Some people will argue the pandemic isn't over in 3...2...1...
It is only one week ago, in the post
Of Panics and Uneducated Morons, that I had to correct The Atheist's post claiming that I didn't provide a link to an article even though I actually
did provide it:
How entirely predictable
you don't link to the article, which is about expert views, but do link to TwiXter, which is full of
uneducated morons who support your
panic.
From
the NPR link you didn't provide:
Oh noes, get the smelling salts... old, frail people are dying, possibly weeks early! This is tragic.
I think the good people at Johns Hopkins are a leetle bit more informed than some random panic-merchant on the internet:
IOW: deal with it.
The Atheist probably couldn't see the link I provided because I also provided the
name of the article and
bolded it. And now he is back without providing a link to the article about New Zealander Dr Richard Webby, a
"world-leading virus and vaccine expert," that hardly anyone outside of New Zealand has heard of, telling us his utterly
subjective meaning of the
word endemic:
"... but to me, it means ..."
That The Atheist doesn't
link to article shouldn't surprise anybody, but it's not what The Atheist usually does. That he also doesn't
name the article is also in line with the way he usually presents news, so here you have both:
Covid-19 will be with us forever - flu expert (RNZ/NZ Herald, Aug 18, 2024).
I got suspicious immediately when The Atheist presented him as a
virus expert and not as a
COVID-19 expert, which he obviously isn't.
That The Atheist leaves out not only the
name of the article, the
link to the article, and even the
name of the media may be due to the
introduction to the article. I think it probably is:
It may not be the topic of many conversations now, but more than
1500 people a week are still contracting Covid-19 in New Zealand and three or four people a day are dying from (!!!) it.
The virus is surging in 84 countries; and at the Olympic Games, dozens of athletes came down with it.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is worried about
dangerous new variants. It is a warning we have heard before – and it comes as vaccination rates wane globally.
Covid-19 will be with us forever - flu expert (RNZ/NZ Herald, Aug 18, 2024)
The Atheist also doesn't tell us what else Webby says:
“But you know, I’d say over the last ... two or three years, it really hasn’t dropped that much at all. It has maintained a level of disease–causing capacity that surprises me a little bit.”
As with any infectious disease, older people and those with underlying health issues were most at risk, he said.
I guess world-renowned Webby hasn't heard about
another infectious disease, the one that is currently killing African children and was discovered in Sweden just a few days ago. However, it has me worried that a virus expert doesn't know about all the
other viruses that kill children. I can see why an influenza expert may be focussed on his own field of expertise, but a
virus expert ought to know about, at least, all the other viruses that kill children.
ETA:
"WHO’s Collaborating Centre for Influenza studies" doesn't seem to exist. The correct title appears to be the
"WHO Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds."
This is Webby last year about bird flu:
"It's clear that this is
a very, very successful virus for birds, and that almost excludes it from being a very, very successful virus in mammals," said Richard Webby, director of the
WHO Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds at St. Jude Children's Hospital.
Why public health officials are not panicked about bird flu (Reuters, Feb 24, 2023)
What a genius! What a brilliant man!
Bird flu sends its greetings and tells us not to worry: It's doing fine in dairy cows, cats and people!
