How to Control the Delta Variant
This is the Way It Works
I am so sick and tired of COVID-19 and I have pandemic fatigue in overdrive so I will only read stories that tell me that the Delta variant is not that serious.
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way but only if it did all you would , a need is to Google whatever it is that you want to have verified. Sorry it doesn’t work that way either. Maybe I can pray really hard and even call on Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Moses, a Wiccan high priestess or anyone else with super powers but they won’t help you because it doesn’t work that way.
This is how it works. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the only reliable and legitimate source of information about the coronavirus, strongly recommends that you should wear a mask at all indoor gatherings because even if you have been vaccinated, you may have gotten the variant with no symptoms and you could spread it to someone who has not been vaccinated or someone at high risk.
This is not what you want to hear, I know. You want to hear that it is extremely rare for a person who has been vaccinated to contract the delta variant and you want to hear that in most people, the effects of the delta variant are relatively minor, meaning they usually don’t require hospitalization. And this is all true but it is only half the story and you can’t walk around believing that if you only listen to half the story you will be just fine because it doesn’t work that way.
The quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, Kirk Cousins, is a man who relies on his body being ultra-fined tuned so that he can perform at superhuman levels and I assume that Cousins takes pretty good care of his body which is kind of in contrast with his decision not to be vaccinated or to wear a protective mask.
“If I die, I die” he said, regarding the possibility of catching COVID-19. That’s true and it is Cousins’ right to choose to die and if that was the end of the story, so be it, but it really doesn’t work that way. Not everybody has the “If I die, I die” attitude and in fact some people would prefer living and they would be kind of upset if they got the virus from Cousins because he won’t get a stupid vaccination or wear a little mask. Cousins’ father, Don, is a Florida pastor who preaches against vaccinations, against masks and against all logic. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree so let the Cousins do their thing on a deserted island.
But it gets complicated when you drill down a bit because some people want to get vaccinated but don’t because they can’t take the time off from work to get the shot because if they lose even a few hours pay it will mean less food on the table for their families. And some people don’t get the shot because the vaccination clinic is too far from home and they don’t have transportation. And some people have been so hooked and brainwashed by what they read down the rabbit hole and they have become so cynical about anything the government does because they know about things like the Tuskeegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, an abusive study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service and sorry to say, the vaunted CDC. The study involved African American men who had latent syphilis although the government never told them they were infected but rather they were told they would receive free health care from the federal government, which they were not, if they participated in the study.
Some people haven’t gotten vaccinated because they have a crippling fear of needles. Older caregivers don’t get the shots because they can’t leave their even older parents alone for even an hour because they have dementia and they might wander outside into traffic. Others can’t leave their small children alone while they get vaccinated because the clinic doesn’t allow young children there.
The hard ass approach is to let everyone know that if they don’t get vaccinated they can’t get into restaurants, they can’t take the subway, they can’t fly on airplanes to see their cousins in South Carolina and their kids won’t be allowed in school. It would be nice if you could just strong arm people into getting the vaccinations but it doesn’t work that way. The best way to get people vaccinated is for the government to understand the various legitimate reasons people won’t get the shots and then deal with the reasons, like opening more vaccination centers in urban areas, allowing children to accompany parents and to direct public health campaigns against the myths and fears of government overreach. It’s complicated but there are no simple answers. It doesn’t work that way.
If too many people fail to get vaccinated, the number of people coming down with the delta variant will increase and as viruses naturally mutate, with more delta variant cases, they may just mutate into something even more frightening and deadly. It does work that way.
The CDC reported that in the U.S., delta is responsible for more than 50 percent of new COVID-19 cases, up from 26 percent the week ending June 19. In parts of the Midwest and the Mountain States, where vaccination rates are lower, genetic analyses of virus samples suggest delta could account for more than 80 percent of cases.
So get vaccinated and get out your old masks. Sorry for more bad news, but it doesn’t work that way either. The CDC reported that masks made earlier in the pandemic are less protective than newer masks available now. The CDC reported that the older cloth masks are better than no mask at all but when it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19, the fit and construction of medical-grade surgical face masks are usually more comprehensive and are readily available. That is the way it works.