It's time to acknowledge how little we know.
For a while, I warned that I didn't believe Covid was necessarily over, the danger of dropping mitigation too quickly, the danger of failing to vaccinate quickly enough, the threat of emerging variants. But being totally honest, I didn't foresee rises like we are seeing now. I believed we would be mostly out of this over the summer, with small spikes in the Fall.
There are those now predicting total doom and those who trying to argue that we are already close to the Delta peak and it will soon fall.
The truth is, we don't know.
Will Delta in the US follow the same path as the UK? Maybe, maybe not. With fewer people vaccinated, it could be worse here. On the other hand, they relied heavily on the AZ vaccine which is less effective against Delta, so maybe things will be better here. Maybe we are just as the start of the type of rise the UK saw, maybe we are closer to the peak. Maybe it will be less deadly here, maybe it will be more deadly.
My strong suspicion from following the science and medicine: We are really just starting to see the rise. Some regions (such as Missouri) may be closer to the peak than others. Yes, the biggest increases so far have hit low-vax states, but that may be partially coincidental. Florida is a mid-vax level state and getting hit the hardest, California is a high vax state and getting hit pretty hard. I suspect we are seeing a bit of seasonality at play -- the places being hit hardest were also largely hit hardest summer of 2020, and it's somewhat coincidental that they are low vax states. We are starting to see increases in the high-vax Northeast just now, I wouldn't rule out fairly large surges even in high vax areas. Israel, which is a high vax country, has gone from 14 cases per day to 1500 per day in 6 weeks, a 100x increase in 6 weeks and still rising.
The up-side is it's almost certain that this wave will be less deadly than past waves. The majority of adults are vaccinated, which offers a good amount of protection against serious illness. Most of the unvaxed are younger, and are at inherently lower risk. That's not to say it won't be dangerous and deadly, just not as bad as past waves.
But where do we go from here? I was strongly pro-mitigation for a long time. But circumstances change. I'm on the fence about masking back up. Delta is so transmissible that successful mitigation may only delay things. Further, let's face facts -- most of the unvaxed aren't going to mask back up. The people who comply willingly with masking recommendations are mostly vaccinated. So if the people who least need the masks wear them, and the people who most need them refuse to wear them... will they even have much effect?
Masking was critical mitigation to buy time for the vaccines. But the vaccines are here now. So what are we buying time for? We may have dropped indoor mask mandates prematurely, but hard to put the genie back in the bottle now.
Instead of re-fighting yesterday's battle about masking, we are overdue for the next necessary steps: vaccine passports/mandates. Employers should require vaccination, vaccination should be required for travel and yes -- for theme park entry.
On a Federal level, the government should impose a vaccination requirement on the entire Federal workforce and as a require for airline travel. As to Disney -- Disney should take a private sector lead in requiring their workforce to be vaccinated. Given their pressing labor shortage, I'm sure they don't want to do anything to further exacerbate their labor woes, but getting everyone vaccinated it really the best way out of this mess.
For a while, I warned that I didn't believe Covid was necessarily over, the danger of dropping mitigation too quickly, the danger of failing to vaccinate quickly enough, the threat of emerging variants. But being totally honest, I didn't foresee rises like we are seeing now. I believed we would be mostly out of this over the summer, with small spikes in the Fall.
There are those now predicting total doom and those who trying to argue that we are already close to the Delta peak and it will soon fall.
The truth is, we don't know.
Will Delta in the US follow the same path as the UK? Maybe, maybe not. With fewer people vaccinated, it could be worse here. On the other hand, they relied heavily on the AZ vaccine which is less effective against Delta, so maybe things will be better here. Maybe we are just as the start of the type of rise the UK saw, maybe we are closer to the peak. Maybe it will be less deadly here, maybe it will be more deadly.
My strong suspicion from following the science and medicine: We are really just starting to see the rise. Some regions (such as Missouri) may be closer to the peak than others. Yes, the biggest increases so far have hit low-vax states, but that may be partially coincidental. Florida is a mid-vax level state and getting hit the hardest, California is a high vax state and getting hit pretty hard. I suspect we are seeing a bit of seasonality at play -- the places being hit hardest were also largely hit hardest summer of 2020, and it's somewhat coincidental that they are low vax states. We are starting to see increases in the high-vax Northeast just now, I wouldn't rule out fairly large surges even in high vax areas. Israel, which is a high vax country, has gone from 14 cases per day to 1500 per day in 6 weeks, a 100x increase in 6 weeks and still rising.
The up-side is it's almost certain that this wave will be less deadly than past waves. The majority of adults are vaccinated, which offers a good amount of protection against serious illness. Most of the unvaxed are younger, and are at inherently lower risk. That's not to say it won't be dangerous and deadly, just not as bad as past waves.
But where do we go from here? I was strongly pro-mitigation for a long time. But circumstances change. I'm on the fence about masking back up. Delta is so transmissible that successful mitigation may only delay things. Further, let's face facts -- most of the unvaxed aren't going to mask back up. The people who comply willingly with masking recommendations are mostly vaccinated. So if the people who least need the masks wear them, and the people who most need them refuse to wear them... will they even have much effect?
Masking was critical mitigation to buy time for the vaccines. But the vaccines are here now. So what are we buying time for? We may have dropped indoor mask mandates prematurely, but hard to put the genie back in the bottle now.
Instead of re-fighting yesterday's battle about masking, we are overdue for the next necessary steps: vaccine passports/mandates. Employers should require vaccination, vaccination should be required for travel and yes -- for theme park entry.
On a Federal level, the government should impose a vaccination requirement on the entire Federal workforce and as a require for airline travel. As to Disney -- Disney should take a private sector lead in requiring their workforce to be vaccinated. Given their pressing labor shortage, I'm sure they don't want to do anything to further exacerbate their labor woes, but getting everyone vaccinated it really the best way out of this mess.
I really do hope so - not only for us but I do genuinely believe that it will give you guys a pointer to where you will go as well.
