I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of the pandemic in the US since last week’s poorly planned CDC announcement that the vaccinated no longer need wear masks. I’d still like to hear from Joe Biden and Rochelle Walensky about what happened and what they expect from here on, but it looks like that won’t happen.
So here’s what I expect.
In Santa Fe, mask-wearing has changed little. Only three people out of maybe 50 in Trader Joe’s on Thursday were not wearing masks. Today at the Farmers’ Market, which is mostly outdoors, I saw one naked face until I got back to my car, where a party of five naked faces from the van parked next to my car were obstructing my way. I asked nicely, and they moved. But yeah, it’s going to be the obnoxious ones who don’t wear masks.
I saw a study tweeted this week that said that people are doing pretty much what they were doing before the announcement. That’s what I’m seeing in Santa Fe.
I wish I had a computer model, and I wish that the CDC were releasing the results of modeling that I’m sure they’ve done. But here’s my best guess as to how it’s going to go. People will ease into more relaxed precautions. All the while, more and more get vaccinated, and some will come through their case of covid with immunity. We still have tens of thousands becoming ill every day, and hundreds dying.
But we’re at 85% of over 70’s vaccinated, and the percent of the rest of over-12s is creeping up to 50%. That’s enough to slow down the transmission of the virus. It looks like the vaccinated seldom catch the virus and don’t much shed virus when they do, so that’s a hard stop for transmission.
Bottom line: I think that we’re not going to see another surge in the US. Maybe a little bump for the obnoxious ones.
debbie
Vaccination rate here is in the mid-40s. I ran errands this morning. No signs requiring masks and no arrows directing foot traffic, but everyone I saw inside buildings was masked. Then I heard on the news that one shot is 31% effective against the variant from India (sorry i don’t remember the number), while two shots are 81% effective. Has it been detected in this country?
HinTN
I hope you’re right, Cheryl
ETA: It’s a start but we gotta do this for all 9 billion of us.
SiubhanDuinne
That seems only just.
prostratedragon
Considering that it’s no surprise who is still acting cautiously, I almost think the announcement was the nicest, gentlest, “You’re on your own, jackasses” one could imagine.
matt
In Montreal we’ve had an indoor mask law since last summer. However very few people are masked outside, even when gathering in illegally large groups.
Last summer, cases went down. This summer too, with help from growing vaccinations, with not help from illegal indoor gatherings.
In short, I agree.
Timurid
Difficulty: The Southeast.
Here in Louisiana, vaccination rates (for total population) are at about 35% partial and 30% full and plateauing rapidly. It appears unlikely we’ll get much past 40%, at least not until shots are fully open to children later in the summer. Seasonality is reversed here, with everyone crowding back indoors when the real hot summer weather starts in a few weeks. Our state government, after being pretty proactive for most of the pandemic, has just thrown up its hands. All mitigation efforts and regulations have ceased, and they have no real plan for addressing vaccine hesitancy, not even lotteries or similar gimmicks that other states have used.
When the hot weather hits maybe half of the population (including recent Covid infections) will be protected, there will be no attempts at mitigation (any such actions would be full stop politically impossible) and the average variants in circulation will be more infectious than what existed this time last year. But at least we’re not in Mississippi or Alabama, where the situation is even worse.
At this point a severe wave in the Gulf South this summer isn’t just possible or likely. It’s fully baked into the cake.
Cheryl Rofer
@prostratedragon: Yes. The biggest problem is that the announcement included no guidance for the immunocompromised or those with children under 12. Presumably they are stuck doing what they were doing, or maybe less.
Cheryl Rofer
@Timurid: The 30-40% vaccinated will help slow things down, but I agree that progress across the country will be nonuniform, and some areas will be hit worse than others.
Cameron
I don’t get out much, so I go by what I see at the supermarket. Over the last few weeks it’s gone from about 90% masked to about 70% (maybe less) masked. Whether this means more people have gotten vaccinated, I have no idea – it’s Florida, after all.
Starfish
I ended up radically changing my behavior because I was going through garbage.
Shortly after two-week post vaccination, I got on a plane (packed) to go to the other side of the country to spend a week with a sick relative who was not vaccinated and go into cramped stores that I had not been in since before the pandemic. On the plane, they remind you eighty-seven times to wear your mask. As I was trying to leave the lavatory, I was blocked by this woman who had a naked face explaining to the flight attendants that she was not wearing a mask because she was drinking her drink. She was in the line to the bathroom! Not drinking a drink. The flight attendant offered to get her another mask. I missed being in my house away from stupid people.
Upon my return, my job that shut down very early in the pandemic had a large gathering that was mostly mask less in a park in a nearby city. I knew that most of my coworkers were fully vaccinated because we had talked about it for weeks and weeks. I brought my mask and wore it a little, but I took it off because I knew we were fully vaccinated and outside. It was nice to see other people and do a normal thing, and there were some hugs because we had not seen each other in a year.
I am still more comfortable with a mask and a little exhausted by the amount of human interaction I had.
Where I am seeing people without masks, I am more often hearing discussions about vaccination and if the other person feels comfortable sitting next to someone who is unmasked. But there was that one dude gloating a number of weeks ago about how he did not want to wear a mask. He was more an exception to the rule.
Timurid
@Cheryl Rofer: Mrs. Lincoln’s enjoyment of her big night at the theater was decidedly nonuniform.
Cameron
@Timurid: And we’re entering hurricane season. I don’t think anything good can come from jamming large numbers of people into emergency shelters.
Scout211
I feel really grateful that California is taking a slow walk toward rescinding the mask mandate and opening up the state. Both the public health director and (most likely) Cal-Osha have designated June 15th as the end of the mask mandate and COVID safety protocols for businesses. The 30 day lead time allows more time to get people vaccinated and it also gives businesses time to prepare.
