Erick Erickson, a few days ago, flailed once again in full knowledge that the Democrats have no ill-birthed action like the Republicans’ January 6th insurrection, but, to keep the spirits of the conservatives up, he claimed they do:
Democratic pollsters are telling President Biden and other Democrats to simply move on from COVID. Did the science change? Nope. Only the polling.
Is that right? Well, I suppose it depends on how literally ‘science‘ should be taken. I mean, science is the study of reality, but some would argue that it should be restricted to our technical knowledge of Covid in this case.
I prefer the former, because then it becomes directly relevant to the citizen. How do I mean? From the Minnesota Department of Health:
It’s graphs like these that prompted public health officials to recommend the lockdown, and the various elected officials to follow through. The Hospitalization Rate time-series is the most important graph, because our strongest worry during the pandemic was the overwhelming stress on the health system, meaning not just Covid patients, but anyone admitted with a serious problem – accidents, gunshots, burst appendix, anything that might land you in the ICU or OR in ordinary times.
That plunging graph represents knowledge, and that represents a change in the science. Our knowledge is that the stress on hospitals is lessening rapidly.
Of course, there are infinite nuances to these sorts of analyses. For example, if the omicron variant was more dangerous and more virulent than the previously dominant mutant, delta, the above graph could be questioned. Is omicron worse than delta?
Researchers compared 52,297 cases of COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant with 16,982 cases caused by the delta variant. Rates of hospitalization, intensive care unit admissions, requirement for mechanical ventilation, and mortality were substantially higher for infections caused by the delta variant than those caused by the omicron variant. The authors concluded, “During a period with mixed delta and omicron variant circulation, SARS-CoV-2 infections with presumed omicron variant infection were associated with substantially reduced risk of severe clinical endpoints and shorter durations of hospital stays.” [Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia]
No, it doesn’t appear to be.
If I were operating as a public official, the above graph, and others at the link cited, suggest to me that we may be nearing the end of the acute phase of the Covid pandemic. That analysis could be wrong. The next viable mutant form could have a case fatality rate like cousin MERS, which had a case fatality rate of 34%; by comparison, Covid’s case fatality rate is currently estimated at 1.35% (both numbers are from Wikipedia).
My point is that we’re on the leading edge of science, and science often gets things wrong. But right now, things are not looking too bad.
And Erickson’s a dishonest weasel.
