This morning I walked my old route through the neighborhood for the first time in over six months. I wanted to see how the island was faring during this recent upsurge in the Covid pandemic, something I did regularly this past year.
The island’s premier hotel, the King and Prince Beach & Golf Resort, was going full out with guests enjoying its many amenities. Last year during the early months of the pandemic there was a pall over the place with virtually no cars out front or in the parking lots. Today there were lots of people on the beach or headed that way. It seemed to be business as usual.
This past week I’ve been out and about the island to the supermarkets and pharmacies. Shoppers were, for the most part, wearing masks in sharp contrast to last year. I’ve checked out the shops, restaurants and bars during business hours and found most open, also different from last year. A few have closed for short periods in response to employees testing positive for the virus.
The schools on the island and in the county have closed for several weeks in face of the uptick in infections, many among young children. Talking with parents, I found only frustration and uncertainty given that students are confronted with long days in front of computers at home. Mostly, there is a real concern about how much learning will take place.
My take-away is that people are ambivalent about what to do. On the one hand, they are masking up more when shopping, but on the other they are resuming their routines of going out to bars and restaurants. In general, I sense that people are simply tired of not living their lives as usual, but, at the same time, conscious of the threat from the new Delta variant and what they see as the reality of the pandemic going on for the near future.
The problem is that the announcement of the end of the pandemic this past July 4th was not the end. Declining infections and deaths encouraged us to think that the worst was over and we started to return to normal. We appear to be stuck half-way between caution and the good life.
I suspect this picture mirrors what is happening across the nation.
Be careful out there (from the Brunswick News):
ATLANTA — Cases of COVID-19 in Georgia have surged to levels not seen since the virus peaked last January, a public health expert warned this week.
New cases statewide are nearing 8,000 a day, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Of Georgians being tested for COVID-19, 17.2% are turning up positive, Dr. Janet Memark, district health director for Cobb & Douglas Public Health, said Thursday during an online forum sponsored by the Georgia House Democratic Caucus. The community is considered safe when fewer than 5% of test results are positive, she said.
Memark blamed the delta variant, which is much more contagious than the original strain of coronavirus that first struck Georgia in March of last year.
“It is just really rampant now throughout our communities,” she said.
Memark said many hospitals are being strained, with unvaccinated Georgians making up the vast majority of rising patient loads.
“We are seeing some breakthrough cases,” she said. “But they’re not being hospitalized or dying. The vaccine is working.”
Dr. Carlos del Rio, a leading epidemiologist at Emory University, said a person who contracts the delta variant of COVID-19 can infect up to eight others, making it much more dangerous than the original strain, which typically can infect two to three people exposed to someone with the virus.
“The virus we’re facing today is very different from the original virus,” he said. “This is so highly transmissible, it’s not the COVID we knew a year ago.”
Memark said another disturbing aspect of the current stage of COVID-19 is that it’s hitting children. In Georgia, cases involving children between the ages of 11 and 17 have doubled in the last week, she said.
The COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer won formal approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week. However, that approval did not extend to children.
Del Rio said he expects researchers will have a vaccine available for kids by November or December.
Meanwhile, he said he’s concerned that COVID fatigue is causing Georgians to let down their guard at a dangerous time.
“We are in a major surge right now, yet the restaurants are full,” he said. “Everybody is acting as if nothing is going on.”
Del Rio said while vaccines are the best defense against COVID-19, including the delta variant, people still need to wear masks, practice social distancing and wash their hands frequently.
“People are very tired. I understand that,” he said. “We all want this to be over. [But] it’s not going to be over when we want.”
Georgia passed the 1 million mark in cases of coronavirus last week and was up to 1,056,788 cases as of Thursday afternoon. The virus has hospitalized 71,862 Georgians and resulted in 22,492 confirmed or probable deaths.
You are right about this George. Glynn County is the worst hot spot in the state right now. I’m heading north on Friday. I sense that the outbreak here may be related to our close proximity to Florida where the surge is particularly bad.