I don't have as much to report today having dedicated a good bit of it to life such as visiting my mom with The Professor along to hang a couple of pictures for her. Her room looks even better with artwork on the walls. I then waited in the car while The Professor obtained lunch and some groceries we needed before getting home.
New York State will open nine pop-up vaccination sites at or near early voting locations in ZIP codes that have relatively low vaccination rates. While 70.6 percent of the adult population has gotten at least one dose, neighborhoods differ in their rates. Governor Cuomo hopes that being able to do two civic duties at once--voting and vaccination--will induce people to come out.
Word is that a third wave is "definitely underway" in the UK, driven by the Delta variant and infections among younger people. A member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation noted, "We can conclude that the race firmly on between the vaccine programme, particularly getting older people second doses done, and the Delta variant third wave." He did not express confidence that the vaccine would win the race but did see "some grounds for optimism."
Assuming that covid-19 is here to stay (which I see as a strong certainty), how do we learn to live with it? We don't necessarily need a more restrictive society, but we do need a more careful one. The things that will be most easily done are those that will least disrupt lives--good hygiene, remote work where possible, mask wearing, avoiding crowds, and so on. But similar to safe sex, we won't learn to live with it until we learn to take responsibility for the risks. People have to be ready to make their own safe decisions. And no, these are not my very own thoughts, but ones I found in The Guardian. I do think it's worth considering, though, in the contexts of our own lives, what inconveniences we are willing to live with and what risks we are willing to take.
Tomorrow we will have a combined Fathers Day and DiL='s birthday celebration. Ice cream was obtained today, and I shall make a small chocolate cake tomorrow. A good time will be had.
1 comment:
Whenever I see the headline about infections being driven by younger people I substitute "the unvaccinated". We vaccinated by age and the mid fifties had their second jab earlier this month. The unvaccinated are driving this because (good news) vaccination works. It's not a variant that's picking out the young, it's not their wild lifestyle, it's that they were at the back of the line for vaccination. Hospitalisations and deaths are not mirroring the rocketing line for cases, earlier in the year there was a two week lag before one followed the other. It's been a month and the sharp increase is still in the case numbers.
If Delta had hit early in the year as the vaccination programme set off then this would have been serious but as it is, I refuse to be panicked by a headline. It does work to push vaccination for an age group that doesn't face much risk from the virus itself, if I were more cynical I would be wondering if that was deliberate.
Post a Comment