The curse of overconfidence. CDC winds back its COVID-19 guidelines prior to the Northern Hemisphere winter. Australia's hospitalizations and death rate/s (winter) should be seen as precursor of vaccine hesitancy and immunity dropping, not increasing. Poliovirus and Monkeypox is on the rise and NYC has become the epicenter. Is the CDC playing the economic populism card?

Chart 1

Chart 2

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now lessen the guidelines for COVID-19 and reiterating the "living with the virus" rhetoric, which is actually, in regards to semantics, incorrect.  The virus lives with you or more specifically within in your cells and it can end up killing you in the process, please refer to my 2020 article:  VIRUSES. UNDEAD PATHOGENS: THE BORROWER AND DESTROYER OF LIFE.   And I also agree with what some virologists have said in regards to the vaccinations, that to be completed vaccinated is to be three shots, not two.  Which was the general consensus that two shots were sufficient for the first strains of COVID-19, but with vaccine inequality, mutations such as the current BA.5 strain have spread at an alarming rate, with reinfections occurring as immunity begins to fall from the initial two shots. 

The lesson here is Australia that has suffered, over the course of its winter, its worst hospitalization and death rate since the pandemic began in 2020 .   Please refer to Chart 1 and 2, as per population, Australia's, a heavily vaccinated country, infection and death rate has surpassed America.   And not only are we falling behind in vaccinations and boosters, vaccine hesitancy is still alive and well, with that made rush to open economies and the Northern Hemisphere winter bearing down, it could be a wake up call not to be too overconfident.

Also concerning is a recent break out of polio in New York City and Monkeypox being a declared an emergency in NYC, the city is now considered the epicenter of this virus outbreak.   If the CDC is prioritizing from reducing the COVID restrictions to concentrate on the new virial outbreaks, then their new guidelines make sense.   Unfortunately,  I see this as economic populism more than anything else.