Most of the counties in California have moved to walk-in vaccinations (the pharmacies already had, per the Federal requirement) in addition to appointments. Plus, most counties now have plans in place to travel to the homes of people who are not able to leave their homes. Most also have clinics set up at local events, fairs, churches, sporting events, etc.
namekarB
Same in Sacramento area. Mostly everyone is masked in stores with a smattering of unmasked. The cautious folks are still being cautious. I’ll probably always wear a mask indoors in crowded conditions. I have not had a cold since pandemic started which has been an “aha” awakening for me personally.
Starfish
@Cameron: They should offer vaccines at the emergency shelters to avoid outbreaks.
trollhattan
Hearing more about the “India variant” which technically is now “variants” [I wrote it, come and get me, coppers!] and the amount of vaccine breakthrough they’re finding, and am not sanguine there’s no chance one of those, or one from elsewhere, taking hold here. Bangladesh and Nepal are being hit hard ATM and lack adequate vaccine supplies.
Local polling shows roughly 40% resistance to getting vaccinated, which I find simply nuts considering anybody who wishes to be vaccinated can now get it. There’s simply no excuse but there’s a hefty supply of what I’ll call future patients.
Another Scott
I hope you’re right, and have a gut feeling you’re right, but I think we still need to be very careful.
The UK seems to be a few weeks ahead of us on the vaccination trajectory. There have been some cautionary statements about increased infection from one of the variants, so we should watch things like that.
SD seemed to be a disaster a few months ago, then more recently MI after that. Both are doing much better, and MI is coming down from its latest surge. Let’s hope that the trend continues, and any “tornadoes” are weak and isolated.
I saw that someone noted that human pandemics usually last a couple of years or so. Let’s hope that that rule-of-thumb holds this time too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Timurid
More seriously, with half the population protected by vaccination or infection, r0 could be kept under 1 pretty easily with only minor precautions, keeping any outbreaks truly localized. But there will be no further attempts at mitigation here. None. The politics will not allow it, full stop. Governor Edwards had to spend every last penny of political capital to get to this stage of the pandemic in reasonably good shape. If he makes any attempt to reimpose restrictions this summer, no matter how bad things get, the Republican legislature may finally make good on its repeated threats to impeach him.
Almost Retired
I certainly feel that things are going well here in Los Angeles County, especially with the continued mask mandate and decent compliance (anecdotally). I hope we don’t move backwards after the State’s June 15th reopening – and that a bunch of un-vaccinated goobers don’t turn up in town demanding admission to Disneyland and the Universal Studios tour.
Baud
When does contact tracing become feasible again?
WaterGirl
Things have changed here considerably since the CDC announcement.
I wish I could feel as optimistic as you do.
MattF
Anecdata from my morning supermarket run. About 2/3 of people on the street were masked, everyone in the supermarket was masked. I didn’t wear a mask on the street but wore one in the market. One storefront (Jeni’s ice cream) that had required customers to wear masks had a sign saying that masking was optional if you were fully vaccinated.
Another Scott
@Baud: It seems like we’re still far away from being able to do contact tracing in the US, except in isolated instances (e.g. grade schools). I’ve still got the Bluetooth thingy from the Virginia health department on my phone, but I haven’t heard about it (or similar things) actually being used for contact tracing…
CalculatedRiskBlog from 5/20:
I assume that we’ll need to hit ballpark numbers like those before we have a hope of doing serious contact tracing / quarantine / etc – the usual public health measures.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
On the plus side, a week or so ago, Illinois was at 41% with at least one shot, and my county (with a college town) was at 46%. Abysmal.
I checked just now, and today my county shows at 56% and Illinois shows as 51%.
I wonder if most of that change is 12-15 year olds.
Soprano2
All restrictions are coming off here on May 28th. We have 41+% in Springfield with at least one shot; I’m sure it’s less than that in surrounding counties. I think we’ll get to 50% sometime in June. Few will wear masks after May 28th; we’re the only city with any remaining restrictions. I’m sure there will be a spike in mid-June, but it won’t be as bad as previous ones. I and my loved ones are protected; at this point, that’s mostly what I care about. Let those stupid MAGAS infect each other, they were already doing it anyway.
MattF
My current guess is that the next few months will show hot spots in places with lower vaccination rates but continuing declines in averages– so averages will decrease and variances will increase. The good news is that the vaccines’ efficacy with variants have been better than anyone expected, so it’s reasonable to predict better-than-expected generally. The places with large numbers of unvaccinated (e.g., in the South) may see surges this winter. We shall see.
dmsilev
@Almost Retired: I think LA is on a good trajectory. We earned it the hard way though; December and January were brutal. I saw something from the county Public Health folks a couple of weeks ago saying that if you combine vaccinations plus people who had the virus, roughly 63% of the total population had some level of immunity. With additional progress on vaccinations since then, we’re probably above 2/3s at this point and climbing steadily. Cases are dropping about 15% a week, and if that trend continues we’ll be at roughly 1/100k/day on the 15th of June.
Ohio Mom
I expect there will be relatively small outbreaks in various regions for the foreseeable future. At least the next few years.
The outbreaks will put a fire under some of the unvaccinated in those affected areas to get their shots. Hopefully, the health authorities will jump on these teachable moments and ramp up vaccination efforts.
But just as I don’t give much thought to say, a measles outbreak in California, I am probably not going to get too worried about a Covid outbreak in Texas. I’m feeling pretty safe these days (still wearing a mask in public).
Shakti
I went to the eye doctor’s yesterday because my eyes were flaring up.
At that office it’s still masks all the time, regardless of vaccination status.
At the mall (I wanted to pick up an order purchase), maybe half to 1/2 of the people walking around were masked.
In the supermarkets, maybe half the people are masked.
