Possible Reasons for Optimism

 Reports in the media are now saying that nationally new cases of Covid have peaked and are beginning to decrease. Deaths, which are usually a lagging indicator, still seem to be rising, but if the normal trend holds, those may begin to drop in a week or so. I'm not quite so optimistic.

The United Kingdom announced an end to isolation requirements and so forth, as if the pandemic were being declared over even though new cases were not dropping there. I hope there is reason behind the decision, though I fear it may be an attempt at distraction from the pressure on the PM to resign over his blatant disregard for Covid policies, and his denial that the parties at 10 Downing Street were parties that violated the rules. I think he deserves to be hounded out of office. But the people of the United Kingdom deserve leadership and public health decisions based in science. I expect I will track cases there for a week or two to see what happens.

I am still wearing a mask in public. Masks are required at work and I support the policy. I'm not clear on the basis for the decreased isolation time after contracting Covid, though my employer has adopted the updated recommendations. I am still having students reporting active cases, though I have not yet been informed of any known cases of spread at the school. Still, it seems like we should still be cautious, as thousands of people are dying of Covid. I expect we will reach 900,000 deaths within three weeks.

I sometimes think about going back to Facebook conversations from 2020 and pointing out to the deniers that this pandemic was very much the real deal. One guy I know is still trying to claim that he was right all along, and that Covid is a hoax, that masks don't work, that the vaccine is a conspiracy, and that Trump was right about all those crackpot treatments. I find it hard to understand that level of delusion, but I know he is not alone.

It seems the political pundits are saying much of the approval issues for President Biden center around the continued problems of Covid, which is not really reasonable, but the American electorate and public in general is not known for its reasonableness. I hope that Covid cases have peaked and will drop rapidly, and that this latest surge is the last, but I know that most people don't understand the complexities of a pandemic. America had the worst response to Covid of any advanced nation, and while there has been progress, there is still a lot of open resistance to public health measures. There is a case in the media of a woman making reference to "all the guns, fully loaded" in talking about a mask requirement at an elementary school. I have read that law enforcement are investigating. Based on what I have seen, I think she should be arrested and tried, and at the very least should permanently lose any right to own a gun. But she will not be the last. Aside from having an incompetent president at the critical beginning of this pandemic, America struggles with issues like this because of an astounding level of ignorance and fear, something the perpetrators fight to maintain. There is no easy solution to this.