By now, most have heard the ominous line from a leaked internal document of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control warning about the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19: “The war has changed.”
A year ago, in the last week of July of 2020, Humboldt County recorded 28 new cases with a test-positivity rate of 2.6 percent, with a masking mandate firmly in place. Health orders shuttered entire sectors of the economy and restricted capacity in others, as school districts weighed bringing students back to classrooms. We watched the horizon with hope for an effective, safe vaccine.
Fast forward to last week: Humboldt County confirmed 217 new COVID-19 cases with a test-positivity rate of 10.6 percent in one of the worst weeks of virus spread since the pandemic began. Meanwhile, the economy is fully reopened, if understaffed, with indoor dining and movie theaters operating unrestricted, and last year’s mask mandate replaced by a recommendation. And while science has delivered — giving us not one but three vaccines proven incredibly effective at preventing serious illness and death — our population has been slow to embrace it, with about a third of local eligible residents having not yet received a shot. (Another 12 percent of us — those under the age of 12 — are not yet eligible to be vaccinated.)
Enter the Delta variant. Health officials warn it’s like COVID on steroids — twice as infectious and, a growing body of evidence indicates, resulting in more severe illness. Emerging data also suggests Delta is more likely to infect the fully vaccinated, though so-called breakthrough cases remain rare and resulting severe illness is even rarer.
The war, quite clearly, has changed.
This was apparent when the county announced July 29 that it would mandate facial coverings in county facilities the following morning. The move was not surprising — Humboldt County has among the worst case numbers in the state, bad enough to trigger the CDC’s universal masking recommendation. The county could have imposed a masking mandate for all in all public spaces. There’s a strong argument that would have been prudent. But the county’s explanation was telling: “The recent surge in cases in Humboldt County poses a real threat not only to our community, but also to the county’s own ability to provide vital services.”
The mask-mandate in county facilities is to protect their staff and the county’s ability to function. This is the world we’re left to navigate — each of us, as businesses, institutions, organizations, employees, families and individuals, making our own risk calculations while factoring in that some of us will continue to get sick and die, particularly the unvaccinated. And we come to grips with this amid the sobering realization that we’ll likely be living with COVID-19 for a long time. For many of us, that comes with anger and regret and disappointment.
To call this surge in infections “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” feels wrong. Yes, data indicates those of us who are fully vaccinated are far less likely to need an oxygen tank or to die alone in an ICU, but we all feel the impacts of this pandemic — and the choices of our neighbors who choose not to vaccinate. We’ll worry about sending our young, unvaccinated kids to school or whether a case cluster will shutter our business. We’ll know even a mild case of the virus could leave us behind on rent or cost us a job. We’ll long for a true normal — practical and psychological — that’s out of reach. All while experiencing the collective trauma of preventable illness and death week after week after week.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. As has always been the case, each of us has some power to prevent spread of this virus — even its hopped-up Delta variant — but it takes all of us.
Please, no matter your politics or personal risk calculations, do all you can. Talk to your healthcare provider about the vaccines. If you choose not to get vaccinated, recognize your neighbors are counting on you to follow health and safety protocols proven to prevent spread: masking in public, not mixing households, refraining from travel, distancing. You cannot responsibly engage in the return to the public life vaccination can bring us without vaccinating yourself. Even in terms of of self preservation, if you go into restaurants and gatherings unmasked and unvaccinated, there will be no herd immunity to protect you or those your infection will put in greater danger. Weigh your choices carefully.
This war has changed but we still — each of us and all of us — have the power to prevent it from lasting forever.
This article appears in Best of Humboldt 2021.
So many social ills are being exposed by this epidemic.
Chief among them is our educational system’s failure to emphasize science, creating a collective ignorance readily superseded by emotional, political or religious personal beliefs…the same fate needlessly suffered by our medieval ancestors during the plague.
How is it even possible that our community’s public voices….leaders, elected and appointed officials, academics, journalists, healthcare workers and professionals of all sort…are universally self-censoring a “universal healthcare system” when it’s most needed?
Visit Chris Hedges’ stunning lecture on “American Sadism” to hear a litany of the rest.
Closing some military bases could provide U.S. residents with enough temporary income and services to cope…starting with the multi-billion dollar military resorts where the officer-class fly for “free” around the world to take their leave.
On a local level, fire the idiots who imposed a “resiliency” campaign instead of “no mask no entry” county and citywide mandates with billboards and TV ads for all public spaces.
Why would anyone want to shop, go to work or school while there’s so many careless and nihilistic psychos being allowed to wander-freely?
Just yesterday, despite their signs requiring masks, half the customers and employees at Pierson’s were wearing them…even the signs at local estate and garage sales are being ignored.
There’s never been a better excuse for anyone with disposable income to save it for the inevitable bankrupting hospital bills.
