As soon as I mentioned people's trips to Europe yesterday, the EU made a recommendation that member countries put the US back on the list of countries not allowed to travel there for non-essential reasons. Apparently they opened things back up over the summer in an effort to boost tourism and in hopes that the US would reciprocate, but our borders have been closed to Europeans since March 2020. So they closed back up too.
Also, why is protecting kids an "issue?"
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| Uriel Mont for Pexels |
The county web site that displays local COVID infection data had gone from updating daily to updating weekly. Last week they announced they would change to a Tuesday/Thursday schedule, and this week I see they're moving to Monday/Wednesday/Friday.
Many schools have started, most in my area are starting this week, and a lot of places are not offering a virtual option at all this year (even in case of needing to quarantine). In some surging areas, entire schools or districts shut down within a few days or weeks of opening due to the number of people required to quarantine after potential exposure.
Some events that had been rescheduled (or newly announced) earlier this year when everything was looking up are now being cancelled or postponed.
Hurricane Ida just blew through Louisiana, but hospitals were not able to evacuate patients because there are no other hospitals in the region with space for them. When the power went out, doctors had to manually pump oxygen for patients on respirators.
But...
I know tons of people going on vacations, many to Europe, the Caribbean, etc. (Even if you can travel there, a lot of things are still shut down once you arrive.)
I have a college student working for me who was rejoicing over how great it is that since her school mandated vaccines, they've removed all masking, distancing, and capacity requirements, so her classes are pretty much normal.
Broadway is still on track to reopen in September, and touring theater performances in other places have resumed.
Many fully-packed concerts, conferences, and other events are still taking place - there's been a lot of talk about super-spreader events stemming from various businesses' conferences that were held with no precautions.
Yesterday the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received full FDA approval. This opens the door for more places to require patrons/employees be vaccinated. For anti-vaxxers, it might mean the goalposts have moved (from, "they're taking so long to approve this, there must be a problem, I don't trust it!" to "they approved it too quickly, I don't trust it!")* But hopefully this move pushes over some of the people who were on the fence pending approval, or a mandate. (A lot of unvaccinated people said they would get it, "if they had to.")
Just in time, because the surge of new cases and hospitalizations is really crazy in some areas. I just read that Orlando has to ration water for weeks, because the oxygen that is used in water purification is needed for breathing oxygen in hospitals.
* Of course, the latest thing with anti-vaxxers is that they're treating themselves with horse de-wormer (and poisoning themselves) .. so maybe not big on FDA approval or safety one way or the other.
Now that schools are starting or about to start, there's a lot of debates at the local level about whether to mandate masks in schools. The anti-mask faction is very vocal (and aggressive), but surveys have shown most people favor requiring masks - even in conservative areas.
In our state, the governor has said he's going to leave the decision to school districts. In our neighboring state, the governor has made a blanket mask requirement for all public schools. My own local district famously just voted unanimously to require school staff to be vaccinated. (Not sure what the alternative is - wear masks? Get tested?)
My own employer also announced last week that all employees would need to have documentation of their vaccination on file, or else be tested twice weekly. Which is a better option than some employers, which are requiring vaccination or you're fired. Also, the testing is done at our employer's expense and should be relatively convenient. But it will be required for everyone, whether they're working on-site, remotely, at home, in the field, etc. For simplicity's sake, it's a blanket requirement for all employees.
An old friend of mine just announced that they have COVID, even though they were vaccinated and wore masks indoors. Now they're isolating in their bedroom while their spouse takes care of the kids, pets, school, work, etc. for 10 days. We're hearing a lot more about vaccinated people's experience with breakthrough infections, and it's no fun even if it is a "minor" case. Also, we don't know what the long term effects of even a minor infection are. Even vaccinated people are reporting "long COVID" with lasting effects.
Just like watching things shut down early last year, we're now seeing places roll out vaccine mandates one by one. Federal workers are going to be required to be vaccinated; you'll need to prove vaccination to eat in restaurants in New York City; our local school board voted unanimously to require teachers to be vaccinated this school year; and yesterday my own employer announced that employees needed to have record of their vaccination on file. Of course, the alternative isn't that you lose your job, as antivaxxers would have you believe. If you're not vaccinated, in most cases, you're just required to wear a mask and undergo regular COVID tests. While these types of requirements might push a few holdouts over the edge to be vaccinated (many people who weren't vaccinated said they wouldn't get it "unless required"), it's adding fuel to the fire of antivaxxers who assert this whole virus situation is just an attempt at "control," and will probably make them dig their heels in further.
A majority of Americans now support returning to a mask mandates, which are reappearing piecemeal, as are plans for going back to school (some districts are offering a virtual option, others are planning for everything to be in person). The governor of Arkansas now regrets signing an anti-mask order into law, as COVID cases surge in his state. The President told governors of states like Texas and Florida, with surging cases, to help or get out of the way (i.e. don't ban things that will help, like wearing masks).
Last night I felt anxiety for the first time like I had back in the beginning of 2020 when I couldn't sleep or eat, thinking about the Delta variant and all the other potential variants that are just making everything futile.
Even though everyone is talking about variants Delta, and Delta Plus, and now finally vaccine-resistant Lambda is getting mentions, I prefer the outlook of this article. The goal of a virus is to spread as much as possible - if it kills its hosts, it can't do that (see Ebola: it's super dangerous, but doesn't usually spread that far because people die before they have the chance to infect too many others.) This article theorizes that COVID will become more transmissible but less severe (more like the common cold, as we've been hearing), both due to mutation and increasing levels of immunity from vaccination and previous infections.