Taking Credit for the Plunge?

Is the Biden Administration's Free Tests and Masks Plan Clueless or just Cynical?

I'm sure you’ve heard the news that the Biden administration will soon be sending free Covid tests and N95 masks to all Americans.

NPR @NPR

The U.S. Postal Service has begun taking orders for at-home COVID-19 test kits. Households can order up to 4 of the rapid tests, which the postal service says will be shipped for free "in late January."

n.prThe Postal Service is now taking orders for free COVID-19 test kitsThe at-home tests are expected to be delivered by USPS later this month. The White House said the site is in “beta testing” and will be launched formally Wednesday.

David Lim @davidalim

SCOOP: The Biden administration is planning to announce tomorrow a plan to distribute hundreds of millions of N95 masks at pharmacies and other sites. The masks will be sourced from the Strategic National Stockpile. w/ @adamcancryn:

politico.comBiden plans giveaway of 400M masks as Omicron surgesThere are more than 750 million N95 masks in the Strategic National Stockpile, a White House official said.

Here's the question I'm pondering:

Are the folks running this plan:

• Still this clueless in thinking that free tests and N95's will have any effect on the overall epidemic curve?

or

• Are they cynical enough to understand that the Omicron wave is cresting regardless, but that they can claim credit for the downturn with these useless measures?
  

It's hard to know for sure as we still have members of the administration claiming that Omicron has yet to peak:

The Hill @thehill

Omicron surge has not yet peaked in the US, surgeon general warns hill.cm/lgdAtzJ

This week’s dip could be a holiday artifact, but regardless the peak is imminent.

But even if reported cases (which appear to have peaked on Friday) don't actually peak until this week, we know the peak is imminent since the leading indicator, Percentage of ER visits with COVID, has already peaked.

What this means is that, nationally, cases are peaking as we speak! This doesn't mean that they are peaking everywhere, New York and Florida are ahead of Texas and California for example, but it does mean the peak is coming everywhere. And after the peak comes the plunge, which will be as rapid as the rise!

This means that by the time all these free tests and masks actually arrive we will be halfway down from the peak, yet you can be certain the Biden administration will claim full credit for the plunge in cases. Sadly, I wouldn't expect any push back from the compliant media.

By the end of February cases across the country will be reaching or nearing pandemic lows, and regardless of the underlying reasons, you can be certain the ailing Biden administration will be crowing and looking to take credit to help bolster their terrible poll numbers. This leads me to believe that the moves being made this week are being made simply so they will have some actions to point back to for which they can attribute the plunge, and the moves were specifically made this week to coincide with the Omicron case peak.

Masks Never Worked

Aside from creating ill gotten political gains, this cynical move will do lasting damage. It advances the notion that universal masking and ubiquitous testing have made a difference, they haven't! Testing hasn't "slowed the spread" at all, but the exposure quarantines caused by every positive test do lasting damage to the workforce and the economy, as well as students and teachers in school. Likewise masks have never worked, and N95's need to be properly fitted, worn correctly with no gaps, and changed regularly, or they're just as useless as a cloth mask.

The Battle for a Return to Normal Has Just Begun

Instead of allowing us to return to normal, falsely crediting masking and testing now will lead us further from it. It will further instill the biomedical security culture which has been ratcheting up for two years now. It will lead to more mandates, not fewer, since it instills the "Illusion of Control" instead of the humbling admission that we had no control over Omicron, neither it's initial arrival, nor its precipitous rise and fall.

Zero Omicron will be as effective as Zero Covid

If the belief does truly set in that masks and testing are needed to make Covid go away, then you can be certain that they will remain mainstays in blue areas every winter for the foreseeable future when we inevitably have future endemic Covid waves.

So please do your part to reject this notion. You don't need to test yourself for Covid unless you feel sick enough that you need treatment, in which case see your doctor. You don't need an N95, or for that matter any masks, they don't work! Regardless of vaccination status you may get Omicron if you haven't already, but it's got a fatality rate on par with the Flu, we've accepted this level of risk all our lives. Now is the time to move on, please let the politicians know.

Anyway 0 and 2...