The best predictor of a masked person is “Are they working at the store?” Every employee was masked. I feel like this is a labor issue, aside from vaccine access. You shouldn’t make employees guess if you’re going to covid them when they can’t even ask you if you’re vaccinated and can’t say anything about coronavirus period.
. Per this site,~ 40% of my county is fully vaccinated. Across the bridges, 1/3 of the people are fully vaccinated.
I’m with Watergirl: I don’t trust people not to lie about their vaccination status though and I don’t trust DeSantis because he’s made it impossible to enforce any kind of masking.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud:
That’s a really good question. I can’t give you numerical values, but it’s been one of my criteria for the pandemic being close to over. To be clear, in case I wasn’t in the OP, I don’t think we’re close to over now, with tens of thousands of cases a day, but I do think that we are on a good trajectory and will continue more or less on it.
Contact tracing depends partly on how many people are available to do it. I’ve seen very little reporting on this, although occasionally a story pops up that implies that it is going on in specialized cases, like nursing homes.
Contact tracing will be on the state and local levels. So tens of thousands of cases a day mean multiples of 200 cases per state every day. I’d guess that number needs to get down to 50 or below, again, depending on how many tracers are available.
So, just as a round number, let’s say a couple of thousand cases per day across the US. At that point, things will definitely be nonuniform, and some states will be able to trace, while others will not
ETA: Looks like my estimates are similar to Scott’s at #23, but slightly smaller.
Mike in NC
I was informed at the liquor store (state-owned) that masks are optional. Assume that big chain stores like Home Depot and Publix are awaiting guidance from corporate to do likewise.
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: My estimates are even with too many people doffing their masks. But yeah, it’s safer in places where they continue to wear them.
MisterForkbeard
I’m worried about a surge in kids catching it. That’s pretty much it.
We have good amount of vaccination, and whose left is mostly anti-vaxxers (fuck ’em) and kids who can’t get the shot yet (super important). But I’m really worried about my kids, who can’t get vaccinated until the Sept/Oct timeframe – and one of whom has a history of getting pneumonia.
But we aren’t going to get a nationwide surge again, no.
Obdurodon
Where I live (suburb of Boston) masks have been steadily disappearing *outdoors*. As a fully vaccinated “reciprocal masker” I’m almost at the point where I’ll start keeping one in my pocket instead of around my neck when I run. Not bringing one at all still seems far off. Indoors, masks still seem to be the norm. My wife reports a couple of people at the grocery store not wearing any, but I haven’t noticed much change myself. I’m about to go out and do errands, so I guess I’ll see. When I look at most other parts of the country, I’m feel pretty good about where we are.
My mother’s nursing home in Michigan is now open for normal visitation. I’m still waffling between driving one day (13-14 hours total), driving two days, or flying. Driving it all at once is unpleasant. Splitting across two days means another hotel, but also gives me an opportunity to visit the Southern Tier brew house which I’ve wanted to do for a while. Flying is obviously quicker, but also means renting a car while I’m there. Also, vaccines aren’t 100% and it’s *Michigan* which has done poorly, so that’s another vote against. Decisions, decisions.
Almost Retired
@dmsilev: Agreed, the second lock down was brutal. Interesting article in this morning’s Los Angeles Times regarding Orange County’s less effective initial response.
Sister Golden Bear
Same here in the SF Bay Area.
Why do I continue wearing a mask? Among other reasons I don’t want to look like an asshole Republican. //
dmsilev
@Almost Retired: Yeah, I read that article as well (Link, though it may be paywalled ). Sadly, still a lot of conservative asses in Orange. Example:
Citizen Alan
Any new research into Long Covid and how it’s affecting people? I have this recurring vision of GQP assholes who wouldn’t mask and wouldn’t get the vaccine gloating about how they got over Covid w/o difficulty and then demanding SSI Disability benefits five years from now because of permanent lung damage or some other issue.
Obdurodon
@Sister Golden Bear: I go out of my way to be an asshole Democrat. My “Black Lives Matter” mask, which I previously wore only rarely, has become my go-to precisely *because* it’s an extra irritant for the neanderthals. I still have a Biden/Harris mask too. ;)
The Moar You Know
@Baud: Never was, never will be. People lie, people don’t cooperate, people don’t answer the phone.
dmsilev
Speaking of the LA Times, they just posted a story pointing out that, surprise, Kevin McCarthy is an irresponsible asshole:
Kent
My wife just flew down to Chile to look after her elderly parents who have (non-COVID) related health problems. She will be gone for a month.
Chile has about the same vaccination rate as the the US but their Covid rates are creeping back up as they move into winter. Unfortunately they mostly have the Chinese vaccines as they only have limited supplies of Pfizer and Moderna. And the Chinese vaccines seem less effective, especially after one dose.
In any event, Chile is currently in a much more severe lockdown than any state here has ever faced. You have to have a pass on your phone to leave the house and it’s only for an hour or two every other day except for essential work. Their current average of new cases is about 6,000 per day for a population of 19 million which gives a current rate of 31 per 100,000 which is about double most US states. My wife had to get 2 Covid tests before departure and has to do a 5-day quarantine in a quarantine hotel upon arrival. She was re-tested in the airport and met with a cordon of soldiers in PPE and had her person and luggage sprayed with disinfectant 3 times. Then boarded a sanitized bus to be whisked to her quarantine hotel (which is just an ordinary business hotel like a Holiday Inn Express that is contracted by the government to do quarantine. She can’t leave her room for 5 days.
She actually doesn’t really care because this is going to be a Netflix vacation for her between departing her 60 hr/week medical job here in the US to the exhausting job of being with her crotchety late 80s parents 24/7 for 3 more weeks.
way2blue
My northern California county with ~770K residents is at 66% of residents at least partially vaccinated and is down to ~20 confirmed cases per day. Amazing. (I think 60% was the tipping point.)
