Newsletter Update: September Won’t Be Business as Usual
A long essay, a wedding, and breakthrough COVID-19 combined to slow down my output this month, but I’ll have lots to talk about in the coming days.
For readers who noticed a change in article output and tone from this newsletter in September: events this month were an unplanned deviation from the norm. The content for September does not represent a new direction for The AfterParty.
I traveled this month for a wedding ceremony — my brother and new sister-in-law celebrated their marriage, which took place legally several months ago. But unfortunately, one outcome of this decision was my coming down with a breakthrough case of COVID-19.
All of the above aligned with my decision to put out a lengthier and more theoretical article than the typical content I intend to publish on this site. Because of this coincidence and its effects on my output for the past month, I want to take some time to clarify the situation and to discuss some thoughts from my, long dreaded, case of COVID-19. The short story on the latter takes several predictable turns — breakthrough cases are real; they are unpleasant; we should still wear masks in crowds; and the vaccine really is helpful in several ways — but the circumstances of my case do contain some interesting details.
For one thing, my partner never got COVID from me, even though we didn’t mutually quarantine! It also seems that a lot of the web, especially left media, has an incorrect take on monoclonal antibodies. They do seem very effective, but they’re not just a remedy for the privileged — celebrities and other folks with C-suite salaries. In fact, antibodies appear to be widely available, thoroughly covered by insurance (plus CARES funding for the uninsured), and dispensed with barely a cursory check for some easy-to-meet health qualifications. I personally received an antibody infusion during my COVID case, and I highly recommend it. I felt virtually back to normal within a day or two of treatment, and I’m excited to catch readers up on some of September’s political news as we move into October.
As a first order of business, I want to make a brief case for reading my long essay on the musical artist SOPHIE and a pair of (closely interrelated) phenomena: political nostalgia and a new form of art-and-identity modernism. Although this essay takes an unorthodox approach, and even contains Olivia Rodrigo quotes, it also describes a set of mostly unquestioned political tendencies which, I argue, make up some of the most consequential social pathologies affecting the state of left discourse and politics today.
Over the next several weeks, I plan to build on many of the theoretical bases I’ve laid out in the essay. If things go well, the political theory will be expanded and clarified as I apply it to analysis of current events. Political pathologies will therefore be a major, if implicit theme in my upcoming content, alongside media critique. I’ll make every effort to have each article stand alone, with no need to consult additional theory from me or anyone else, but I still recommend the long essay as a direct window into the worldview that informs each of my posts.
I mention my COVID case because the way it unfolded makes for a great defense of the available vaccines. I contracted the disease at my brother’s wedding in Madeira Beach, Florida — a state renowned for its recent and devastating surge of the coronavirus Delta variant. The surge this summer once brought Florida into the number-two spot in the nation for overall COVID cases by state. Now, the Sunshine State sits at slot number three in the U.S., topped by California and Texas.
The wedding festivities also contained many maskless and indoor events. People ditched masks quickly at the wedding rehearsal; the wedding party went maskless during the ceremony; and the reception dinner and dancing were almost entirely unmasked throughout. All told, there were probably about six hours in total with an indoor and maskless crowd of about 70 people. Although many in the crowd were certainly vaccinated, had previously contracted COVID, or both, the lack of masking was definitely irresponsible, and I can’t condone such for anyone else based on my recent experiences.
Despite all of that, it appears that a total of three people contracted COVID-19 from this event. In total, there were four positive test results from the wedding trip to Florida. One was my own, and one came from someone who developed symptoms on the day of the wedding itself — this person was also in the groom’s party and most likely got COVID in southern Ohio or northern Kentucky before flying south for the wedding. In short, this was the person who probably gave me and two others COVID-19. For everyone else at the wedding, multiple flights — along with the rehearsal, ceremony, and reception for a wedding with guests from Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, West Virginia, and Florida — were not enough to give them COVID. Amazingly, the “everyone else” category includes my own romantic partner, who came with me on the trip.
What’s so shocking about this fact is that my partner took part in virtually all the same events I did. The main difference is that she would not have been maskless in tight proximity to the groomsman whose COVID case caused him to skip the wedding ceremony and reception after attending all of the rehearsal events.
I think her avoiding COVID happened because both my partner and I have been fully vaccinated. Even though we received our shots at a similar time (both of us with a second dose by late April), it would seem that I likely did not shed enough of the virus after infection to affect my vaccinated partner. (For the record, she got Pfizer and I got Moderna.)
My COVID symptoms were pretty substantial before we got the tests confirming that I alone contracted detectable amounts of the coronavirus; my case of COVID-19 was full blown before we even had the thought of mutually quarantining. I do suggest quarantining for people who test positive when their partners/roommates do not feel sick, but the vaccines were good enough to protect my partner even in the absence of such a protocol. Once we got our test results back, we decided it wasn’t worth it to isolate from each other as we isolated from the world. And still, my partner was spared from a COVID infection.
More points for the vaccine come by way of the symptoms I experienced. Ultimately, I didn’t come close to needing hospitalization for my COVID case. While I did have a tired and sickly feeling for a couple of days, I barely coughed at all, had a mild fever (one that only broke above 100.4°F for a few moments), and didn’t even get much of a headache.
