Virus lags; debate still rages
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
Hard to believe that four years ago this month, the COVID-19 pandemic was just getting warmed up. In fact, it wasn’t until the third week of March 2020 that the first reported case landed in Hidalgo County. From there, it was all downhill.
By April 23, 2020, there were already 290 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hidalgo County, with four fatalities.
A year later, April 19, 2021, there were 87,159 confirmed COVID cases in Hidalgo County, with 2,804 confirmed COVID-related fatalities.
Still, there were some people, still are, who argued that the pandemic was a hoax, there was no need to get vaccinated, and people who wore facemasks had been brainwashed by nefarious bad actors.
Trying times, mixed with a heavy dose of insanity.
According to CDC data, though, at least 81 percent of the adult U.S. population received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Finger pointing as to who was the craziest, that defined the height of the pandemic. Those who endorsed the two COVID vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna mainly), social distancing, wearing a face mask in a social setting, or those who downplayed the pandemic, throwing caution to the wind, claiming that the people dying around them were really dying from the flu. Instead of getting vaxxed, take some Ivermectin instead.
Last Friday, the CDC released a statement (new guidelines) that said people who now test positive for COVID-19 need no longer stay away from others for at least five days. Now, Covid is going to be treated like other respiratory infections, including the flu and RSV.
According to the CDC, people who contract Covid should stay home until they’re fever-free without any meds for at least 24 hours and their symptoms have been improving for 24 hours.
After that, they can go about their business as normal, resume routine activities, according to the new CDC guidelines. Still, the agency recommends that people who caught the virus, or think they have, take added precautions, such as improved ventilation, masking, and limited contact with others — to reduce the risk of increased viral spread.
How Far We’ve Come
In mid-April 2022, two years after the initial outbreak, Hidalgo County reported a total of 198,917 COVID-positive cases locally and a total fatality number of 3,895.
After that, the pandemic continued to wind down, even though the political rhetoric swirling around it continued firing on all cylinders. By early November of 2022, the county quit sending out its daily COVID-19 updates – positive cases, deaths, ICU cases, school numbers.
By 2023, life was pretty much back to normal, except for the few who continued contracting the virus and falling dead, mainly due to co-morbidities.
What’s mind boggling today is that some people, a relatively few, still doubt the very existence of the pandemic. The number of fatalities? The flu did it. A government conspiracy, a reason for Big Pharma to get rich, that’s the answer.
This, despite the fact that in 2021, there were 2.5 million hospitalizations for COVID-19, and in 2023, that number dropped 60 percent to 900,000 hospitalizations. (Thanks to the vaccines.)
The decrease in fatalities has been even more impressive. In 2021, there were 450,000 deaths from COVID-19; in 2023, that number declined 83 percent to about 75,000 deaths. (Source: CDC.)
Then, there is the belief still floating around that among young adults who were vaccinated, there is a higher incident of cardiac- related deaths. However, based on a study published in the journal “Mayo Clinic Proceedings” in 2022, there was no association found between COVID-19 vaccination and overall mortality.
“While a small, statistically significant association emerged for cardiac- related mortality, this finding wasn’t replicated in subgroup analyses and is likely due to chance.”
No matter how you slice it, COVID-19 has now dropped from the third leading cause of deaths in the U.S. (2020 and 2021) to the 10th leading cause today (CDC’s preliminary data).
Meanwhile, the CDC is also recommending that people age 65 and over get another Covid booster.
Salute the Heroes
Meanwhile, on the local front, “Covid Heroes & Memorial Day Celebration” was being celebrated this Monday at the Edinburg Conference Center at Renaissance. It was hosted by State Rep. “Bobby” Guerra and State Senator Morgan LaMantia.
The Texas Legislature established this celebration last year with the passage of HB 2166.
Authored in part by Guerra, a state bill established this salute, if you will, “in honor of the people who lost their lives to the pandemic, and in honor of healthcare workers, first responders, and other essential workers who kept working during the pandemic so the public could stay safe.”
The new “Act” took effect Sept. 1, 2023.
Occasionally, the state gets a few things right, and this is one of them. Because no matter how one views the pandemic — lockdowns were necessary or not — there were still a lot of people dying at the height of it, getting extremely ill, with too many landing in the local ICUs.
Yet, it was these people being so honored by the “COVID Heroes & Memorial Day Celebration” who were on the front lines, handling the sick Covid patients; and indeed, more than a few healthcare workers died caring for the sick.
They were the ones handling the sick people in the ambulances, at the ERs, inside the ICUs, worried about their own safety, and yet, they continued to show up to work.
It’s with them in mind that we celebrate this day, this week, to thank them for the work they did during very difficult times.
Meanwhile, to show his thanks for the way things turned out, Texas AG Ken Paxton, fresh off of dealing with his wife, his alleged mistress, and a messy impeachment process, is suing Pfizer, Inc., claiming that it unlawfully misrepresented the effectiveness of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to censor public discussion of the product.
“You mean the same vaccine that helped save so many lives?”
“Yeah, that one.” According to Paxton: “Pfizer engaged in false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims regarding the company’s COVID-19 vaccine in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.” (Source: Office of Texas AG Ken Paxton.)
Ken, always entertaining to watch. Or not.