State of the covid

The good news is that it's looking like we're in the finishing stretch of the pandemic in the US for most reasonable states. The vaccination numbers are starting to come down, but I'm confident in the power of mass advertising and the capitalist machine to convince the consumers that it's better for everybody if they just got the goddamn vax. Barring some unexpected situation like vax-proof strain, by later this summer, and early fall we'll be masking only in very crowded situations, and movies etcetera will be open. And bars in pretty full capacity, clubs as well.

What is unlikely to happen, I'm starting to think, is the 'summer of love'. There's a lot of suppressed emotions and energy and desperation yes, but once you're over the mountain, people realize ehh it's actually a lot simpler this way, not being out and about all the time. And chilling in your place with close friends and loved ones isn't the worst idea in the world. The true emotional toll of partying hard and being out all the time will have been clear, thanks to the disease and the lockdowns. That's what I'm proposing anyway, it's different from what I said a few months ago, the 'priors' have been updated, and I'll update y'all on what it's looking like

In the rest of the world, it's a different story altogether.

India's situation is literally hellish, it'd be hard to imagine things getting worse when the pandemic began. Now we don't even want to jinx it because things could certainly go down south even more. And the current M*di government and its goons are making the situation much much worse. There's no accurate reporting, everybody is outdoing each other on lying about the infection and death rates, they care more about the optics than the actual death counts. It's incredibly depressing and sad, though not fully unexpected. You need strong, empowered institutions to function well in situations like these. M*di's spent the last seven years mostly dismantling the institutions that were functioning and turned them into loyal personal servants of his.

Nepal's situation is no better, the increase in the infection rates is the quickest there I"m told. Lack of oxygen has been a serious issue already, and I hear the Southern districts are already seeing a collapse of their healthcare system. The government is absent from governing because it's in nobody's interest to do that: it's always about personal power and enrichment, and dirty naked games to get up there. And they haven't stopped doing that while this massacre goes on. The times are terrible, this is awful, but at some point you end up paying for the price of incompetence. Alas it's the poor, sick, elderly who have to pay it, and not those who're responsible for the mess.