Viruses are very much non-racist: they do not care what color or ethnicity the person they infect happens to be, but the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer seem to think otherwise.

Sunday morning’s main editorial — which has the look of something written specifically by Will Bunch, but I don’t know that — begins innocently enough:

Fighting the spread of viruses — and lies | Editorial

Health officials warn the flu could be worse this year, and roughly 300 Americans a day are still dying from COVID-19. Boosters and flu shots remain effective protection.

by the Editorial Board | Sunday, December 4, 2022 | 6:00 AM EST

Many have moved on from the pandemic, but it is not over. As Americans gather during the holidays, there remains a need to get booster shots, practice social distancing, and fight the spread of misinformation.

Roughly 300 Americans a day are still dying from COVID-19. That is an obvious improvement from the pandemic’s peak of more than 4,000 deaths a day early last year, but the country is still losing the equivalent of an airplane full of passengers each day. Most deaths involve those who are older, sicker, and poorer.

The trauma to families who have lost loved ones is incalculable, while the financial impact continues to roil the economy. At the same time, many students have fallen further behind in their education.

Oh, as in the effects of closing the schools has had devastating effects? Remember: The Philadelphia Inquirer fully supported the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers in their reluctance to reopen the city’s schools to in person learning.

Health officials remain optimistic this winter will not bring another surge in coronavirus cases like last year, when the omicron variant swept through the country. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking a new subvariant known as XBB, which is showing up in a growing number of cases.

Anthony Fauci, who is retiring in December as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that XBB appeared adept at evading antibodies from prior vaccination or infection and urged everyone to get COVID boosters.

Why did I say that this has the look of a Will Bunch column? Whoever wrote this used a plethora of links, the way Mr Bunch normally does! But I will admit to not understanding the last quoted paragraph: if XBB “appeared adept at evading antibodies from prior vaccination or infection,” why would getting yet another booster make a difference?

The drop in the number of patients getting boosters has spilled over to fewer Americans getting their annual flu shot. More troubling, even fewer Black, Hispanic, and Native American adults have been getting flu shots in recent years.

While the viruses don’t care about the race or ethnicity of the people they infect, it seems that the Editorial Board do: why is it “more troubling” that fewer Hispanic, black or Indians have been getting the flu shots? Why do the Editorial Board take such a distinction here?

The editorial continues on to blame evil reich-wing Republicans for all of this, another sign of Mr Buch’s probable authorship, as well as Twitter — though not specifically Elon Musk — because all would be well if only those who disagree with the Inquirer would just shut their mouths .  .  . and keyboards.

Which brings me to this:

Our family have been on several flights, including several foreign airports, over the past two months — Toronto, Amsterdam, Aberdeen, Zurich, Istanbul, Kuwait City and Tel Aviv — and in none of these were masks either required or even much in evidence.

— Dana Pico (@Dana_TFSJ) December 4, 2022

It’s not that just “the American people have moved on,” but foreigners have as well. I’m guessing that there aren’t a lot of Arabs, Turks, Brits, Dutch, Swiss, Israeli and Canadians who watch Tucker Carlson on Fox News, one of the people blamed by the Editorial Board, but they aren’t wearing masks with, at least to my eyes, any greater frequency than Americans. Of course, I can’t tell by looking whether a person has been vaccinated, but I can tell you that, along with masks not being much in evidence, we were never asked for our vaccination records, either.

William Tech noted a couple of weeks ago that at this year’s G20 ‘summit’ in Indonesia, “the twenty participating world leaders signed a declaration to introduce vaccine passports for their respective jurisdictions, with the stated intention of creating a global verification system to facilitate safe international travel.” Yet, among the G20 nations are Canada, the United Kingdom, and Turkey, nations our family visited, which did not ask to see our vaccination records.

The COVID-19 vaccines are ‘free,’ and, in some places, the flu vaccines are as well, with your insurance card. If someone wants to get a vaccine, he can get it, always free with the COVID shots, and frequently so for the influenza vaccine. People are taking their free decisions.