The Democrats are playing politics with public health, and we must hold them accountable.

On Sept. 28, The New York Times reported that 1,312 people died of COVID nationally on that day.

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. between March 2020 and October 2021, according to an analysis of national death certificate data by researchers at the National Cancer Institute.

In a richly sourced article in The Atlantic, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong also recently detailed that “America experienced the largest life-expectancy decline of any wealthy country in 2020 — and unlike its peers, continued declining in 2021.” You can read his article here.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicates that nearly one in five of those who have had COVID are currently still having symptoms of long COVID. Long COVID is now the country’s third leading neurological disorder, the American Academy of Neurology declared in July.

But even given all of this, the CDC has attempted to normalize an appalling level of COVID death and disability.

With numbers like these, it’s astounding that anyone would suggest the pandemic is over, and yet it’s also predictable. We are only a month from the midterm elections.

Historically, organizing among capitalist interests against public health measures has been commonplace, and the Biden administration’s “mission accomplished” claim, on “60 Minutes,” of the pandemic being over has been in the works for several months.

On Dec. 21, 2021, Delta Airlines wrote a letter to the CDC requesting the quarantine times be reduced, which you can read here.

Six days later, the CDC reduced its guidance on quarantine times to five days, claiming it was based on science. Many scientists and epidemiologists, including Vashon’s own Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) have been vocal in their disagreement with this guidance.

On Feb. 24, a memo titled “Taking the Win Over Covid-19,” was sent from Democratic strategists to “interested parties.” Not based in science, but on polling numbers, it suggested that COVID is “like the flu,” and instructed Democrats to declare the “emergency over” and to “push for feeling and acting more normal.” You can read the memo here.

The next day, the CDC released updated COVID-19 guidelines that were heavily focused on individual responsibilities and prioritized hospitalizations over cases, implicitly tolerating infections and making those individual responsibilities impossible to negotiate while deceptively suggesting “low” risk. The People’s CDC, a coalition of public health practitioners, scientists, healthcare workers, educators, advocates and people from all walks of life working to reduce the harmful impacts of COVID-19, responded here.

There has been more pushback, as well.

On April 27, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) held a hearing to create a permanent standard to protect healthcare workers from COVID, with more than 100 public and occupational health experts writing a letter of support.

Those experts, including Jordan Barab, former deputy assistant secretary of OSHA, noted that “CDC’s recommendations are not set through a transparent process and often prioritize political considerations and supply considerations over the best available scientific evidence.”

But Washington State Hospital Association and Kaiser Permanente were among those who opposed OSHA’s proposed standard.

And on Sept.23, going against the recommendations of OSHA, the CDC dropped mask mandates for medical facilities, suggesting masking was not required in areas depicted as “low” transmission using the deceptive new metrics as indicated above.

This removed the last place vulnerable communities could rely on masking for protection against infection and seriously endangers already overtaxed health care workers.

Ultimately, the removal of protections and the CDC’s change in reporting metrics of data disproportionally affect the most vulnerable — the poor, disabled, minorities. These are the groups with the least representation and the least access to the “tools” we have to fight COVID.

Ed Yong, of the Atlantic, has stated, “Treating a pandemic as an individualist free-for-all ignores how difficult it is for many Americans to protect themselves.”

And we’ve been here before. Justin Feldman, a social epidemiologist at Harvard, in a recent lecture to the University of Texas titled ‘How to Hide a Plague, How Elite Capture and Individualism made COVID Normal,” stated, “There is a long history of collective health being pitted against capitalist interests.” Feldman provides historical context and the reasons for how we got here. You can view his talk here.

All of this means our current strategy for a deadly and disabling airborne virus is now as follows: data with metrics that provide no clarity on how to assess risk, removal of protections scientifically proven to reduce infection, repeated messaging minimizing the risks and long-term damage of infection, no future funding from Congress, little to no free testing, relying solely on vaccines and boosters which only provide protection for a few months, privatizing vaccines, no paid sick leave, no organized effort to improve indoor air quality, and no federal program to distribute N95 masks.

We were promised the opposite.

And we need to advocate for the political promises made.

Kate Munson is a long-time island resident, a disabled sometimes artist and former mental health counselor and former public relations/communications professional living with her elderly mother and partner who is an essential worker facing COVID exposure at work. She and her family, like so many others, rely on our community to make the choices that protect everyone.