Kelly
Oregon has given the managers of public indoor spaces two options. Continue requiring masks for everyone or check vaccination status at the door and allow vaccinated folks in unmasked. Overwhelmingly still requiring universal masking probably because checking vax status would be a volatile situation and a huge pain in the ass. The outdoor season is starting here so I think we’ll be OK.
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev: Got a friend of mine who lives up there. Said when the mobs hit, mysteriously, all local parking vanished: a crapload of cars from Texas and other deep red southern states, places that normally don’t drive there for the fun, had suddenly appeared throughout the city! He’s convinced those “mobs” were out of state shills organized by social media and I’m very inclined to agree.
mrmoshpotato
@Obdurodon:
Mmmmmm yummo! (Never been, but have enjoyed their brews)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Today was my fully-immune day and we celebrated by going into the city of Philly for the first time since last March and getting haircuts (also first time since March 2020). Had lunch in a sit down restaurant.
Philly has been stricter than the state all through the pandemic but they lifted the outdoor masking requirement. We stayed masked and I’d say over 50%, maybe 70% of the people on the street were masked. 100% in Chinatown, only exceptions a couple of white masters of the universe types.
Kept our masks on in the restaurant except when eating or when some unmasked asshole came up to chat with the staff while standing six inches from our table.
Lately I’ve been watching test positivity numbers. I don’t know exactly what they mean because I don’t know who is getting tested (that is, it’s not necessarily an unbiased sample). But PA is down to 4.5%. In comparison, Alabama is over 20%.
scottinnj
To me the most important dates coming up is not the July 4th dates Biden has put out, nor if I can run in to buy some shirts at Kohl’s without wearing a mask, but the dates in August/September when schools reopen.While I’m an empty nester so it has less direct impact to me but for most of my work colleagues who have kids ranging from Kindergarten to high school the stress of not knowing day to day or week to week what was happening made any kind of planning impossible since March 2020. The amount of stress this last year probably has literally taken time off their lives, let alone the stress on the kids,
My hope is that with vaccination rates going up, hopefully most teachers have been vaccinated by August/September, and a high number of at least middle school and older kids are vaccinated so that schools not only reopen but they stay open. All of this we are doing is so that kids and parents have confidence they will be back in school in school in the fall and more importantly the confidence they will stay there without continual worry about closing/quarantines etc. I really can’t think of anything else more important at this time. So I stay masked because, at least in some very very very little way, it help to make that more of a reality,
Kent
@The Moar You Know: Seriously? Someone is going to drive all the way from TX just to participate in an anti-mask protest in Orange County?
I expect you have enough home-grown crazies. Here in the Portland suburbs of Camas and Washougal WA we recently had our school board meetings shut down by anti-mask crazies and they had to call the police to come arrest them as these so-called adults were vandalizing things…writing on the walls and school board member’s cars and other crazy shit like that. Apparently they were local parents. This is a pretty purple area that went for Biden by about 10 points. So not deep blue like inner Portland, but not MAGAt land either.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The grocery store this morning still has a “masks required” sign, and people followed it. Other places vary
Kent
It just astonishes me what will get people so riled up they go insane.
But masks? I wear one all day long at my work (a big public HS) and my wife wears one all day long at the clinic she works at. It’s a minor hassle. My first teaching job in TX I had to wear a tie which was just as big of a hassle, especially when teaching chemistry. But it never occurred to us to mob the school board meetings foaming at the mouth to scream about the tie mandates.
Of all the things going wrong in the world that one might protest. masks in a pandemic? I don’t even get the logic or psychology. They are a minor annoyance at best, especially for someone who only has to wear one 20 minutes/day at the grocery.
dmsilev
@The Moar You Know: I’m actually a bit surprised; Orange has enough home-grown loons that I didn’t think they’d need to import any.
RaflW
Went over to a friend’s yesterday to see her new condo (new 15 months ago, but first opportunity!). When the elevator arrived to take us back down, the three of us were the only ones out of 8 or 9 in the largish elevator cab wearing masks. In progressive, downtown Minneapolis. It was a rude eye-opener for us.
We dined al fresco and felt comfy being three maskless, vax’d people. After dropping said friend off, we cruised through downtown. Holy heck. Two different, massive charter party busses were off-the-hook packed. A pedal pub had every stool occupied. Clubs had folks spilling out. ALL maskless.
So, uhh, we’ll see how it goes! Minneapolis is in a county with 60% of adults having at least one shot, so it may go fine. I’m just a little apprehensive.
trollhattan
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
CA 1-week positivity rate is 0.7%, which is great but in a big state doesn’t tell the whole tale. Sac County is 3X that, 2.1% and our hospitalization and ICU counts are stubbornly higher than they ought to be at this point. County health dept vaccination counts are lower than a couple months ago, but not reflective of all the various outlets. Needs to be better.
dmsilev
@Kent:
“You can’t tell me what to do”. I think that’s most of it.
way2blue
@WaterGirl: That’s discouraging. In my northern California county, masks are still required in all businesses, medical centers, et cetera. And at outside restaurants unless you’re seated. But walking around most people are maskless. I wear mine dropped around my neck & pull it up if I’m approaching someone masked as a courtesy. But. I think physicians are a bit worried that we’ll see a new (hopefully mini) surge due to maskless anti-vaxers flaunting the guidelines.
Robert Sneddon
It’s interesting to compare the situation in the UK to that of the US. New cases are about half per capita than the US figures but the number of deaths each day is way way down (something like one-tenth the US per capita deaths), as are hospitalisation numbers. The UK currently has about a hundred cases in ICU/MV beds, the US has about 7000 such cases currently.
The only real difference, apart from the UK having a government-enforced lockdown, is that we started vaccinating vulnerable people a few weeks earlier than the Yanks did after suffering winter peaks of infections, hospitalisations and deaths similar to the US. The other difference was that we suffered a much larger number of deaths in the early stages of the disease last year and this may have taken a lot of vulnerable people out of the equation the hard way. The epidemiologists and statisticians are going to have a field day with the data over the decades to come.
