The COVID-19 Pandemic Returns…or Did It Never Leave?

Who doesn’t want to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind them? I do. My unconscious desire to do so must be stronger than I knew. I have one browser dedicated to the COVID-19 monitoring sites but it has been months since I visited them. Until today. What I found was unnerving. But you can see for yourself.

In my Edge browser I have permanently appearing tabs for:

• The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. This is the site that projects daily and cumulative deaths, hospitalizations, etc.
• The COVID-19 Dashboard at Johns Hopkins University. This is the site that tracks actual cases, deaths, and immunizations.
• The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. I go to this site for thoughtful analysis of the data that is coming in on the pandemic.
• I also keep an eye on state and county data here in Maryland at the Maryland COVID-19 Dashboard. My county, Prince George’s, has had more cases of COVID-19 (85K+) than any other in the state.

National Public Radio (NPR) reported on July 16th what the IHME data is beginning to show: a steady increase in the number of deaths nationally for the first time in nine months. In fact, by November 1, the number of deaths in the U.S. by COVID-19 will be close to exceeding the number of deaths from 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, approximately 675,000. Yes, the population of the U.S. in 1918 was much less than it is now so the percentage of the population that died was higher then. Still, 675,000 moms, dads, grandparents, children, friends, colleagues, etc.

We have protocols that work for preventing the spread of the COVID-19, even the Delta variant which is now responsible for most infections in the U.S. You know, them, so let’s say them together: Masking, maintaining physical distance, and getting fully vaccinated. However, as you’ve heard by now, not everyone is doing all three, and some are not doing any of the three.

As NPR reported, Anthony Fauci told Meet the Press on July 4th that 99% of recent COVID deaths were among the unvaccinated. This week CDC director Rochelle Walensky added that 97% of COVID-19 hospitalizations were due to unvaccinated individuals. Also on the 16th, the website AL.com reported that nine children were hospitalized in Alabama hospitals with COVID-19 and one was on a ventilator. All of this has led Walensky to state the facts as they are. This is now “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Sorry for the upcoming sports analogy, but, geez, this feels like one of those moments when we could have put away the game but then we…well, we blew it. We took our eyes off the ball, we started celebrating before we crossed the goal line, we thought the clock had run out, we thought we could just tap it in – apply any other “almost but not quite” sports analogy you like. The fact is, we are failing and, still, the solutions are so simple. We can be better than this. But are we? I hope the 2121 history books show that we were.

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This just in before publication this morning…the New York Times is reporting on a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll. The poll indicates that some who have been resisting getting vaccinated are changing their minds. This is good news and small step in the right direction. There are three themes that have emerged from the data that explain why they are changing:

• Seeing that millions of other Americans have been safely vaccinated.
• Hearing pro-vaccine messages from doctors, friends, and relatives.
• Learning that not being vaccinated will prevent people from doing some things.