"Things are getting back to normal"
"The economy is opening up"
"This is a surge of the unvaccinated"
"Vaccinated persons can still get the virus"
"We don't need another stimulus check"
"Mask mandates in some cities/counties as virus spikes"
"Looking forward to normalcy"
"We can't close the economy forever"
I've just about had it with the news. There is only one data set that interests me: The number of cases recorded over time.
We talk about how good it is that everyone can be vaccinated, and we can go back to "normalcy". Churches are open. People are singing in closed rooms. People are going back to restaurants and bars. And people are getting sick.
Now it's absolutely true that fewer people who are vaccinated develop life threatening illness, but while the number viewed as a percentage of the population is small, the total number as a raw number is horrific. We know that 750 Americans have died despite being fully vaccinated as of June 25th. Recent numbers aren't easily found in new stories, as the media steers the public away from those low numbers and percentages in the hopes of encouraging more vaccinations. Of course there is reason for this: about 98-99% of all hospitalizations for COVID-19 are among the unvaccinated.
We know that vaccine efficacy runs 66% to 98% for the first four months of vaccination. We don't know what it is after that, although some researchers are predicting about half that, and that the vaccines aren't as strong against variants. There are no good numbers, no consistent numbers, and of course, we're now beyond that four month period where we're absolutely confident that our Pfizer shots are working. So now we're talking about boosters, or even seasonal or annual shots.
Maybe it's time to stop talking about getting back to "normal" and create some new normals.
We might want to not have big mega-events like the motorcycle rally in Stirgis, which became a super-spreader event and has the potential for a repeat performance this week. Perhaps we need to have more open air dining, fewer packed crowded bars, and more virtual performances and conventions. Maybe we need to shop small local stores instead of packing in for Black Friday sales in fall.
We could go back to more of a local/ small town feel, even in the big cities.
I'm not suggesting we retreat into Caves of Steel. But I do think that we have an opportunity to strengthen communities and community connections in some sort of new normal. We should still travel, still be open to other communities, even if it's more via Zoom than zooming around in our gas burning vehicles, which will, of course, help with the other disaster we're facing here on Earth: climate change. Our new normal could also work on reducing our carbon footprints, local food production as opposed to factory farming, and cooperative green practices in energy, homing, and land use.
We have an opportunity to drastically rethink our collective lifestyles in a way that can be beneficial to humanity as a whole. After 4.3 MILLION deaths worldwide, we should have more than enough motivation to start to think about our collective future.
The alternative is pretty dire.
There is a lot we need to address here. Homelessness has skyrocketed, and as COVID relief programs expire, we can expect millions more homeless. Inflation has skyrocketed, and Social Security and minimum wage has not kept pace. Between the virus restrictions, labor shortages, and the Suez ship-jam, there are materials shortages that have lead to problems in paper production, lumber, and other manufacturing which relies on international markets. Every corner of our lives and our economy has been impacted these last several months, and it makes a lot of sense to use this time to rethink how we do business and how we compensate our workforce, as well as how we keep a few billionaires and their companies from capitalizing on the poverty and misery of the populace.
We have a lot to address here if we truly wish to keep our people and our economy safe. Encouraging people to "go back to normal", even if they are wearing a mask while doing so, isn't the smartest way to deal with any of these crises. The mixed messages: "we're in a spike, more people are dying than they were at the beginning of the last spike", vs "more people are vaccinated, go back to your churches and your parties and your shopping" implies a higher value on commerce than human life. I agree, we have to come to some sort of balance... I disagree that we need to try to force the old balance on a world that has been forever changed.
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