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COVID-19 check in
I spent my first waking hours this morning calling around to schedule my daughter’s COVID vaccine. She turns 12 next week and has been asking for months, “Can I get my vaccine for my birthday?” School is starting soon. The Delta variant is surging both globally and locally. Positive cases in my county literally doubled in number overnight. She hasn’t needed to ask more than once; we’ll get her that vaccine!
What are things like in your area? Are people still masking/staying home? If restrictions in your area were loosened, are they becoming more strict now? Are you, like me, having a hard time imagining us ever emerging from this pandemic?
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4 Replies
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Here in the Netherlands, infections surged a month ago after some restrictions had been loosened (nightclubs, festivals etc.). After 2 weeks the restrictions were back in place. It took about a month for infections to come down from 10.000 a day to currently 3000 a day, and they are still going down fortunately. All were due to the delta variant. Still, before the surge, infections were as low as 500 per day, and I wonder if we will reach that level again this summer before in autumn there will probably be another rise.
Fortunately, due to a good vaccination rate in the 50+ group, and most infection occurring in the 16-25 age group, hospitals currently “only” take care of about 600 covid patients, and 200 on ICU (100 more than the lowest point we had end of June).
In Belgium, not far from here, there was however a worrying outbreak of covid lately, in an elderly home near Brussels. 20 residents out of 28 were infected (probably by a visitor) with the Columbian variant (B.1.621), of whom no less than 7 died. All of the infected residents, aging 80+, were vaccinated with Pfizer 6 months ago.
I don’t see a lot of masks currently. Masks are not obligatory anymore, not even in hospitals (except when the 5 ft distance cannot be observed between caregiver and patient). We still both wear our N95 masks when going inside with other people, in the hospital I even take my N99 mask. And if possible, we try to avoid seeing other people in a confined space.
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Addendum: In the Netherlands vaccination amongst younger people is accelerating. In the age group 12-17, 43% has had the first injection.
In total 21,6 million shots have been administered (on a population of 17 million). Vaccination rate in other groups (fully vaccinated):
age 76-80: 91%
age 51+ : 84%
age 18+: 71%
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My son is 12 years old with cystic fibrosis and I’m a retired public health position.
Here in Charleston WV, people are basically being knuckleheads. They’re not getting vaccinated insufficient numbers. the estimate that only approximately 10% wearing masks at the local stores.
Positive side, we can buy and 95 masks at the local Home Depot and Lowe’s.
We are homeschooling my son because they are not requiring masks in the schools.
Not sure when this became a political thing instead of a public health concern, but it needs to stop.
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I am in Utah and it is all very politicized here, too. Like you, I have such a hard time understanding people’s behavior and motivation.
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