COVID Policy, In Hindsight

I've said many times that it would have been better if there'd been no response at all to COVID, rather than what governments around the world did.

I was right... and wrong.

How was I right? Well, no response WOULD have been a BETTER response. How was I wrong? Well, that wouldn’t have been the BEST response.

Let's face it there was not ever going to be no response to COVID. The public does always demand -- to our shame as a supposedly democratic people -- that the government do something! So, what WOULD have been a good and effective response? I’d like to propose the following “Six-Point Plan.” It’s not a real plan, because the last two items are actions notto take.

Item 1: We learned very early the composition of the populations vulnerable to the virus: the elderly and the health-compromised. Quarantine them. Don't allow any COVID patients anywhere near them. Do it REALLY humanely and gently and nicely, or: how one should ALWAYS treat the elderly and the infirm.

Item 2: We learned early on that the virus doesn't survive outside. Therefore: FORCE the virus outside! Kill it! In businesses, implement air circulation systems that regularly move the inside air to the outside, and cycle the outside air in, while filtering it for allergens and other noxious particulate matter.

In homes, regardless of the temperature, crack a window, put a small fan in the window, point it outside and turn it on. At the other end of the house open another window. Circulate the inside air to the outside, and along with it, the virus. Find some way to circulate the air out and bring new air in. Do you have an elderly or infirm COVID patient in your home? Be sure to change his or her room's air regularly. Then, be sure to push THAT air out of the house.

Item 3: Since such air circulation procedures would make workplaces safer than most homes (which will NOT frequently change the air -- particularly in the winter), let healthy and younger people (say, younger than 50 years old) work as normal. They'll be at less risk, generally, at work than at home.

Hey, OSHA! If we have to have your odious ilk in our midst, this notion of changing the air in businesses actually makes a LOT of sense! It's good for people at ALL times of the year, pandemic or not! Interesting side note: We've all heard of the phenomenon of the "sick building." These are buildings in which the occupants fall ill at alarming rates. Universally, at least ONE answer to this is: proper air circulation. Or: Get the virus-laden clouds of air breathed out by people, out of the building -- to where it dies.

Item 4: If you'd done these things, then you could have had a much better development process for vaccines. The inept, corrupt, PR-centered rollout and pushing of the vaccines made the COVID situation far worse, and likely irreparably destroyed any trust the people had in either the government or the nation's public health authorities. It made of the U.S. government the biggest pusher of harmful drugs in world history.

 Item 5: Under no circumstances censor dissenting and questioning points of view. Few things were more harmful to the relationship between the people and the government than the corrupt collusion between Social Media gazillionaires, the government and public health authorities. Especially when it turned out that, time and time and time and time again, the dissenters turned out to be… right, and THAT fact could not be concealed.

The censorship and deplatforming and canceling made it appear -- rightly, it turns out -- that the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-powerful, as well as, inexcusably, top public health authorities, were all conspiring together to deny the people the truth, and in so doing, significantly endangered the public health.

Item 6: No mandates, but go ahead and make some suggestions. Masks indoors are debatable, but some people prefer them. Okay. Let them wear them. The only harm, if there is any, will be to the wearer.

Social distancing? Unnecessary if people are actively circulating air. However, no harm if people feel the desire to social distance. Let people know what can (not necessarily will) prevent transmission of the virus, and then let the people do as they see fit with the information.

One important suggestion: Get outside! The virus dies outside! And, when you’re outside, take off the frickin’ mask! The virus dies outside! Breathe out as many virus bits into the outside air as you want! Why? The virus dies outside!

Our governments and public health authorities did so many things wrong in this whole mess that it’d be difficult to enumerate them all. However, one of the most egregious sins was to incentivize various institutions to count COVID casualties incorrectly, thereby irreparably harming our ability to learn from the COVID experience.

Something as simple as “Died FROM COVID” vs. “Died of something else, but had COVID too” was consistently counted as “Died FROM COVID,” thereby enormously inflating the COVID casualty numbers, increasing the panic in the public at large, and fueling ever greater irrationality and stupidity in the response. Some estimates have this overcounting as on the order of sixteen to one!

Still, with all that, it became obvious soon enough that you couldn't have killed more people, more effectively, with a tool such as COVID, than if you had done exactly what our governments and public health authorities did -- especially at the state level, where governors were slaughtering older people wholesale. All in the name of combatting the virus!

Recognizing that I’m doing this with the huge advantage of hindsight, that’ll do for now as a proposed high-level response map for COVID. I’d love to hear contrary or supporting and enhancing points of view.