StringOnAStick
It seems in general that the loons are growing loonier; I suppose their media bubble is amping up the fear and they are responding to that.
trollhattan
@Kent:
Isn’t a tie in chemistry just a dare to the bunsen burner?
Sloegin
The WA governor just directed that employers can require proof of vaccination, or a signed attestation that you are vaccinated if you don’t have proof handy.
It’s up to employers now to pick up the slack, unless MAGAts in red states start passing legislation to stop it claiming ‘HIPPA hippo sez Muh privvy rights and freedumbs!’
Ken
All this will be solved in a few weeks, when Cole finishes training his crows to attack anyone without a mask, and they start teaching other crows the same thing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
You and me both brother. I tried to use my experiences as a nursing student wearing PPE into isolation rooms, as well as isolation precautions patients wearing a surgical mask outside the room to have an MRI/CAT scan, etc done, on a customer at work who expressed skepticism on mask wearing. I asked him if they didn’t work, why did healthcare workers wear them? In response, he mentioned something about doctors wearing them during surgeries. He couldn’t seem to put two and two together and recognize the underlying principle of wearing a mask during a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus
dmsilev
@trollhattan: Could be worse. I’ve seen photographs of people wearing ties while working on a lathe. That’s …a bad idea.
Robert Sneddon
@dmsilev: Guy I worked with used to work for a company that serviced large high-speed printer/duplicators amongst other things. Work required him to wear a tie at customer sites, a clip-on tie was OK though. Another engineer on a service call then lost his clip-on tie to the printer drum starting up suddenly. This cost the company over fifteen thousand quid in replacement parts since ties and 10,000 page-per-minute printer mechanisms don’t get on well with each other. Shortly thereafter the dress code changed to require smart polo shirts on customer sites.
Brachiator
Vaccines expire. And more people seem to be looking for excuses not to get the vaccine. Many adolescents are getting the vaccine, but there also seems to be an increase in parents who are resistant to getting their children vaccinated. We will see what happens if schools make child vaccination for Covid mandatory.
We will have to change vaccination messaging. For example to encourage the the unvaccinated to get a shot at age 60 or 65.
We may also see an odd effect of fewer people getting a flu vaccine during flu season, thinking that the Covid shot protects them against everything.
Who knows. There may be mini-surges in various communities or states. And there is still a global pandemic. I am not sure how effectively we will be able to control travel into and out of the United States, especially for people who need to travel for work, and for those who insist on taking vacations out of the US.
Also, if there is a significant surge, some states will probably be reluctant to take strong measures to control the pandemic if it might hurt business.
Health authorities will need to develop good methods of investigating the impact of Long Covid and other aspects of the virus.
Even if there is not another big surge, we will be dealing with the impact of Covid-19 for a long time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Never, folk will be screaming about their rights under ‘HiPPA’.
Kent
But they get told what to do all day long in a million other ways.
Stop signs, traffic lights, no shirt, no shoes, no service, use the rest room appropriate to your gender, turn on your headlights at night, etc. etc. etc.
trollhattan
@dmsilev:
?!? Tie and any rotating machinery is veddy, veddy bad.
Buddy who bartended while in college had to wear a tie at the job and he made it a clip-on in case he got in a fight with some drunk. Must admit that made a lot of sense.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: What we didn’t do on our Philly excursion was visit any of the popular marketplaces, Reading Terminal or Rittenhouse Square, though we were told both were in full swing.
I’m not sure when those kinds of crowds will feel again like a place I want to be.
Wag
@Cheryl Rofer:
fixed for truth.
RaflW
One aspect of this that I hope we don’t lose sight of: The southern tier of states is doing much worse on vaccine uptake than most of the rest of the country. Gee, it’s also the part of the US where a lot of rural, Black poverty exists. And these people are subject to increasing efforts to disenfranchise them, while their white GOP governors have been leaders in anti-masking and in slow-walking vaccine distribution.
Yes, WY and ID are MAGA-tastic petri dishes. But the deep south is playing out the same god damned racism as it has for centuries.
Kent
Yep. Or just leaning over and having it dangle in any sort of reagent you are working with. Silk or polyester ties don’t do well in sulfuric acid either.
I used to keep mine tucked into the gap between my top two shirt buttons. Or else wear a lab coat buttoned up. Eventually I just stopped wearing the damn things on lab days and no one said anything. It wasn’t the school administrative staff who gave a shit. It was the paleo-conservative business types on the school board who like the idea of mandating “professionalism” in the schools under their authority.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s hilarious how many people act like experts on HIPAA and don’t understand it only applies to individuals and entities directly tied to healthcare, such as doctors and insurance companies
Kristine
Just returned from the hardware store. Staff masked. Customers I saw were masked unless they were outside and on the way to or from their vehicles. Grocery shopping a few days ago, masks everywhere. In Chicago–Andersonville area–I saw a few folks outdoors w/o them.
I’m in Lake County IL. According to CovidActNow, we’re still at a High risk level. One+ dose: 51.2%. Fully vaxxed: 37.1%. According to the site, IL info is incomplete and the One+ dose percentage may be higher.
Cameron
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “HIPAA” is a wingnut magic incantation, like “socialism.” “woke,” “Marxism,” “cancel culture,” etc. The people spouting this stuff have no idea what any of these things are.
smith
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And never ever get the acronym right.
Obdurodon
@Robert Sneddon: Losing 15K in parts doesn’t even sound like the worst possible outcome. Requiring ties around equipment with rapidly moving parts is a tragedy and ensuing lawsuit just waiting to happen.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
If I had to take a guess, I suppose those things you mentioned are just considered “normal” to them; as long as they’ve been alive people have had to stop at traffic lights. Masking up in public? That’s new and anti-masking has the benefit of entire propaganda networks. IIRC, the same thing more or less happened during the 1918 flu pandemic too.
