The Pandemic Isn’t Over Yet
We just think it is.
My sister-in-law isn’t planning to get the coronavirus vaccine. She’s not political. She considers herself off the grid. She’s into spiritual healing and alternative medicine. She doesn’t have health insurance. She doesn’t see a doctor, but she’s on medicaid “just in case.”
It’s throwing a little wrench into our summer plans. We’re debating whether we should capitulate and visit family anyway, since we haven’t seen them in over a year. After all, we’re vaccinated.
Our daughter isn’t.
The latest research says kids aren’t likely to get severely sick from the coronavirus. Still, it happens. I’ve seen nurses on social media describe how it feels to treat toddlers in ICUs, all because their parents had to proceed with their holiday gatherings and family vacations.
So, that’s the situation my family’s in. What other people choose to do (or not do) has a direct impact on our safety, and how we live our lives. This is the thing we, as a society, keep failing to understand.
Now it’s personal.
If that weren’t bad enough, now we have new variants throwing variables into the mix. Scientists “can’t confirm” our fears and suspicions. This is how science works. It lags behind common sense, and my common sense is watching the news in India and Brazil and telling me to be a little concerned. It’s saying the pandemic isn’t over yet.
It’s just happening somewhere else.
India’s Healthcare System Has Collapsed.
In India, more than three hundred thousand people a day are getting infected with yet another variant of the coronavirus.
The surge is puzzling scientists.
Here’s why:
Just months earlier, antibody data had suggested that many people in cities such as Delhi and Chennai had already been infected, leading some researchers to conclude that the worst of the pandemic was over in the country.
That’s never good. When scientists “are puzzled,” that tells me some pretty bad news is coming. All this suggests that the virus is quickly adapting to our antibodies, faster than we expected.
