It was the ostensible end of the week, not that there is an actual one and the remaining production issues at Socotra House had the attention of the Writer’s Section assembled on the Farm’s Loading Dock. The dawn was crisp and clear, and the smoke from Splash’s Marlboro whirled toward the trucks in the parking lot. There was some animated discussion about how to get clear of remaining issues before turning our attention to the weekend activities, like changing our clocks to increase our seasonal disorientation.

Splash looked annoyed. “You want to run a story about the pandemic? For goodness sake, it is Friday, and the Interns are getting ready for the weekend. We don’t have enough of them to carry all the Footnote signs to ensure that people don’t think we are denying the lethal level of the impact of the Pandemic.”

“Yeah, it was bad, and most of us are vaccinated with that stuff that wasn’t considered a vaccine until the CDC changed the definition last year.”

“Stop it, that requires a Footnote before you can even begin talking about it. Covid was the killer of almost 750,000 Americans. That is no laughing matter, nor any excuse to ridicule the imposition of mandatory vaccinations on just about everyone now that the infection seems to be pretty much over.”

“That is accurate, but it might reflect something else. If we took that approach we wouldn’t even bother with reporting what is going on.”
“If we did, we would correctly be ridiculed as a bunch of cranky old people in the group with the highest vulnerability.”

“Well…there are a couple things we said early on in the panic. The test for positive Covid infection was wildly oversensitive to detect it.”
“Yeah, but that was necessary because of the threat. We needed to get everyone vaccinated to protect the nation.”

Splash was having fun, and refuses to tell us if he is vaccinated or not. “That doesn’t mean a person who tested positive and got into a fatal motorcycle accident or died of gunshot wounds should be part of the total number of deaths from the virus.”

Loma sighed. “I was the only one here who has worked one of these things with many of the same Public Health people who are around today. It was the SARS virus back in 2002. I was working a project for the Secretary of Health and Human Services when they noticed a strain of something nasty coming out of Hong Kong. It was huge. They followed the same process at HHS headquarters they did this time, and set up working groups. I was available to support the Task Force. Under the same Dr. Fauci who is so famous at the moment.”

“People are claiming he helped fund the development of Covid in the Wuhan Lab.”

“I liked him then and like him now. I don’t know about the Lab funding issue, but I do know that there was talk about needing to know more about the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. How it worked, how it was transmitted, and how we could stop it. SARS had a 10% fatality rate, and it scared the hell out of a lot of us. I supported imposition of quarantine procedures in 2002 to ensure we could nip it in the bud.”

“They didn’t do that, did they?”

“No. Dr. Fauci told me himself the consequences and disruption from shutting down the economy could be as devastating as the effects of the disease.”

“That was then and this is now. We need a Footnote to point that out. Why are we shackled to artificial things like time off for the Interns to tell the whole story?”

“It hasn’t been told yet. Italy just announced that they are recalculating the number of Covid deaths to those who died of it, not “with it.” They revised their total official deaths due to Covid down by 97%. Until this week they were reporting more than 130,000 casualties. The Italian Health Department now claims only about 4,000 died from the disease.”

“That is still extraordinary. It means most fatalities were functions of other co-morbidities, like diabetes and other stuff. What is strange is that now that it seems the worst is over, they are threatening to get people fired for non-compliance. That includes people who have already had Covid and are immune naturally, or have religious objections or other health issues.”

“That is just what Dr. Fauci said about SARS. But see, accuracy was important but secondary to the necessity for mobilization. We needed to get everyone vaccinated. The way this was reported was supposed to encourage a more effective response.”

“The press release from the Italians claimed the people who died had between one and five pre-existing conditions in addition to being positive for Covid. And the older people with fatalities, a quarter of them had two or three other conditions that contributed to their deaths.”

“We have been quiet about the issue, since we believe in Public Health. It only took a year and a half, but now the Italians have confirmed what many of us suspected. The way this was reported was intended to stimulate public response to a threat, not report some other truth about lethality.”
“Isn’t there just one truth?”

“Not in generating a public response. According to the CDC, 746,705 Americans have died with COVID. If we apply Italy’s new rule, the actual death count is only around 22,000 or so.”

“That is still a tragic number of people who died. And CDC said there weren’t that many flu deaths last year because of the Covid restrictions.”
“It is about the message, not the truth,” grumbled Splash.

“The truth was the first Covid casualty.”

“Stop it. We need the Interns to put the Footnotes up before we even try to talk about anything else. This was serious and a serious response was necessary. But that is why we have Footnotes.”

“Shouldn’t the Interns have to prove they were vaccinated like you guys who were going to go to San Diego? That would ensure some kind of balance.”

“We got vaccinated because it looked like there were going to be travel restrictions, and the risk of complications from the vaccine was less than the risk of family turmoil for not showing up in California. And now there is talk about a booster shot being required. A balanced message wouldn’t be as effective in leveraging public response. And response is a good thing.”

“And that is a sort of truth, too.”

DeMille had a thin smile, as usual. “Whether it is true or not.”

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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