It’s been over a year now since the COVID-19 pandemic began and surely some people are wondering when it’s going to be over. This is the state of the COVID-19 pandemic as of right now. People are looking to take their masks off and get on with their lives. This transition out of the pandemic is what David Brooks calls “The Great Unmasking”. He thinks that we need to take both our physical and mental masks off and restart our culture. but how does that happen?
As we attempt to move on from the pandemic, we turn our eyes to the vaccine. Our track record has shown that the vaccine is necessary to get COVID-19 under enough control to return everything back to normal. The trouble is getting enough people to get it. A surprising number of people are choosing not to get the vaccine. This has led to incentives to get people to take the vaccine, such as in Ohio where a 22-year-old won a million dollars by singing gup for Vax-a-million.
Scientists are looking ahead to understand what booster shots are going to be needed in the future. We are going to need shots to make sure that we continue to be immune, the question is how often, and which ones. Scientists are studying how the immunity declines over time, but are offering that we don’t need to be afraid because “the shield of protection from vaccines won’t suddenly vanish.” Yes, we will need booster shots, but the vaccine still works and this isn’t out of the ordinary.
Things are looking up, even though lower numbers of people are getting vaccinated than originally thought. In Texas, one of the first states to open everything up again, they have reported 0 COVID-19 deaths. Along with this, Texas has been “reporting the fewest COVID-19 cases in over 13 months”
In other countries, however, especially ones with a lower vaccine supply, COVID-19 is not getting better at all. India’s COVID numbers are currently soaring. They originally seemed to have COVID “under control” but now their cases per day are in the 400,000s. This happened mainly because after the first wave in March, the population and government relaxed, leading to the second wave being much stronger. On top of this, India’s numbers are “lower than many other countries” in regards to vaccine administration.
The main problem in India, however, is that there is low access to health care and a low detection rate. In India, only 34% of COVID deaths have been in hospitals, and the total number of deaths could be five times the reported number.
In other news, a theory has formed that the COVID-19 virus was leaked from a lab in Wuhan. The evidence is not extensive, but scientists think that the theory is “increasingly plausible.” This theory would increase China’s culpability in the situation, especially considering they were “anything but transparent”, and wasted valuable time at the original outbreak of the virus. This would likely lead to sanctions on China which would greatly affect the global economy. This theory should not be used as justification for global actions until it is proven true or false, but unfortunately, we may never prove either.
It isn’t likely that the US has a surge like India’s due to better access to health care, however, it is important that the US continues to vaccinate as many people as possible, but overall it is likely that our COVID protocol will all be going away soon in the US.
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