As the emergencies sputter to an end ...

Today's the day that the federal and state COVID-19 public health emergencies end. That doesn't mean the pandemic is over, as three different items (one article and two opinion pieces) in today's Boston Globe show.
First off, if you look at excess deaths, the threat is still not over:
( Read more... )

Meanwhile, the Globe's Editorial Board likes the state lifting its health care mask mandate, assuming that hospitals know best:
( Read more... )

The Globe editorial doesn't address the danger of persons who are asymptomatic but infections.

Nor does that editorial address the danger of long COVID. Kimberly Atkins Stohr, a Globe columnist who herself has long COVID, reminds readers that the nation shouldn't leave the long haulers behind:
( Read more... )

To sum up: declaring the emergencies to be over doesn't mean people aren't dying, or that survivors aren't running into serious problems obtaining long-term care. It just means most folks (including the Globe editorial board, apparently) can now stop pretending to give a damn. Until they are individually affected, I guess.

Feh.

Local COVID-19 updates

( Wall-o-text )

Newly confirmed deaths and cases up compared to last week? Hospitalizations and percent-positive also up over last week? Even as tests continued to drop (now to levels last seen in March of 2020)?

This is not good news, especially as the public health emergencies are officially ending. At least the MWRA wastewater counts are basically the same as last week.

End of Exposure Notifications, as well?

Surprise! My iPhone just notified me that it had turned off Exposure Notifications. Apparently, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts just shut down their notification system:

MassNotify, the official COVID-19 exposure notification system for Massachusetts, was discontinued with the end of the federal COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11, 2023.

Of course, the death, case and hospitalization counts all went up this week. But the emergency is officially over, and that's all that counts. Right?

Feh.