So for example, you consider the 3 Democratic Governors of California, Oregon and Washington ending their state's various mask mandates 4+ months after the VA election to be "eager to end COVID restrictions no matter what".
Do you think the Omicron wave might have had more to do with the COVID restrictions than the VA governor's race?
> Do you think the Omicron wave might have had more to do with the COVID restrictions than the VA governor's race?
I don't.
The case numbers in many, if not most areas, are still higher than they were during the delta wave in the Summer and Fall that led to the lockdowns and restrictions being implemented in the first place.
If this were truly just about the data then you'd expect the restrictions to lift once the case counts returned to pre-delta numbers.
Edit/Clarification: I say this as someone is/was generally been in favor of a very cautious response to COVID.
The current case numbers come with a lower fatality rate so the same case numbers don't suggest the same level of action as before.
Also the context of the numbers matters. They're trending down now, not up, and the variant spikes are over. In the middle of delta/omicron we didn't know what was going to happen.
And yes, there's fatigue on everyone's part. The relative lower danger of omicron, plus being past the delta spike then the omicron spike, means we're just kind of collectively over it. Citizens have fatigue, they're just not built to stay on guard for a third year. Policy makers are fatigued, they can't force people to stay home for another year to save lives from covid just like they can't force people to stop driving to save lives from car crashes.
So admitting there's a political aspect is fine, but it's a lot more nuanced than the election cycle, which is a much more contrived explanation than everyone's response to a dramatic drop in the numbers.
The peak of the delta wave was 160k cases/day, and the current case levels are ~52k/day. So given that, you think most areas are having higher case loads than the peak of the delta wave? You just aren't look at the data. There is also strong reason to believe that right after a huge wave is over you can expect a relatively smooth period of time to follow since so many people will have extra immunity from having recovered from covid.
The people making these decisions are not idiots, they can look at the data and make sane and rational predictions about what might happen in the future, and then adapt if necessary.
> The people making these decisions are not idiots
Most of the world would beg to differ. Particularly in the West, this whole situation was handled abominably and was an embarrassment at all levels. Even most doctors will tell you the CDC bungled this whole thing mightily.
Can it be both? I do feel like this is at a nexus of action in fact.
Also sure its 4+months after the VA governors race but here in LA the mayoral election is up and its hot. So is the DA race...which honestly...how many voters can tell me what the DA even does outside of their exposure to law and order?
Sheer numbers of cases and deaths don't reflect the need to drop vigilance, esp to a level where no one wears masks regardless of vaccination status. Our president just announced months ago (over the holidays) that people who were unvaxxed were likely to die with a press release the equivalent of a :shrug: emoji.
This is definitely due to the wind down of the omicron cases but chance and luck is what will keep us from another wave, not droppings masks and having no vaccination mandates or having them sector by sector driven by industry.
Do you think the Omicron wave might have had more to do with the COVID restrictions than the VA governor's race?