victory over the coronavirus. Expedite the approval process. Fund their rollout and say that while COVID is here to stay, the emergency is over.
