COVID Sanity on the Rise

It’s sometimes like pulling teeth, but the nation is making fitful progress toward COVID sanity.

Here in New York, Gov. Hochul and (especially) Mayor Adams are refusing to panic amid the Omicron wave, as their teams offer ever more good sense and better information. Glimmers of sanity are even showing in President Biden’s orbit.

Plenty of idiocy remains, even on the Supreme Court, where Friday’s hearing on Biden’s vaccine mandate for most US businesses brought some huge whoppers from the liberal wing.

Justice Steven Breyer, for one, pointed to “750 million new COVID cases yesterday” — when the entire US population is only half that figure. He also said, “Hospitals are full almost to the point of the maximum,” another wild error: The overall inpatient population isn’t growing.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, meanwhile, claimed vaccination prevents transmission of the virus — contradicting no less than Biden CDC chief Rochelle Walensky, who noted this summer that Delta rendered that untrue.

And it’s even worse with Omicron, though that variant has proved far milder. Not that Sotomayor has noticed: She said Friday that it’s as deadly, another huge error. That rivals her wild claim that “we have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators.” Huh? Fewer than 4,000 US kids have COVID at

all, per the federal Health and Human Services count.

Not that any of those “facts” have a thing to do with whether Biden’s mandate is constitutional: It’s not, and (thankfully) other justices showed far more sense.

Meanwhile, a pack of former Biden advisers on COVID are facing the fact that the coronavirus will be with us forever, albeit while posing a far less deadly threat, releasing a package of recommendations in the Journal of the American Medical Association under the headline, “A National Strategy for the ‘New Normal’ of Life With COVID.”

The specific ideas from Ezekial “Dr. Death” Emanuel and his colleagues range from the sound (allowing far more telemedicine and medical practice across state lines) to the absurd (permanent “vaccine passports” for all Americans), but at least they’re clear that “Zero Covid” is a foolish and unattainable goal.

The prez himself now admits, “Having COVID in the environment here and in the world is probably here to stay,” which follows his belated recognition that “there is no federal solution” to the virus. (But leopards don’t change their spots: He still wants his vax mandate to go through, and the White House is reportedly looking at asking for more “COVID relief ” funds.)

Even the CDC has been showing some reason, reducing its recommendations for quarantine down to five days, “even” for kids.

And the Food and Drug Administration is (reluctantly) OK’ing some of the new treatments. But both agencies remain largely stuck in their old afraid-to-approve-anything-new ways, delaying approval of anti-COVID innovations already in wide use around the world. And the White House (unlike Team Trump) is letting them get away with it.

But New York’s own change of leadership is proving a huge plus. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio was actually pretty good on the need to keep schools open, but Adams is being a true stalwart despite the Omicron panic among many teachers.

And Adams’ new schools chancellor, David Banks, is fantastic, telling The Post: “A lot of time people talk about remote learning, but they talk about that from an adult perspective,” when, “if you listen to this from a student perspective, the kids want to be in school.”

Hochul, meanwhile, has already delivered on her vow to get more detailed info from hospitals — and to share it. On Friday, she revealed that half of city hospitalizations “with” COVID “involved patients who tested positive after being admitted for ‘non-COVID reasons’ ”; the statewide figure is about 40%.

That means the rise in hospitalization is less cause for worry, since it’s a weak signal of greater actual danger. Plus, as Hochul has also noted, the soaring numbers of people testing positive in this Omicron wave have led to far fewer hospitalizations and death.

Because Omicron is much milder, the gov even urged people to not use the ER to get tested unless your symptoms are serious. That makes complete sense: You don’t worry about just what flu or cold virus has hit you; if you’re not really sick, you shouldn’t have any great fear over Omicron; just treat the symptoms.

And, as new state Health Commissioner Mary Bassett explained Friday, cases seem to be leveling off as rapidly as they did in South Africa’s Omicron wave.

“I think we can expect a difficult January, but things should be much better by February,” she said.

She also offered comfort on children, noting that state still has just 211 kids hospitalized with COVID — up from 14 on Dec. 1, but still a tiny total in a state with 3 million under-18s. And none are in the ICU.

Plenty of folks are still clinging COVID hysteria, especially among America’s sheltered elites. But after nearly two years, sound sense is finally winning out.