COVID19 May Not Have An End Day In Sight Experts Say

Have you reached your breaking point with the pandemic? Are you ready to throw up your hands, let down your guard and accept that you'll probably get Covid-19? Many Americans are openly wondering if this is the way to go The U.K., Netherlands, France and several other E.U. countries are rolling back most of their Covid restrictions, and Australia, until now a global model for Covid mitigation, has flipped its approach from a ?zero Covid? strategy to just ?let it rip.? Many pundits, politicians and others are publicly saying that they are ?over? Covid. You know who else is over Covid? The nearly 16,000 people who died from the virus between Jan. 19 and Jan. 25.Have you reached your breaking point with the pandemic? Are you ready to throw up your hands, let down your guard and accept that you'll probably get Covid-19? Many Americans are openly wondering if this is the way to go. The U.K., Netherlands, France and several other E.U. countries are rolling back most of their Covid restrictions, and Australia, until now a global model for Covid mitigation, has flipped its approach from a ?zero Covid? strategy to just ?let it rip.? Many pundits, politicians and others are publicly saying that they are ?over? Covid. You know who else is over Covid? The nearly 16,000 people who died from the virus between Jan. 19 and Jan. 25.
Beyond death counts and mortality rates, the widely confirmed debilitating effects of long-haul Covid should wipe all wrong-headed ?let it rip? notions right out of our collective minds.
Americans are understandably frustrated. When the vaccines became available, we were told we could reach ?herd immunity? if 60 or 70 percent of Americans got vaccinated, meaning that most of the population would become immune, leaving fewer people to infect. Then that number started to climb. Soon, the discussion of herd immunity quieted.
Two factors conspired to ensure that herd immunity remained an elusive goal. First, anti-vaccine activists and influential physicians and politicians twisted the concepts of freedom and personal liberty and spread disinformation to drive opposition to vaccination. As of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 63 percent of eligible Americans are fully vaccinated, and just 40 percent of adults have received a booster. Second, the lack of a global vaccination strategy made the U.S. and the world susceptible to new, infectious variants.
This doesn't mean it's time to quit and just let nature take its course. Sacrificing vulnerable Americans because we are frustrated and inconvenienced endangers the very people we should be protecting. And deciding that the best course for those who aren't at high risk is to just catch the virus and get it over with is equally flawed.