The return of college football with (mostly) packed stadiums was a resounding success, except among those whose fear of COVID spurs them to continue to demand lockdowns and empty public events. But normalcy is here, and it’s time for them to get over it.
As my colleague Christopher Tremoglie noted, these “COVIDphobes” are not consistent in anything other than their insufferable complaints. Naturally, the return of packed college football stadiums across the country triggered the latest round of panic.
And tonight in Tallahassee.
I’m thinking about the healthcare heroes in all these college towns and praying that being outside keeps these games from being #Covid super-spreader events.
Scary that so many are willing to risk their health and the possibility of infecting others. pic.twitter.com/XRPAhnNOT4
— Gwen Graham (@GwenGraham) September 6, 2021
The seven-day average of COVID deaths is just a third of what it was at its peak in January and appears to be plateauing. We know that roughly 99% of COVID deaths are among those that are unvaccinated, and we know that about 75% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
The emergency is over. We have vaccines readily available. At some point, this ceases to be a pandemic and becomes endemic. We most likely will never eradicate COVID, but we have seen that we can clearly mitigate its effects. The constant panic over cases and crowds is exactly that: A panic. It is time to move on.
We know that sports crowds, including the multiday spectacle around Super Bowl LV in Tampa Bay, Florida, are not “superspreader” events. We know that children are at a lower risk of extreme symptoms of COVID than they are of the flu in a given year. COVID doomsayers, including camera chaser Dr. Anthony Fauci, should be relegated to the sidelines of our national and local conversations.
This doesn’t mean that COVID as a public health problem is over. People should get vaccinated if they haven’t already, especially if they have not already had COVID. Some hospitals were strained after the recent surge in cases led to a (far smaller) surge in hospitalizations and deaths. But it is vaccinations that are the answer to that, not the warped worldview of pundits and bureaucrats, whose lives changed little during lockdowns, that would force everyone to become social hermits.
We are going to have to live with COVID. Given all the data, we clearly can return to nearly all of our 2019 normality. If Fauci and others want to wrap themselves in bubble wrap and never go outside again, so be it. But we should not be expected to join them just to make them feel better.
