The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 198 (698)

States continue to relax restrictions. Nevada's governor announced an immediate end to mask mandates, calling it a"major step moving forward for people." The CDC continues to recommend masks be worn in areas of high or substantial risk, which right now covers 99 percent of all US counties. New York City could fire 3,000 municipal employees, less than one percent of the city workforce, today for not getting vaccinated. Unvaccinated employees have been on unpaid leave for months. Some could get their first dose of vaccine today and remain employed.

As the Canadian trucker protest enters its third week, Ontario has declared a state of emergency with a plan to end "disruption, intimidation, and chaos." The premier warns, "There will be consequences for these actions, and they will be severe." Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan have begun to loosen covid restrictions. Ontario has said that it might.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that he aims to abolish all covid restrictions including isolation after a positive test. Other European countries are relaxing restrictions but none are getting rid of all of them. Scientists in those countries express concern over what Britain might do. A German infection prevention specialist says, "It strikes me a quite brave to lift all restrictions at the same time." Leaving some in place would help slow the spread. A Spanish scientist calls Britain's move premature, while Italy says it is a political rather than scientific choice. A New Zealand scientist notes that "The science is absolutely top--it's just the policy translation has been shockingly poor." Finally, an Australian virologist offers what I think might be a good one-line description of the pandemic as a whole:

"It's very difficult to predict this virus, though. It has made a fool of many of us."

Will an affirmative answer to my "are we there yet" question make us even bigger fools? The WHO regional head for Africa who has said we are entering a new phase of the pandemic also says that there will be more variants of concern. The questions then are how serious the concern might be and are we ready for them?