It’s maddening because it really is a minor inconvenience and the evidence behind their efficacy is overwhelming
Kelly
deleted duplicate
trollhattan
@RaflW:
For weeks Georgia was the outlier WRT lowest vaccine rate but I see they’ve clawed up to the next-worst tier. Now the twin hellholes of Alabama and Mississippi share the cellar, with Georgia and the other states surrounding them a step up. In the west Utah and Wyoming are worst. Utah kind of surprises me.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/us-states
Kelly
That and the internet allows them to find other villages idiots that echo their fears. Also us rational folks are probably more aware of the crazies since they now have broadly accessible public platforms.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Fun fact: The parts of HIPAA that don’t concern privacy actually form the core of large chunk of Obamacare.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
Privacy wasn’t the main purpose of the statute.
Kay
They can’t conduct orderly elections in Stark County anymore. The Trump people are going to contest every single decision.
The state supreme court is elected. They’ll be afraid of the Trump people too.
I know the Republican Party thinks this is genius, but what they’ve unleashed is their burden too. The county commissioners are Republicans and the Trump loonies are going to cost that county tens of thousands of dollars and throw local elections into chaos too. It’s only accelerating- every time they try to appease the terrorists all the terrorists do is up the demand.
smith
@trollhattan: I’m puzzled as to why the Johns Hopkins data differs from the CDC’s (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations) CDC shows the Western outliers as ID and WY. Looking at other states, I think the JH stats are somewhat out of date.
Kay
Here’s the site for Look Ahead America, the grift operation that is suing Ohio:
Looks like the otherwise unemployable Trump low quality hires found a new source of income. Headquartered in DC, of course.
wvng
Here in NE WV I have noticed a distinct reduction in mask wearing in grocery stores. The unmasked population includes the over 65 crowd that may well be vaccinated, and the under 65 crowd that likely did not get vaccinated. There will be unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths. But I do understand the CDC’s decision.
Brachiator
My sister in Texas just called to let me know that our mother had just got her second shot. She had become sick after the first shot, so there was a delay.
But at my sister’s job, everyone was quick to get rid of masks in light of the CDC guidance.
Kay
“First” Still pretending there was a second.
debbie
@Kay:
They lost me at “non-partisan.”
prostratedragon
Building A/C isn’t on yet, so I’m too hot. Afro-Cuban helps: “Oracion Lucumi” or the whole album Cachaito, from Cachaito Lopez. Too bad he didn’t get to record more albums.
Kay
@debbie:
They have to claim to be nonpartisan to dodge taxes. They’re tax cheats, like their Leader.
Anoniminous
@Citizen Alan:
Quite a bit of research.
The problem is, as one study put it:
“Reports of long-lasting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms, the so-called ‘long COVID’, are rising but little is known about prevalence, risk factors or whether it is possible to predict a protracted course early in the disease”
IOW, people are only looking at scraps of evidence any of which may, or may not, turn out to be relevant, never mind predictive.
Princess Leia
@dmsilev:
10 days ago 600+ of them descended upon the Board of Supes to protest “vaccine passports.” Whack jobs, all around us, and the BOS are pushovers for any right wing screamers.
HinTN
@Obdurodon: Go for the Brew House!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
That’s not far from where I live. Those county commissioners should have never listened to those morons in the first place
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Yup, Title 1 of the law also protects health coverage of workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs
debbie
@Kay:
Maybe some enterprising soul will deliver paper for the copier that’s laced with bamboo. //
West of the Rockies
@dmsilev:
McCarthy maskless at an event? RECALL HIM!!! Isn’t that why the Morlocks of CA want Newsom recalled?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Cameron:
Case in point, a regular commenter, quinerly, reported that on local newspaper comment sections, MAGAts were screaming that electric vehicles were “socialist” on stories about Biden driving the new Ford electric truck
@smith:
Nope lol
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I knew it would happen. The moment I saw the Dominion lawsuit I knew they should depose GOP Bd of Election members and county commissioners. There are real damages. Donald Trump destroyed that business. They can’t get a contract in any county with a Trumpist faction. The County Commissioner admitted it in his statement. They have been damaged for tens of millions of dollars in lost sales and value, for no reason other than Donald Trump and his cult members couldn’t admit they lost the re-elect. The company is worthless. They destroyed it.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Unless the Supreme Court is corrupt, the Board of Elections should win that fight. The County Commissioners can’t make it impossible for the BOE to run elections. They overreached. Boards of Elections have real, designated powers. It won’t be a difficult legal question.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kent:
And they resent a lot of it. But the core is they resent like HELL that they keep getting told by society not to be assholes. Well, wearing a mask means being polite to other people and doing something that mildly inconveniences themselves but makes other people safer. They are being told to do it by the same people who tell them not to use racial and homophobic slurs. If mask wearing is a bad thing (for any reason) that is proof that their side was the victim of cheating in the most important election of their lives, the election where the majority of the population told them that their champion was a stupid, incompetent, racist fuckhead and that’s a bad thing. Masks are a perfect storm of “You’re not the boss of me!” motivations for the kind of person who wants to scream “You’re not the boss of me!”
janesays
I think the demasking is going to be a gradual process over the course of the summer. Right now, it seems like most people are still wearing masks in the grocery stores and large retail stores, even though most stores have now revised their policies to exempt vaccinated people from masking requirements. I do think as it gets hotter, more and more people are going to stop wearing masks, assuming the numbers of new cases and deaths keep dropping and we don’t see any big spikes anywhere. almost nobody seems to be wearing masks in public parks anymore, which is probably OK. Outdoor transmission appears to be nearly non-existent.
janesays
@HinTN: Did an extra billion people suddenly inhabit the earth in the last week that nobody said anything about?
