Last month, in an appearance on the Daily podcast, I warned against assuming that the pandemic was over. The Delta variant was poised to potentially sweep across the United States. It might create a surge that might even require that the country return to masking and other measures to slow it down.
I sensed that the Daily host Michael Barbaro did not welcome the news. And I could sympathize. After months of mass vaccination and crashing cases, it was easy to believe that the coronavirus was now behind us. But by early July, there was plenty of evidence that the Delta variant might well push back those gains. It bore mutations allowing it to multiply quickly inside a host and then swiftly spread to new victims. It had already overwhelmed countries like India and the United Kingdom. Vaccines work well against Delta–especially against hospitalization from Covid-19–but only after both doses. Only about half of Americans are fully vaccinated, leaving the rest easy targets for the variant. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, August 13, 2021”