It almost seems as if some terrible pandemic were sweeping our nation. I meet an old friend for lunch, and before the fellow behind the counter will take my order, he makes me mask up and dig out a tattered old vax record from my wallet. The local news station interviews restaurant owners to the south; they wish Pierce County would follow King County’s example and make folks prove they’ve had their shots before they’ll feed them.

I take a trip to the gardening store: more masks. Afterward I meet with a group of students on our university campus, all masked and vaxxed, and mostly sitting apart. I spot children of about two and four toddling along with Dad outdoors, faces covered like little surgeons about to do an open-heart procedure on their Teddy Bear.

There were days in January when more than a million new cases of “COVID” were reported in the United States. So yes, this all looks quite serious. Some people are still in the hospital, even at death’s door.

By and large, though, real COVID is toast, at least for now, replaced by the greater pandemics of Fear, Manipulation, and Control, ghoulish children peeping out from under the cloak of the Ghost of Christmas Present. (If none of these haunt you, it is probably time to return to your regularly-scheduled lives.)

O-Mi-Cron! That’s Not Real COVID!

Four million people in the U.S. were reported to have caught “COVID” in the first week of this year, then another five million the following week. Because testing was limited and many people either didn’t show symptoms or else took them in stride, it is likely that as many as ten million Americans may have actually caught “COVID” each of those two weeks.

Almost 18,000 Americans are said to have died of (with?) “COVID” in the past week . This figure is probably more accurate, since death is an easily-diagnosed condition, indeed hard to ignore. And medical personnel seem to have improved their evaluation of the cause of such deaths since this all started.

Deaths from COVID most often occur some two or three weeks after diagnosis, so it follows that most of these fatalities are the results of infections from last month. Their rate per case can be roughly calculated by dividing the number of deaths per week now by the number of infections over a similar period in mid-January.

These figures are inexact and likely hide various biases and oversights. Still, though, it is clear that the wind has shifted, and the weather has improved dramatically. My friend, in his mid-70s, said he stayed in bed one day, then felt much better.

Most estimates of death rates the past two years have hovered around one percent of all those who caught COVID. Now it seemed to be a tenth that, or at most, a fifth.

The Angel of Death seems to have finally passed over us, leaving (for most) just the Imp of Passing Sluggishness.

What’s made the difference? Drugs? No doubt vaccines are protecting a lot of people from serious bouts.  Newly-approved therapeutics have probably helped. And some of the most vulnerable have fought their fight and lost. Others have won, and gained a measure of immunity.

More importantly, while Omicron has surged, cases of the Delta variant have plunged since December. Omicron is much less dangerous, because it seldom goes into the lungs. Even though new Delta infections are now fairly rare, it is likely that many of the most serious cases remaining are from that variant.

Americans by the millions are having a bout with Omicron, staying in bed a day or two, and beginning to feel better soon after. Dr. John Strong, who has treated hundreds of COVID patients, told me, ”I would depict Alpha, Delta, and Omicron as three wolves, with the first two going for a jugular, and little Omicron biting a finger.”

And the big wolves have bit the dust. So unless there’s something worse on the way, COVID is over.

The Most Dangerous ‘Side Effects’ of COVID

Vaxxed persons, or persons who have had COVID, should return to their regularly-scheduled lives. I was eager to get the shots last spring, and they may have saved my life. I’d say it’s probably still a good idea: COVID Classic changed lots of minds about vaccines. And be careful out there still, because two million cases a day is a lot, and even the cold is no fun. (And there are a few Deltas still around.)

Precautions are fine. All that drama we’ve been through, though? Isn’t it time to finally drop the curtain on it? Or has drama itself — or the political power that it justifies — become the chief pestilence of our time? Have the wolves evolved into more politically-connected and diabolical wargs?

Societies can grow mentally ill, just as individuals can. The riots of 2020 show how quickly fears can go viral. It’s no coincidence that those riots occurred during lockdown: from ancient times, societies have scapegoated groups during pandemics. (Anyone who’d read Rene Girard’s The Scapegoat could have predicted Kenosha, Portland and CHAZ.)

Men in blue were the target this time. Michelle Obama worried irrationally that racist police would kill her daughters for driving while black, though in fact, white men, being more likely to wave guns, swords, or chain saws in peoples’ faces, are six to seven times as likely to be killed by police than black women. Cop-o-phobia led to soaring murder rates.

In China, COVID gave the authorities an excuse to shut down churches, control the Olympics, and spy on citizens like bugs. Bureaucrats are essentially no different in the West: politicians party on while using any excuse to monitor, control, and shut up their enemies. Demagogues funnel the frustrations, fears, and pent-up energy of the mob into violence.

John West warns of three dangerous “side effects” of the COVID reaction: (1) expansion of government power; (2) censorship; and (3) dehumanization of those who refuse to conform. All are bad. So protest, yes. But be kind. Be reasonable. Look your “enemy” at the school board or in Ottawa in the eye! You might even change someone’s mind! (And keep praying for those who are ill from COVID!) And take the masks off the poor kids and let them breath God’s clean oxygen, already!

Realize, though, the zombie flicks are not wrong. The pandemic we should most fear, is the mind-virus that strips humanity from our neighbors. At this stage of the Coronavirus, it seems that for most of us, that “loss of face,” the chance to grip hands, to speak smile to smile, and hear what others are saying, has arguably become more unhealthy than any yappy little wolf pup nipping at our fingers.

David Marshall holds an undergraduate degree in the Russian and Chinese languages and Marxism, a masters degree in Chinese religions, and a doctoral degree in Christian thought and Chinese tradition. His most recent book is Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels.