NYCity from Freedom Tower |
I’ll call Apoorva Mandavilli’s long piece in the New York Times today a “booklet”, “The Coronavirus Is Threatening a Comeback: Here’s How to Stop It.”
She believes we have a false sense of security from
the recent drops, which is leveling off this week, after last week’s horrible
weather in the Midwest and Texas. The
drop in death rates and ICU is partly attributable to vaccinating people in
care facilities.
But young adults have not been vaccinated yet. Essential workers will help. People in large households will help. Young adults living alone (this seems like
gay men especially) as adults have, ironically, very little disease right now,
given the past.
We should be concerned that the variants may be more aggressive
with young adults (as there are sporadic horror stories in the media, but they don’t
hit close to home yet).
We should also be very concerned if the virus keeps on
becoming more evasive and aggressive, despite our previous expectations.
She does talk a lot about behavioral change, and
perhaps personal social values changes.
The Zeynep Tufecki tells us in The Atlantic, “5 PandemicMistakes We Keep on Repeating”. They
have to do with engaging risk, evenhandedly.
One question that sounds critical: with the new variants retain their high dispersion,
with most spread in super-spreader events?
Or could surfaces and even personal hygiene turn out to become more
important than they have so far?