Someone found this gem, which led to Donald Trump getting torched in the media: he compared COVID to the flu. In the first few weeks, that might have been dubious, but ever since the Omicron wave, maybe even before that, this virus has veered toward being treated as an infection commonly seen with the seasonal flu. The vaccine was a red flag of sorts. It wasn’t the bulletproof vest that the experts advertised. Americans who got the vaccine still got sick—much like those who take the flu vaccine. It reduces the risk of dying or a hospital trip; that’s the benefit. It’s one that the public has accepted for generations. With COVID, however, the proverbial gun got shoved in our faces with mandates and threats of termination from the workplace.
How It Started vs. How It’s Going pic.twitter.com/jiqoN7ofdY
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) March 2, 2024
The latest CDC revisions to COVID protocols should spark a new wave of fury directed at the medical experts who hauled us into a bunker and kept our kids out of school. After all the panicking that encouraged and shared by the media about this virus, the new treatment recommendations align with other common respiratory illnesses. You also don’t need to isolate for five days anymore (via WSJ):
A case of Covid no longer means isolating for five days, according to the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday. It’s the latest sign of the virus’s normalization four years after it upended our lives.
You should now follow the same precautions with Covid as you take with the flu, according to new guidelines from the CDC. That means staying home until you’ve gone a day with no fever and symptoms start to improve. Take other precautions for the next five days, including wearing a mask and limiting close contact with others.
Those are the same steps the CDC recommends for other respiratory viruses.
“Covid-19 is still an important public health threat, but it is not the emergency that it once was,” said Dr. Brendan Jackson, who leads the respiratory virus response for the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease, on Friday.
“And its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other [respiratory viral] illnesses, including influenza and RSV.”
[…]
Many doctors say that at this point, common sense should guide you. If you feel sick, stay home. When you’re feeling well enough to go out but still have some symptoms, it’s a good idea to wear a mask indoors to protect others. Be more cautious if you’re going to be around more vulnerable people, such as those who are immunocompromised or elderly.
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The flu still kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. Infections annually soar into the millions. COVID is now an endemic virus that will continue to infect millions. Some deaths will occur, but like the flu, we’ll come to live with it—most of us have already done so. Of course, the doctors quoted in the WSJ piece had to add that COVID is not the flu, but still:
Let’s be clear. Covid-19 is not the flu,” said Jackson at the CDC. “It still causes more serious illness and leads to more lasting effects,” he said.
Again, they say this, though the new treatment protocols are virtually a carbon copy for flu infections.
‘COVID is not the flu, but you should follow the guidance for those infected with…the flu.’
You can see how this doesn’t line up in most voters' minds because it doesn’t. We’re also sick of the scare games. This thing ended months ago. It’s not like people were isolating for days if they got infected.
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