Prime

I’ve spent the last couple days writing posts I’ve then set aside about what we’ve learned in two years about the CDC and FDA and whether they are, institutionally, up to the challenge of managing the crisis of pandemic response. To paraphrase Sonny Corleone, during a pandemic we need a wartime CDC. And it’s clear we don’t have one. The institutional apparatus designed for managing ‘ordinary’ infectious diseases, researching and improving care for chronic maladies simply isn’t designed for what we’ve confronted in the last two years.

Earlier today, we published a moving tribute to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by his onetime deputy chief of staff, Bill Dauster.

I spoke with another former Reid aide and friend of TPM this afternoon, Jim Manley. A veteran Senate staffer, Manley had worked as a spokesperson and senior communications advisor for Reid while Reid was Senate Majority Leader.

We’re ending the year in a befuddling place. The past week I’ve been having déjà vu, rocketing myself back to a simpler, but overall more confusing time — once again rounding out each evening with stupid little Victorian-era strolls around the neighborhood as my one activity for the day, all to maintain my stupid sanity.

The last few weeks have not been promising for the sweetly naive among us who were still holding on to hope for a brighter 2022. And the year as a whole has been a hard one. Kicking off the year with a literal insurrection didn’t do much to forecast optimism. Some of you, understandably, had to step away from the news at points throughout the year. And we don’t blame you! Between the Capitol attack and another impeachment and the GOP embrace of anti-vaxxers and extremists continuing their gradual takeover of Congress and the lingering Big Lie and this deadly COVID spike — it’s all been a lot. (Though, we did have a few bright spots this week!)

But our gallows humor got us through. And if we can’t, at least, release a few dark cackles into the void while the world burns, then we’ve lost our humanity.

You’ve likely seen a lot of reports in recent days about the disease severity of the Omicron wave. From some you hear increasing evidence that the Omicron wave is less severe, maybe much less severe, than previous COVID waves. Others claim there’s no solid evidence Omicron causes less severe disease. Who’s right? Some of the disconnect is differing degrees of caution. We’ve only known about Omicron for about six weeks. How much evidence do you need before you’re willing to say something is more mild, less lethal when probably hundreds of millions of people are about to get it and they need guidance about risk? But most of it is not that. Not anymore. Most of the seemingly contradictory claims are about different kinds of evidence and really different questions being asked.

I want to expand on what I mentioned in Morning Memo about some really good work from the Just Security guys on better understanding the delay in the deployment of the National Guard.

From the get-go, TPM’s coverage has been more circumspect about the decision to involve the military in the response to the attack.

Why?

The last few weeks have been abnormally bleak and bizarre, even for pandemic times. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) put a bushel over Democrats’ hopes of legislating this year. Kyle Rittenhouse was celebrated as a hero at a conservative youth conference in Arizona. More and more Democrats are bending to the impending-consequences of partisan gerrymandering and retiring ahead of the Midterms. Omicron is very literally everywhere (including inside this writer’s lungs ?).

But today we were struck by a smattering of relatively positive (?) news developments. We’ll take what we can get.

Back on December 9th we discussed the quickening hunt for a Sarbecovirus vaccine. This is basically a vaccine that wouldn’t target this or that variant but the whole class of SARS-related coronaviruses. Basically the idea is you go upstream in the viral family tree to cover the whole class of contagions and potential future ones. Last night Army researchers at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research say they’ve developed just such a vaccine, or at least one that cover all current and potential variants of COVID19.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has effectively doomed President Biden’s hopes of passing his most meaningful legislative package this year. Things aren’t looking any better for Democratic efforts on voting rights (also largely Manchin’s fault). While the administration has made significant advances in getting the country vaccinated this year, Omicron has brought pandemic-ending progress to a standstill for now.

But the Biden administration, with the help of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), has quietly made some progress on one major pillar of Biden’s presidency: confirming judges.