Living with Coronavirus
(SARS-CoV-2)
Sunday May 16, 2021
8:07 AM

Welcome to our “New Reality”.  This is it and yes, it is still a Pandemic.

A Pandemic is determined by spread and infected areas.  If the levels of a disease remain static, so that is there are always more or less the same number of cases, then the disease is considered endemic.  If the disease is blooming, with big spikes here and there, it remains a Pandemic.  India has been having close to half a million cases per day for over a week now.  Now we are looking at Nigeria and the African continent for the next potential bloom.

In America we have about 35% vaccinated. That is about 115 million of us with good resistance to Covid-19.  Another 33 Million of us have been diagnosed with Covid-19, you could double that to 66 to include asymptomatic cases.  We are not sure how much protection occurs with people who have had it, especially if they do not know if they did because they had no symptoms.  So, 175 Million or so of Americans have some protection.  That is about 50%, not the 75-85% we would like to see to make herd immunity.

We are on the 10-yard line.  Let’s not spike the ball just yet, ok?

CDC removed masking requirements for the vaccinated both indoors and outdoors.  That is fine for the vaccinated, but how are people supposed to know who is vaccinated and who is not?  Nothing prevents the unvaccinated, or unwilling to be vaccinated, from simply going mask-less and spreading C-19 to others?  Many GOP are refusing to wear masks and refusing to be vaccinated, it is a short leap of assumption to think some of those will simply keep doing what they have been, to all our detriment.

As long as the globe is infected, with large blooms here and there, it will remain a Pandemic.  It does not bode well for us if we forget that.  America is unmasking and opening up, too soon in my opinion.  I suspect the powers that be expect few people to change their minds about the vaccine at this juncture, especially those convinced by politics and conspiracy theories.  As long as we have people who refuse to act with one accord against a viral threat, we will have blooms of that virus.

Take a note of this, when the UK had its big bloom, the UK variant developed.  The same in NY, California, and Brazil.  We can expect new variants from the bloom in India, but it may take a long time to find them.  Only now is the virus getting to rural India, where there is no medicine, few doctors, and no hospital close at hand.  People here will sicken and die at home and may never be counted as a covid death.  The same thing will happen in Africa.

That is the new normal.  Some folks like me will mask in the store, but not outside or at home.  Some folks won’t mask at all.  Some folks like me will be vaccinated, but some folks vow never to be vaccinated.  This allows groups of people for the virus to exist in and among; breeding, spreading, and eventually mutating.  This new normal could go on for a year or a decade, we do not know as the virus is still a novel virus and not fully understood.

Globally we have about 1.5 billion vaccinated, out of over 7 billion.  A long ways off a global herd immunity.

Global Infected      157,739,395                   162,588,032                       
Increase             4,848,637
7-day average        692,662 infections diagnosed daily –DOWN

Global Dead          3,284,463                                  3,371,120
Increase             86,657
7-day average        12,379 deaths daily –DOWN

USA Infected         32,686,791                              32,924,375
Increase             237,584
7-day average        33,940 infections diagnosed daily –DOWN

USA C-19 deaths      581,517                                         585,708
Increase             86,657
7-day average        598 deaths daily –DOWN

Maine Infected       63,750                                     65,523         
Increase             1,773
7-day average        253 infections diagnosed daily –DOWN

Maine deaths         795                            801
Increase             6
7-day average        0.85714 deaths daily –STATIC

While I stayed on my hilltop 86,657 of my fellow humans died of Covid-19, of those 86,657 were my fellow Americans and 6 were my fellow Mainers.