Well, that was a waste of money. They shifted the timing of vaccinations, but not the overall rate.

Over the spring and summer, at least 19 states — including California, New York, Ohio and West Virginia — tried to incentivize unvaccinated individuals to get shots, offering cash prizes, free tickets, guns, college scholarships and trucks.

 

However, research from the Boston University School of Medicine found some of these prizes had little to no effect on convincing residents to get vaccinated against COVID.

 

For the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the team compared vaccination rates between 15 states that offered lotteries with cash prizes and 31 states that did not between May 24, 2021 and July 19, 2021.

 

[…]

 

Vaccine lotteries had initially been deemed a success after reports that vaccination rates had significantly boosted, such as in Ohio, where officials said they saw a 55% increase in vaccinations for young adults following the state’s Vax-A-Million lottery.

 

However, it appears the boosts were likely temporary.

Even CNN is grudgingly admitting that Trump’s pandemic approach was more correct than Biden’s.

But the evolving administration approach is also one that could eventually point to a sustainable path back to something closer to normality for many Americans once the winter surge abates — a future in which Covid-19 will always be in the background and not eradicated.

 

[…]

 

It’s fair to ask whether the Biden administration is beginning to prioritize economics over science, just as Democrats once blasted Trump for doing.
As the ex-President agitated in spring 2020 to get Americans back to work, even with high viral rates, he was rightly accused of putting his election-year goals before public health. Members of the Trump administration might be forgiven, therefore, for wondering whether the current President, faced with a tough midterm election year, is attempting something similar.

 

The issue is steeped in complexity that runs deeper than politics. The new CDC approach has some support from physicians worried about hospitals running short on doctors, nurses and support staff when Omicron hits its peak. But some epidemiologists are concerned that the isolation period is too short and could lead to more infections. Worker advocates like flight attendant unions have warned against forcing people back to work when they are sick.

The isolation issue is not the only one causing political controversy.

 

Walensky explained to reporters that negative rapid antigen tests were not required at the five-day mark because such methods were not always accurate in showing whether someone could transmit the virus at that point. Yet after Biden admitted this week that his team should have done better in foreseeing a huge shortage in such tests, it would be politically impossible for the CDC to require them when changing the guidance.

Former Trump administration surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams — who was among officials often accused of putting politics before science or appeasing Trump’s goals — criticized the change in guidance on a long Twitter thread Tuesday.

 

“If it’s to keep the economy open, own it. But don’t claim science based, yet ignore the most important science (ie value of negative tests + high quality masks),” Adams wrote.

 

He appears to have a point. Yet the current circumstances of the pandemic are far different from those that prevailed when the former President downplayed its significance, despite knowing how serious it was, in an apparent effort to shield his reelection prospects.

Some of us have been saying this for well over a year. Welcome to the club. Mandates not only don’t work. They are counterproductive.

Mandates have curbed almost everything except COVID-19 cases

Someone has to say it, and I derive no pleasure from doing so. But here goes:

 

The Omicron wave is exposing the limits of COVID-19 restrictions, which are clearly failing. These include ferociously debated vaccine passports and masking policies that have done little, if anything, to tame skyrocketing numbers throttling the Northeast.

 

Hard-hit travel, leisure and small businesses — especially restaurants — are bearing the brunt of questionable protocols that clearly need rethinking, if not scrapping outright. And for the record, it’s not just America. China’s aggressive zero-COVID policies that have exacerbated global supply chain problems aren’t doing much to curb the spread there, either.

 

“At this point, vaccine mandates are more disempowering to business than empowering,” Denise Graziano, CEO of Graziano Associates, a marketing communications firm, told the Morning Brief in an email.

 

“Policies, tools and communication must adapt to where we are now two full years into the pandemic, Graziano added. “Vaccines have been invaluable to bring us to this point, but mandating drives away customers, good employees, job candidates, and creates more division inside (and outside) of organizations.”

“Science”

US health officials have halved the recommended isolation time for people with asymptomatic Covid-19 from 10 to five days, amid a surge in cases.

 

The measure is expected to alleviate disruption caused by staff shortages in many areas because of infections.

 

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says most transmissions happen in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop.

 

[…]

 

The CDC also shortened the quarantine period for people exposed to someone infected. Unvaccinated people will be required to quarantine for five days after exposure, down from 14.

The CDC is supposed to give recommendations based on the actual science. This decision is based on a balance of the science and the larger policy implications of their recommendations. But the CDC is supposed to be just about the science. The policy makers are supposed to take that recommendation, balance it with other considerations, and make public policy. Where we have lost our minds with COVID is that we have surrendered policy making to the CDC and now made them into an agency that decides public policy instead of makes recommendations to inform public policy.

As a general rule, if this idiot says something, I assume that the correct response is the opposite.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, told Americans on Sunday that removing masks on airplanes is ‘not something we should even be considering,’ as hundreds of flights in the U.S. continue to be canceled due to the spread of the Omicron variant across the country.

 

Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Fauci made the comment while answering Jonathan Karl’s question on the possibility of introducing a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel.

 

‘We want to make sure people keep their masks on. I think the idea of taking masks off, in my mind, is really not something we should even be considering,’ Fauci said.

Here’s the thing… as someone who has flown multiple times this year… the only time the vast majority of people wear a mask anymore is when flying and in the rideshare cars on the way to and from the airport. These same people get off the plane, take off their masks, and mingle in hotels, restaurants, resorts, stores, and homes. Even if you thing stupid cloth and flimsy paper masks work, their effectiveness ends at the airport doors. Masking on planes is useless as a means of mitigating the spread of the virus as witnessed by the rapid global spread of Omicron despite universal masking on planes.

But the evidence never mattered to Fauci and the government tyrants like him. It’s about the power. It’s about the control.