The most notable symptoms were a very stuffy nose and the telltale loss of smell. I could hardly smell a thing for at least two to three days. However, my ability to taste remained intact, though reduced, for the duration of my COVID case. I didn’t even take time off of work. But I should note here that I probably would have taken one sick day if it weren’t for my company’s awful PTO policy and the ensuing scarcity of my PTO hours.
In the end, I would guess that hospitalization would have been unnecessary even without the vaccine. But having such a mild case that I didn’t even need to skip work feels like a pretty good COVID outcome to me.
A final twist in my case that I wanted to share has to do with monoclonal antibody treatment. It’s likely true that blood infusion with monoclonal antibodies is the very best treatment for COVID-19. Robert Carnahan, associate director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center in Tennessee, described antibody treatment as providing COVID mitigation “within minutes to hours.” Another famous doctor made antibodies his top treatment recommendation for the immunocompromised:
And yet there exists an extremely pervasive assumption that this tier of COVID treatment is somehow locked behind an extremely expensive paywall. One angry commenter on Reddit responded to my article about media hit jobs on Joe Rogan with the following:
Joe [Rogan], Tucker Carlson . . . and their ilk all laugh at people who think COVID is serious, insist wearing a mask makes you a pussy and the vaccine isn’t necessary or even dangerous, and then they run to their doctors screaming for the experimental lice medication and a barrage of other treatments that the rubes they’ve convinced to not care about COVID can't afford. [Emphasis added.]
Although I want to give this person props for not using the phrase “horse dewormer,” I have to ask — which treatments can “the rubes” not afford?
Some media sources make it clear that monoclonal antibody infusions fall within this supposedly costly class of treatment. News host Kyle Kulinski says in one video, “The issue is this: there’s not gonna be many people who have access to the monoclonal antibody stuff, and that’s a shame because that’s really, really helpful.”
The two hosts of the podcast The Vanguard (which I generally like a lot) reacted to Kulinski’s video with a wish that he would hammer home even further that “only absolutely opulent people can get access to this stuff.”
Having received a monoclonal antibody treatment with zero out-of-pocket cost on a fairly typical corporate insurance plan, I cannot emphasize enough that this line of argument is effectively fake news. Here’s some real news from Healthline (all emphasis mine):
The cost [without insurance] of Regeneron’s two-drug cocktail is $1,250 per infusion, according to Kaiser Health News. The federal government currently covers this.
Compare this to the cost of a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine — about $20 — which is also covered right now by the federal government.
The cost of GSK’s and Vir’s monoclonal antibody costs about $2,100 per infusion. This is covered by a combination of government payments, reimbursements, and GSK’s copay program, reports USA Today.
However, some infusion centers may charge treatment fees. These are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and most private health insurances, although some plans may charge a copay.
One of the best treatments now available for COVID-19 is currently free of charge for most people with any insurance whatsoever. And that’s not all. At least in the city of Chicago, CARES Act funding will take care of treatment costs for the uninsured. A medical group in Chicago called Innovative Care says that its funding mechanisms ensure “99 percent of people . . . will not get a bill or pay for monoclonal antibody treatment.” The group reports, “If you do not have any medical insurance, your treatment will be covered under the federal CARES Act.”
It may be the case that other cities and states have more restrictive funding situations for these treatments, but this is unlikely. A Reuters story shows that only 25-30% of patients eligible for one of the top antibody treatments in the country actually receive it. (I got it — it’s called RegenCOV.) Anyone who needs this resource for themselves or a loved one should check out the government’s map of likely infusion sites, which seem to span the country.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a real lack of knowledge about this potentially lifesaving treatment. Even if therapies like RegenCOV weren’t free for most people right now, I bet most families could come up with $1250 to spare one of its members from death or long COVID. The most likely factor behind antibody ignorance is a potent combination of naïveté and bias in media. Parts of the media lack information because the better funded and more biased parts have insisted that a monomaniacal, vaccine-only focus is the best way to ensure public safety (and/or pharma profits). The monomania probably fuels speculation that treatments such as ivermectin are maligned only to suppress their potential economic effects; but still, the media has effectively buried discussion of COVID therapies beneath mountains of other content.
Definitely investigate the health qualifications that might be necessary to receive antibody treatment in your area. At Innovative Care, the list was extensive: one could qualify for treatment due to hypertension, current or former use of tobacco and other substances, and BMI in the overweight category or higher, among other things. But when I went to get the treatment, the organization didn’t actually ask me if I met any of these criteria. It could well be that anyone you know who wants to reduce COVID symptoms or to avoid the worst of them can actually receive monoclonal antibodies.
Ultimately, if my story can help even one person or family achieve a better COVID outcome, I’ll be elated. I may even break out the discussion of monoclonal antibodies into its own post for broader dissemination.
At the same time, I’ll keep working on more typical news updates and commentary for The AfterParty; I hope to return to my prior article pace soon. Stay tuned!
I'd be interested in hearing about the monoclonal antibodies. Thanks for the update!