;)
We’re still a little shy of 8 billion on most official world population counts. Most models predict we’ll cross that threshold sometime in 2024. We’re probably about 20 years away from hitting 9 billion.
Anoniminous
Masks limit transmission.
Face Masks Effectively Limit the Probability of SARS-CoV-2 Transmission
Which is why face masks have been a recommended part of a home emergency kit since the 1950s. The declared point: “face/dust mask protects from the dusts, vapors, fumes and mold spores or germs…” arising from a natural disaster.
The whole “controversy” (sic) was fabricated. The fact our glorious “Infotainment Mediums” spread it hither and thither is Yet Another reason to stop consuming it.
Uncle Cosmo
@Robert Sneddon: When I was in grad school there was a post-doc in the department whose two chief hobbies were learning his ancestors’ Norwegian and playing the bagpipes.
One of his other charming quirks (or churning quarks) was working on the machine shop’s metal lathe wearing a tie with neither tac nor clasp to keep it free from the works – and he was so tall (~6’6″) he had to bend over the lathe, tie flapping, to operate it. 8^O
Carl played the pipes at a friend’s wedding. Dogonlynose why we didn’t later end up congregating for a funeral, after the spinning metal had seized the cravat and dragged his head into its maw, where there was no one to play them for him.
(ETA: Should’ve acknowledged dmsilev at #63 supra. And speaking of acknowledgements – Ser Sneddon, was that you I recently saw acknowledged in Charles Stross’ The Clan Corporate… “Nojay”? :^D)
emmyelle
A good friend of mine is an Infections Disease doc. We (both fully vaccinated!) had a lovely, maskless, one-Martini dinner last night on my deck. It was so goddam nice, that’s why I am talking about the details. Anyway, her take is that the new guidelines are appropriate, as are continued mask-requirements that individual businesses, workplaces, churches, etc put in place for more public protection, that us vaccinated folks are fine, whether the obnoxious antivaxxers are also obnoxious anti-maskers or not, that this will provide encouragement for many of the hesitant or the folks who were worried about equity in the beginning or the folks who were just waiting for vaccinate to become more convenient.
But, she said, the consensus on the ID community seems to be that we should be prepared for a post-Thanksgiving surge, and we should be prepared to need a booster at least for the next few years, and please don’t burn your masks because you will likely need them, or just want them, from time to time for the next two or three years.
Matt McIrvin
There may not be a big surge in the summer, like there was last time in the hotter parts of the country.
But I do wonder about the fall, when immunity for seniors vaccinated early in 2021 likely starts to wear off and we need a whole new booster-shot campaign. Here’s hoping it’s easier than the first time around with more vaccine-production infrastructure in place and fewer regulatory barriers.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’ve mostly seen leftist commentary about how the electric truck is evil because it’s not a bicycle.
emmyelle
Also, I was at a baseball game the other night, post-CDC announcement. Pretty much everyone I saw was wearing a mask. The stadium was at 25% capacity, so strangers were not sitting ear each other. But everywhere I looked, people took off their masks to eat and drink, and put them on again, and when they got up to walk around, had their masks on.
RaflW
@Obdurodon: I’m glad I flew when I did. Delta was still blocking middle seats but I was fully vax’d. Our next trip — in July — I paid for economy tickets, then used miles to bump up to first for us as a couple so it’s 2 seat together, no shared armrests or shoulders touching strangers. I’m not ready for that yet (even though it’s mostly my feels, not likely epidemiologically very different).
That said, have you looked at rental car prices? Absolutely wild for this summer (the car companies sold off parts of their fleets early in the pandemic, and now the auto manufacturers are still having supply chain problems so refilling fleets is expensive).
Matt McIrvin
@Starfish: Of the Boston-area employees of my company, I think I actually may be the last one to be 2-weeks-fully vaccinated (June 3 is the day). We are planning on a get-together that will involve dining indoors at one of our old haunts. I will do it with enthusiasm. It’ll likely be in Boston which is already in state “green”.
phein62
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Want to become an expert on HIPAA? Take the DoD-mandated PII annual training! (Personal health information is a subset of personally identifiable information.)
https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/trn/online/personally-identifiable-information-pii/launchPage.htm
You’ll learn what the controlling legislation is, who, where, and when it applies, as well as potential civil and criminal penalties.
I’ve taken this every year for some years (along with sexual harassment training, suicide prevention training, human trafficking training, cyber security training, anti-terrorism training, and on and on; heaven help you if you need to contract for a service). You can print out a certificate at the end!
namekarB
@Cheryl Rofer:
So talking with my county health department, a big part of the problem is
This is especially a problem when an individual is an undocumented immigrant
BruceFromOhio
If you define “little” as 871 reported cases in the last 24 hours in the state of Ohio, with a 21-day average of 1,076, then yah, you’ve called it. I wouldn’t tempt the poorer, redder, TFG’ier counties with “obnoxious,” they will totally take you up on it just take make the libs cry. Or something.
BruceFromOhio
@namekarB:
Just saying.
BruceFromOhio
@emmyelle:
I’ve been out in public twice since the announcement, and have seen this also.
Cameron
@Matt McIrvin: I was originally planning on forgetting the mask by the end of summer, but then I remembered that I get a flu shot every fall. If I keep wearing a mask after double-tap vax, it makes sense to me that I should combine flu shot/mask until next year. Of course, that makes me Tony Fauci’s bitch and anti-Merkin to boot, but I’ll get through somehow.
Matt McIrvin
The UK is seeing a small spike right now from the B1.617.2 variant, but it’s mostly circulating among younger people who are less likely to be vaccinated–the Pfizer and AZ vaccines turn out to be fairly effective against it if you’ve got both shots. I expect to see similar things happen here; B1.617.2 has been detected in the US though not in large quantities.
