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[yield]

Interesting read here on "peak denial"

A common strategy to neutralize a social problem is to make knowing about it hard, often by restricting efforts to look into it, like scaling back COVID tracking ... If the COVID situation is tracked and the public warned, things don’t feel normal. But if we don’t monitor or mention it, then things can feel “back to normal”—fine, even.

Another tactic is minimization. How we describe and measure things shapes how we feel about them. Which is why it’s important to notice when neutralizing language enters the chat. For some time now, turns of phrase like “endemic” and “during COVID” have been common vernacular. So have refrains like “lower hospitalizations than last year.” All of this gives off an “it’s just a cold,” “mission accomplished” vibe, casting the disease into a worry-free zone that’s safely behind us.

This minimization keeps the quiet part quiet: that “the world is still in a pandemic” per the WHO; that more than 73,000 Americans died of COVID in 2023, a higher number than from car accidents or influenza; among those infected, 9 percent and counting have long COVID, a serious and often disabling condition with a disease burden comparable to cancer or heart disease, and an economic cost rivaling the Great Recession, and for which there are no approved treatments. What’s more, each infection is associated with a substantially increased risk of health issues like cognitive dysfunction, autoimmune disease and cardiovascular problems, even for mild infections.

Pre-pandemic, these statistics would have been eye-popping. Now they constitute “back to normal.” We think we no longer have a problem, when actually we’ve just changed the standard by which we deem something concerning.

We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality

We are living through a terrible time in humanity. Here’s why we tend to stick our head in the sand and why we need to pull it out, fast

www.scientificamerican.com

Good article that, thanks. Added States of Denial by Stanley Cohen to my want list.

https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=states-of-denial-knowing-about-atrocities-and-suffering--9780745623924

 

[elbows]

Only reason I dont go on about that sort of thing more is that we knew it would end up this way.

Mind you, there remain a few key differences in how its panned out compared to what the normalising bullshitters were trying to sell people on, back when the normalisation process was just beginning.

Specifically, they were very keen to promote the idea that it would become a seasonal disease, and wank on about some kind of 'endemic equilibrium'. That really hasnt happened so far, summer waves are still a thing for example.

But that doesnt derail the normalisation agenda, the only thing that would probably stand a chance of doing that would be if any of the new variants busted through the population immunity picture to such an extent that the number of hospitalisations and deaths reached a level of intensity that could not be ignored. And obviously I dont want that to happen. And despite a lot of viral evolution and newsworthy new variants arriving several times a year, so far the waves have tended to peak well before such a scenario was reached.

Here is a recent UK news example of the next wave/mutations of interest. This is about as far as such news goes in recent years, there usually isnt much followup.

UK Covid hospitalisations increase following emergence of new variant

The rise is thought to be due to waning immunity and a new group of Covid variants collectively referred to as FLiRT

www.independent.co.uk

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, said the figures should serve as a “wake-up call” to those who think the virus has gone away.

“The virus hasn’t gone away and is certainly not a seasonal infection,” he told the i newspaper. “A combination of new, more infectious virus variants and waning immunity is very likely contributing to these increased levels of infection. The hope is that this will not result in a big wave of infection, but we need to keep a close watch.”