By Delaney Smith
Correspondent
March 2020 doesn’t feel that long ago, really. I remember watching the news and hearing the spikes of cases in New York City, the then epicenter of the pandemic. Over 30,000 cases. Wow. Of course I’ll quarantine for two weeks, anything to help slow the spread of this pandemic that has already infected so many people in such a small span of time!
Now, nearly two years, two variants, three vaccines, and around 860,000 deaths later, the U.S. is at an average of about 750,000 new cases of Covid-19 every day. In spite of this, many mask mandates have been lifted, the quarantine period has dropped from 14 days to five and international travel has pretty much resumed. We’re at a more relaxed position than we were in March of 2020 in spite of having 25 times more daily cases. If you had told me all of this two years ago, I would have probably been stunned into silence.
It’s not just the U.S., either. England is making moves to drop restrictions and “learn to live with Covid in the same way we live with flu,” according to BBC. Despite a recent case spike in Australia that led to bare shelves and a tremendous strain on the country’s healthcare system, the country is doing little to force people to quarantine and is mostly allowing the virus to do the rounds after being one of the most careful, conservative countries with its Covid-19 response, according to NBC.
The actions being taken to ease precautions may seem optimistic, but many countries have seen a recent spike in Covid-19 cases.
Vaccines have been rolling out and decreasing hospitalization rates among the vaccinated. This is all very promising news, as it does show genuine progress since March 2020, but promising news does not equate to throwing all known Covid-19 precautions out the window.
We’re all tired and we have every right to be. This pandemic has eaten through nearly two years of our lives, changing the world as we know it and skewing the idea of normalcy into something nearly unrecognizable. I get it. But we need to continue to be careful. Omicron, while less severe than prior iterations of the virus, is still highly contagious and does carry the potential to hospitalize even those who are fully vaccinated and boosted — in fact, hospitalization rates in the U.S. are at an all-time high because of omicron, according to the New York Times.
But even with all of this knowledge that hospitalization rates are high, case rates are even higher and not everyone is fully vaccinated, we are still relaxing restrictions and allowing international travel.
I fail to understand why.
A return to normalcy would be great — I, too, would love to go to class one of these days without having to wear a mask — but I am willing to wait if it saves more lives.
We are being reckless.
The last thing anyone wants is for this pandemic to stretch on longer than it has to, and I seriously worry that the path we’re on is going to end up slowing us down before it helps us.
Resuming nationwide mask mandates — at least for a little while longer — can do nothing but good right now. Vaccine mandates for federal workers are ever-controversial, but it will slow the spread. Social distancing. A return of the ten-day quarantine. All of this can and will help slow down Covid-19 as it rampages and fills up hospitals. Yes, it sucks for the moment, but we need to remember that the pandemic is still real and it continues to pose a life-threatening risk to millions of people worldwide.
We aren’t ready to resume normal life just yet, but we will be soon if we’re patient. Slow it down, world, for the good of everyone.