Vaccination is clumpy, and even if a large fraction of the whole population is vaccinated you’d expect unvaccinated people to associate with each other, which makes for potential localized powderkegs.
TerryC
@namekarB: Me too, I haven’t been sick since the pandemic began until my 2 1/2-year-old grandson went back to school three weeks ago. Now I have a really bad cold.
Another Scott
@namekarB: Interesting how everything is interconnected and complicated, isn’t it? :-/
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
randy khan
Costco/Safeway report in NoVa this morning: 1 person without a mask in Safeway.
Outdoor sports venues in the D.C. area are moving in fits and starts to eliminate mask requirements for fans, working with the D.C. government. The Smithsonian is still requiring masks for everyone and limiting entry to its museums.
I’m fully vaccinated as of tomorrow, but I don’t know what I’m going to do when I go shopping next weekend. While I’m comfortable with the idea that I won’t need to wear a mask (everything I see tells me it’s safe for me and other people), it’s clear that almost nobody in my area is willing to take that step, and I wonder if people will think I’m a jerk if I don’t wear one. (Social pressure is real, you know?) On the other hand, my wife had a meeting with someone this morning, they both were vaccinated and, after a brief bit of hemming and hawing they decided they could skip the masks. So it’s going to happen, but I think it will be in fits and starts.
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
Next door neighbor works as a public health inspector downtown. In the cube next to hers at HQ was a contact tracer. She tells the sad story of overhearing him call a client to check up on things. Then she hears him say “Oh, no! I’m so sorry!” as in no more contact tracing with deceased client.
Death makes further contact tracing impossible. Not to mention thousands of current cases! I’m sure they will resume contact tracing when volumes allow that. It’s basic public health procedure, after all. Despite the hatred of RWNJs.
We’re going next door for dinner with close friends later on. No masks. All vaccinated. Love these people very much! Chosen family, if you know what i mean.
marcopolo
Maybe a dead thread, but I am waiting on delivery of my “vaxxed & relaxed” baseball cap. I figure just wearing it most of the time will absolve me from the majority of odd post-vaccination interactions. And while I do feel for those who cannot get the vaccine for one reason or another, if someone who can doesn’t and is out and about maskless and gets sick, well, fuckem.
rikyrah
I will be double masked?? until September at the earliest.
I will wait and see how the opening goes
J R in WV
@janesays:
Last I noticed, the big stores are AIR CONDITIONED and so won’t inconvenience people wearing masks because of the heat OUTSIDE. I’ll be wearing masks indoors from here on out.
I have industrial masks, much more effective than even 3 layer fabric masks. They have exhaust valves, so that they don’t protect others from my virus load, but provide high levels of protection for me against other people’s viral load. I’m all over protecting other folks not already vaccinated.
I’ll be using my industrial mask, which won’t fog my glasses, nor be otherwise irritating. If you fear my virus, go get a vaccination, else go straight to hell, motherfuqer~!!~
GRRR
Neil B
I think this article really hits the nail on the head. Especially this part:
Kent
Slate has an article out today which argues it is flawed because it is 1800 lbs heavier than the regular F150 due to the massive batteries and that is going to both increase danger to other cars and pedestrians (physics) and also increase damage on roads. Kind of makes sense actually.
b1narys3rf
Just heard that an old friend of mine I’d mostly lost touch with, approaching 50, came close to dying in the ICU in the last few weeks.
Why? Because the stubborn Trump-loving dude (I told you, we mostly lost touch…these things are connected) didn’t get vaccinated and one of the members of his big brood took it home with her from school.
And this man is regarded as smart and admirable by many in our community.
Repeat this story times possibly tens or hundreds of thousands more before this shit is all sorted. Meanwhile my less wealthy, liberal self got his shot soon as possible back in March/April and I’m out and about.
I would have been sad if he died, but his catching it this late in the game I find FAR from a surprise.
Michael Cain
I think one more bump among the unvaccinated. Highly regionalized, both within states and across states. You couldn’t pay me to go visit the Southeast.
My county is doing reasonably well. Age 70+, 80% fully vaccinated. Age 16+, 56% fully vaccinated. The big gap is in the Latino population. I give the county health department points for effort, they seem to be doing their darnedest to get into the Latino neighborhoods. Next county over, not nearly so well. Our hospital and ICU numbers aren’t doing as well as would be expected; I believe a bunch of it is assholes from that next county over.
Anecdotally, the state relaxed its mask guidance on Monday past. On Wednesday at the grocery there was little change. By today, inside-the-grocery mask wearing has gone from near universal to about 50%. (I wore mine.)
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
Make them lie! Innocently ask where they got vaccinated, and how they reacted to the 2 (or 1) shots, and etc.
Many such people, perhaps most, are uncomfortable when lying.
Michael Cain
@Bill Arnold:
My wife was walking to the mailbox this morning and a large dog with a little girl in tow came up to make friends. The little girl asked, “Are you fully vaccinated?” My wife could truthfully tell her yes. Will the assholes lie to little girls about their vaccination status?
Bill Arnold
@Citizen Alan:
That would be the time for the conversation about how the Nazis felt the need to kill the infirm, some of whom were suffering from debilitating sequelae of Spanish-flu.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
I’m with Prof. Myers on the mask: it’s just a good practice. Also, a frontliner, I go from hospital to house to nursing home to house etc all day and I won’t even leave the common cold behind me if I can help it.
Bill Arnold
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
For those who don’t know, Hippa is a genus of decapod crustaceans in the family Hippidae
Bill Arnold
@Uncle Cosmo:
[Damn, that sucks. Being actively shunned elsewhere by that nym, for reasons that may make sense to them but are actually rooted in deeply stuck priors, that cannot be corrected, for reasons. Oh well.]