"We Want Them Infected"

 

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD," then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials. 

"Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…" Alexander added. 

"[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected" in order to get "natural immunity…natural exposure," Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee's select subcommittee on coronavirus.

This doesn't really even come as a surprise at this point: the spread of COVID-19 in the US was driven by a nonsense idea of acquiring herd immunity by assuming that young people weren't harmed by the virus and failing to understand that they can spread the virus to others. The notion ("PERIOD"!) that low-risk groups, because they might not experience dramatic physical health deficits from the virus, should be exposed without understanding that everyone lives in a society seems like peak imbecile conservatism--assuming some "sacrifices" keep others safe instead of understanding how we are interconnected. 

Young people and "middle aged with no conditions", it turned out, didn't actually have zero to little risk. To go further, the idea contains within it a failure of the imagination--that only two conditions exist: fine and dead--without understanding that people could experience health complications that might not kill them within weeks or months, but would nonetheless possibly shave years off of their lives, or significantly impact functionality. Or it was a blatant dismissal of the meaning and consequence of those affected for the Administration--the disposability of some people. ("Blue state" people. Minorities.)The lit fuse on a bomb that would only go off some time later when it could be plausibly denied.

It was a thoughtless experiment with human lives. It's shitty science proceeding from shitty politics--and let's note that it definitely was about politics. The Trump Administration inserted itself into CDC decision-making and messaging in a way that made everything worse than it needed to be. They thought they could message facts away. 

Over 300, 000 people have now died in the US. It could be numbing. The callous and ignorant disregard for life and health distributed from the top--the message that we could all just go on as usual is infuriating though. I contemplate that people may have died needlessly for messaging. Because it was an election year. 

I don't know how to be numb about that.