Dr. Michael Osterholm commented on a Center of Disease Research and Policy (CDRAP) podcast, that since the start of the pandemic scientists have been chasing the virus rather that getting ahead of it. Scientists are course correcting and learning as they go. It is like we are in the cave ages of understanding this virus, completely unsure what curve ball the virus it will throw next.
Numbers are beginning to fall and that results in instant complacency in most people. Masks and social distancing are abandoned. For July 4, 2021 President Joe Biden declared independence from the virus. However the Delta variant had just started to burn through America.
This has happened multiple times during the course of the pandemic and each time this lax attitude results in another spike. It seems very few learn from past history.
The vaccination program in America has come to a virtual standstill mostly along partisan lines. If you are not vaccinated, you can’t run out the clock on this virus. It will find you and you will know a COVID-19-related outcome. That might be a mild case or it could be death. 65 million Americans who could be vaccinated right now are not. That is more than enough human wood for this coronavirus forest fire to burn. Right now Covid-19 continues to surge in in Alaska and the upper mid-west states like Montana. It spreads daily like a lava flow from county to county and state to state.
As can be noted with Colin Powell‘s breakthrough case and death we can see that the vaccine is not perfect. Boosters are certainly going to a part of our future. The fight against this virus is not over. Now is not the time for complacency. There is no second guessing where tit will go next. To date 731,265 Americans have died from COVID-19 and that number continues to climb.