What do we do next?

BY late April 2020, scientists were already scrambling to find which protocols for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic were working and more effective. Comparisons between countries were not always valid or reliable. However, there should be some sort of benchmark that all nations could adopt to mitigate the spread of the virus.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is taking the lead on this. Rosalind Eggo, a mathematical modeler, was one of the prime movers of the research and search for answers. From nature. com April 27, 2020: “Researchers hope that, ultimately, they will be able to accurately predict how adding and removing control measures affect transmission rates and infection numbers. This information will be essential to governments as they design strategies.” It did not work as planned.

The researchers could not untangle which measures were genuinely effective. Too many variables. The best they could do even now is to measure how governments enforce “stringent” health guidelines, and to observe whatever protocols are being implemented. More “stringent” meant the doubling of cases took longer. But there is no universal consistency in results.

More than a year later, with some exceptions, the most prevalent strategies are: 1) National and localized quarantines, 2) Substantial testing and contact tracing, and the most current 3) Mass and targeted vaccinations.

Yet globally we have seen massive increases in cases with peaks in January, April, and now in August 2021.

The mass testing protocol is difficult to measure in terms of results in stopping the spread. Contact tracing and quarantine also help determine the effectiveness of health protocols. However, we know that there’s an inherent percentage of false results—both positive and negative. How much is anyone’s guess. Further, we also know that not all types of testing are “created equal,” given the various procedures and parameters.

Contact tracing is extremely difficult unless you have an in-place system, like what Singapore is doing with its universal ID, or an army of contact tracers like Vietnam’s military, police, and militia. Once tracers in Vietnam identify close contacts, they send them to quarantine camps. It has worked elsewhere, including in Taiwan. South Korea and Japan are using mobile-phone signals to track obedience.

In reality, failures occur at every stage of the test–trace–isolate sequence.

Vaccinations are looking to be the best protocol but are not a magic bullet. Dr. Anthony Fauci and the US Covid advisors have been proven wrong about “the science” of vaccines. After telling Americans that vaccines offer better protection than natural infection, a new study in Israel suggests the opposite.

Never-infected people who were vaccinated in January and February were six to 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with Covid. Israel was the first country to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens. Now Israel has 6.5 times as many cases per capita than the Philippines. And now the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that 78 percent of Covid hospitalizations involved people who were overweight or obese.

At some point in time, someone is going to have to stand up and say, “It’s not working.” We have not heard any new or original ideas for months. And if you think that only applies to the Philippines, you probably do not have a working Internet connection or are intellectually cut off from the rest of the world.