“Chief among them is our educational system’s failure to emphasize science, creating a collective ignorance readily superseded by emotional, political or religious personal beliefs…the same fate needlessly suffered by our medieval ancestors during the plague”
Well said. But I’m not sure giving up individual beliefs and forcing universal government medical care on everyone is the answer. Monopoly government services rarely remain services. This pandemic is a tragedy, but not completely due to lack of strong central government. Some might argue that it was a powerful but incompetent central government and PR that exacerbated it:
1) Fauci said we didn’t need masks, then we did, then we didn’t, then we did
2) Pelosi said stopping flights from China was “racism”, thus bringing the virus here quicker
3) I pleaded for the former health department officer to pull up the Humboldt county drawbridges and close the airports to non pandemic related travelers, they said it county has no self control of the federal facilities like airports and roads
4) The state university insisted on bringing in students and faculty (aka viral vectors) from all over the world
The result is a county ideally situated to have been an oasis from this pandemic, but we were forced to participate by “open borders” mentality and federal regulations.
A little local common sense plus a tiny amount of education on things like exponential spread would have worked and still could work wonders if given a chance.
Chuck has pointed out the obvious social ills exposed by this virus, chief among them is the denial by some that this disease is a serious threat to society. One can only wonder what this mentality did during times of widespread polio, bubonic plague, cholera, leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria. Were they more concerned about their rights than their life then also?
I suppose one could argue both sides equally well. Comparing naturally occurring diseases to Covid (it’s a stretch) is like comparing apples to oranges. Granted, both are fruits, but taste very different.
Covid is a souped-up lab enhanced super virus (“gain of function”) that I’m sure we can all agree.
What I do disagree (as well as many millions/billions?) with is that we (as a human race) is trying (operation warp speed mentality) to now fix this problem at any cost.
Kind of like a nuclear reactor leak or water treatment plant sewage pouring into the ocean. A panic of sorts sets in and we scramble to fix the problem at any cost.
Well, the labeling of anti-vaxxer reaction to these unapproved FDA jabs and tests is comical and completely unfair (kind of like Gavin Newsom complaining about the recall as being “unfair…”).
Yes, the jabs are approved for EUA use as the below definition asserts (nothing more nothing less):
“An Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) is a mechanism to facilitate the availability and use of medical countermeasures, including vaccines, during public health emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Under an EUA, FDA may allow the use of unapproved medical products, or unapproved uses of approved medical products in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions when certain statutory criteria have been met, including that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.”
The problem sir/ma’am, is that there are alternatives. Many viable alternatives. And to not acknowledge the alternatives is complete nonsense.
I suppose one could argue both sides equally well. Comparing naturally occurring diseases to Covid (it’s a stretch) is like comparing apples to oranges. Granted, both are fruits, but taste very different.
Covid is a souped-up lab enhanced super virus (“gain of function”) that I’m sure we can all agree.
What I do disagree (as well as many millions/billions?) with is that we (as a human race) is trying (operation warp speed mentality) to now fix this problem at any cost.
Kind of like a nuclear reactor leak or water treatment plant sewage pouring into the ocean. A panic of sorts sets in and we scramble to fix the problem at any cost.
Well, the labeling of anti-vaxxer reaction to these unapproved FDA jabs and tests is comical and completely unfair (kind of like Gavin Newsom complaining about the recall as being “unfair…”).
Yes, the jabs are approved for EUA use as the below definition asserts (nothing more nothing less):
“An Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) is a mechanism to facilitate the availability and use of medical countermeasures, including vaccines, during public health emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Under an EUA, FDA may allow the use of unapproved medical products, or unapproved uses of approved medical products in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions when certain statutory criteria have been met, including that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.”
The problem sir/ma’am, is that there are alternatives. Many viable alternatives. To not acknowledge the alternatives is complete nonsense.
I was just looking at this now again for any rebuttals, etc.
Not sure about why I have duplicate comments from earlier today. Interesting.
I don’t want this to be my personal blog or manifesto, etc. I enjoy reading the comments whether I agree or disagree with one’s opinion.
My apologies. Have a good day, evening, weekend…
PhD virologists and epidemiologists are warning of a high probability of far worse variants to come due to the failure of voluntary individual participation in masking and getting vaccinated.
All vaccines have side-effects for some people, but refusing your tetanus vaccine isn’t a threat to my entire community.
Our local and national shot-callers are doing what they always do…listening to the deepest pockets who want those poverty wage workers back at it without health insurance or hazard pay.
Mandatory masks, vaccines, a ban on super-spreader events, continue COVIC-relief $, institute a universal healthcare system…or let nature eliminate millions more…apparently, the republicans first…then the rest of us on cots side-by-side like Mother Theresa’s AIDS death camps in India.