I’ve been on the road across several states since Dec. 4. For the most part, life is the most normal it’s been in the past 18 months in most locales. It’s clear that almost no one is downscaling any plans for a second straight Christmas due to paranoia or misinformation.
A new national poll confirms this. It shows the majority of vaccinated Americans — 73% — will keep plans to attend in-person holiday events in the coming weeks, even as bureaucrats advise people to take extra precautions amid “surging” COVID-19 cases.
An even higher proportion of the unvaccinated, more than three in four, said the same.
The poll also reported a similarly high rate of both the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations would happily dine indoors at a restaurant.
Meanwhile, a startling 83% of vaccinated people said they would still mask up in public indoor places, compared with only 63% of unvaccinated folks. I’ve not seen mask requirement indoors anywhere except sports venues on college campus, where they’re ignored anyway.
Related: The Abundance of Caution Absurdity on COVID-19 and Omicron
In his Saturday newsletter, Mark Halperin summarized aptly:
“In New York City, the Dominant Media, and other precincts of a weary nation, the resurgent pandemic is everywhere, all the time, a consuming preoccupation with rules, charts, stats, and grave anticipation that the worst is yet to come, then added, “In the Redlands and (truth be told) among a not insignificant number of Blueville denizens, the pandemic is over, life is back to normal, and COVID is akin to the flu, something too boring and backward looking to even discuss.”
While the seven-day average number of new cases and hospitalizations are rising, mainly in northern locales, they already plunged in South Africa, where omicron originated.
There are almost no deaths from the variant we first learned about on Thanksgiving, no matter how much the media wishes for death.
“We really do want people to be able to gather and gather safely. We have the tools now to do it, and what we’re really saying is please rely on those tools,” said embattled CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, who was called out by left-wing Atlantic magazine last week. She went on to lecture, “Use the next week to make sure you’re practicing those safe prevention mitigation strategies so that when you come together for the holidays, that people have not been exposed to the virus because in fact they’ve been vaccinated, boosted, and masked.”
Related: Omicron Panic Spreading as Some Schools Going Back to Remote Learning
If anyone is still listening to these disconnected technocrats? The “White House COVID-19 response team” recently tried to tamp down panic by pointing to evidence that the strain is less severe than delta, provided the person is vaccinated.
Some of the disconnects in coverage of Omicron is really just about time horizons, because a variant that is considerably more transmissible but considerably milder could be bad news in the short run but good news in the long run.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 18, 2021
Nearly 85% of American adults are vaccinated, but as The New York Times moaned from their parochial bubble, just one-third of adults have received a booster dose.
Is that the third or fourth shot?
Facts on the ground do not support the panic and drama. Just enjoy the holiday.
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