Joe\u2019s first White House Speech<\/b><\/p>\n
Reasonable Assurances and Sensible Warnings<\/b><\/p>\n
March 11th<\/sup>, 2021<\/i><\/p>\n Day fifty of the Biden presidency, and so far so good. Both politically and psychologically, today was a good point for Biden to stop and have a talk with the people. It came a few hours after he signed into law the biggest rebuilding act America had seen since FDR\u2019s first 100 days. The American Rescue Act will, in the estimate of Goldman-Sachs, result in 8% annual growth over the next 12 months. That, too, is a rate of growth not seen since the 1930s. Best of all, it\u2019s going to people and small businesses, what you could call \u201ctrickle up economics.\u201d It will save thousands of small businesses, protect millions from hunger and homelessness. It is, as Biden once put it about the AMA, \u201ca big fucking deal.\u201d<\/p>\n In the glow from this massive legislative victory, Biden addressed the state of the country on the anniversary of the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n After the past year where lies, braggadocio and delusions were all Americans got from the White House, Biden\u2019s cautionary optimism was a gust of fresh air. Biden extolled the immense gains the vaccine program had made in the past 50 days, but didn\u2019t try to pretend it was all his doing. (In a truly pathetic footnote, Trump put out a brief communiqu\u00e9<\/span> under a sort-of presidential seal, from The Office of Donald J. Trump, trying to take credit for the vaccine program.) The program has been pretty much miraculous, despite Trump. When Biden first took office, he spoke of 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days (the last day of April). That was considered a high goal, even before we learned that the outgoing administration had absolutely no plan in place for distribution or even procurement of the needed vaccines.<\/p>\n Now, not only are we well ahead of pace for that, but we may have vaccines available for the entire adult population by the end of May, some 500 million shots all told. The CDC is of the opinion that we\u2019ll have herd immunity by the beginning of May, but Doctor Fauci, on the Rachel Maddow show tonight, cautioned that we are in a race against variants, and we may, even with full vaccinations, end up playing whack-a-mole (his term) with those variants, much the way we do with strains of flu and the common cold. It\u2019s evolution, people.<\/p>\n Biden himself made the same cautionary note, and urged people to keep on social distancing and wearing masks for the time being, despite what the \u201cNeanderthals\u201d in the GOP think we should be doing. It\u2019s not a popular request, but Biden has some courage. Things are a lot more hopeful, but we are not out of the woods. He\u2019s right, Fauci\u2019s right, and nearly every expert in the field is right. Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones and Donald Trump are all wrong, and for vicious, self-serving reasons.<\/p>\n Biden spoke movingly of the loss and deprivation hundreds of millions of people suffered over this past year\u2014well over half a million dead (\u201cmore than World War I, World War II, and 9\/11\u201d), millions of families separated, millions of jobs lost. Even the most cynical of viewers had to admit that he SOUNDED sincere.<\/p>\n He knows, at long last, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and he just wants us not to derail ourselves by being reckless as we approach the light. It won\u2019t stop the freedumb morons, but it might just keep enough sane people cautious enough that we might get by.<\/p>\n Fauci and Maddow were talking about monoclonal antibody treatments. Two studies showed respectively 87 and 89% efficacy if administered early in the course of the disease, numbers so convincing that they dropped the double blind nature of the studies on the ground that it was not moral to give half the subjects a placebo based on what is known.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t mean that you can run out licking random seats in the New York subway knowing you just need to pop two in the mouth and you\u2019ll be all better. The treatments are by infusion only, and still very expensive. And if you get to the point where the symptoms are life-threatening, then you\u2019re far enough along that the treatment will be of little or any help. Fauci is hoping for a treatment that involves simple injections, or even just pills, but that\u2019s an unknown amount of time in the future. It\u2019s not here, and may not be here for years, but there is a cure.<\/p>\n Not mentioned was the spectre of \u201clong COVID\u201d. Roughly a third of people who become infected develop symptoms weeks or months later, even if they were completely asymptomatic to begin with. And yes, you can still be infected, even with the shots. You just are very unlikely to develop symptoms, and in the beginning, they will be mild. Nobody knows how that will affect development of \u201clong COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n Futher, variants are appearing, and while the evolutionary trend is for such variants to become both more contagious and milder (the weeding-out process of evolution means viruses that successfully inhabit live hosts will outnumber the ones that kill their hosts) that is just a trend. The mutations are individually random, and a variety of Covid could show up that is as lethal as Ebola and as communicable as measles. Worst case scenario, to be sure, but within the realm of possibility. And if we are reckless and go on acting as a culture medium for this virus, the higher the chances that something even nastier will crop up. And the more variations, the more types of vaccines are needed unless and until we can come up with an umbrella shot that can block all Covids. Note: we haven\u2019t been able to develop a shot like that for influenza, and with the common cold, it\u2019s pointless to even try.<\/p>\n Because of this, Biden\u2019s speech was perfect for the occasion. He didn\u2019t tell us what we wanted to hear. He told us what we needed to hear, and for most of us, that\u2019s going to help us a lot through the coming year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Joe\u2019s first White House Speech Reasonable Assurances and Sensible Warnings March 11th, 2021 Day fifty of the Biden presidency, and so far so good. Both politically and psychologically, today was a good point for Biden to stop and have a talk with the people. It came a few hours after he signed into law the … <\/p>\n