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ANALYIS: Why We Can’t Turn the Corner on Covid

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The summer of 2021 began with such promise. On Memorial Day, the traditional start of summer, many Americans thought that the worst of Covid might be over, that masks were out and hugs (or more) might be in. But that optimism has yielded to a more somber and uncertain Labor Day as hot vax summer turned into hot spot autumn.

In the three months in between, the vaccination drive hit a wall of resistance, and the more infectious Delta variant arrived. All that talk about “emerging” from the pandemic morphed into nervous questions: When will we reach a turning point in combating Covid 19? When and how will we finally get back to something close to “normal” for more than a season?

Unfortunately, public health officials say that’s the wrong question. There will be no quick and clear turning point ahead in the Covid-19 pandemic, no “X” to mark on the calendar indicating that the worst is past and we can be confident that going forward there will be fewer cases, fewer deaths, fewer hospitals stuffed to their dangerous limits.

The deadly surge currently raging in the Southern states may level off, but as the virus recedes in one part of the country, it may explode in another. Public health officials are already warily watching an uptick in the Dakotas, possibly linked to last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The governor of Idaho is summoning the National Guard to assist in rapidly filling hospitals.

It seems the narrow window to wipe the coronavirus completely off the face of the globe has slipped through our unvaccinated fingers.

But just because we aren’t looking at the best-case scenario, doesn’t mean that we’re now in a worst-case scenario. Instead, according to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, we’re looking at something in the manageable middle. ...

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