When it comes to COVID-19, the phrase “abundance of caution” is still everywhere.
About 18 months ago, a deadly pandemic was crushing the globe. There were no American pharmaceutical companies helping prevent the worst outcome. Society’s institutions did whatever they could to keep caseloads low and preserve hospital space.
But, despite the incessant fear mongering, those unprecedented conditions no longer exist, so why does the “abundance of caution” mantra persist? Mostly to justify anti-science, draconian policies with no other rational basis.
Examples of this madness are abundant.
Also, pls ignore evidence that initial vaccinations remain effective against hospitalization and death and instead only focus on infections and pretend anyone who isn't boosted is in trouble. And probably boosted people too.
Really, only consider things that make you panic.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) December 18, 2021
Cornell University, a left-wing Ivy League school, went to “Alert Level Red,” not in response to a coronavirus outbreak, but in anticipation. Due to “preliminary evidence” of the “highly contagious Omicron variant,” and even though case numbers were very low, the New York campus canceled events, closed buildings, took exams virtual, and locked down their students “out of an abundance of caution.”
Though the university acknowledged early evidence suggesting Omicron is less severe than its predecessors, its transmissibility means case rates likely will climb. And “outbreaks must be taken seriously” — even if 97% of school’s students and faculty are fully vaccinated and thus at very little risk.
The NCAA, the National Basketball Association, National Football League, and the National Hockey League are canceling or postponing games in response to COVID outbreaks affecting players. The NBA wants its young, healthy players to submit to a third shot, because “the pandemic is still very much a problem.” It doesn’t matter that two-thirds of the league have already received their booster shots; teams for some reason felt it was best to cancel their games, instead of having even one unvaccinated player on the roster. This is a rogue league and apparently also dumb.
The entire NHL is vaccinated. And yet, the same measures put in place in the darkest days of 2020 are still implemented, not because we lack the tools to fight the pandemic, but out of “an abundance of caution.”
Nearly 95% of NFL players are vaccinated, yet three games have been postponed this weekend.
Why did anyone get a vaccine if the rules remain unchanged?
Even U.S. foreign policy is being affected.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken cut short a diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia when a traveling reporter tested positive for COVID. Blinken is fully vaccinated and has never tested positive. His delegation is similarly immunized, and they are all subject to a thorough testing regime. Nevertheless, State Department Spokesman Ned Price explained Blinken is coming home early to “mitigate the risk of the spread of COVID-19” and “out of an abundance of caution.”
So preliminary studies indicate this variant is less severe but contagious enough that it may outpace COVID’s deadlier variants. That’s good. Deaths and serious illness matter; cases don’t. It isn’t polyannaish to acknowledge evidence. If you won’t allow yourself honesty, but rather let paranoia supersede science, you’re doomed to a life of fear and ignorance.
Related: COVID Reality Check: Omicron Spreads Rapidly But Does Not Cause Much Death So Far
Oddly, those who believe that public policy should be dedicated to totally halting the spread of this disease — instead of containing it, preventing the worst outcomes, and preserving hospital capacity — don’t believe they’re being paranoid; they’re just using “an abundance of caution.”
It’s cruel at this point.
Americans are burned out on the perpetual control from ruling class technocrats, who’ve been inconsistent, pedantic, and wrong more often than right the last two years.
