Look, Jack, the Americans gonna be meeting long before the 4th of July



[ad_1]

Biden knows that, right? The reason he has targeted July 4 as a day when Americans could get together with friends and barbecue isn’t because he thinks it will take that long to reach some degree of normalcy. This was partly for symbolism (“we are declaring our independence from the virus!”) And partly because his habit with the pandemic is to under-promise and give too much. He never gave up on his goal of delivering 100 million doses in his first 100 days, even though it was clear on inauguration day, with the United States already approaching that rate, that we would have reached this. goal easily.

Keep in mind that even Blue State Governors like Larry Hogan and Andrew Cuomo have started to reopen * large venues * like Limited Capacity Camden Yards. By the time July arrives, some may be at full capacity. There will undoubtedly be mass rallies on Independence Day this year to watch fireworks, and maybe not exclusively in the Red States. Biden just wants to set the bar for getting back to normal as low as possible to make his team a snap – and, of course, manage expectations in case a vaccine-resistant black swan variant appears to complicate matters. things .

Proceed to 2:55 here and watch Gottlieb launch another bombshell of truth into the precautionary debate. Vaccinated people will relax their precautions regardless of how the “debate” unfolds, he says, rightly:

Now check this:

We will reach 50 percent vaccinated by early May at a rate of 1.43 million doses per day – but we are well ahead of that rate, averaging 2.2 million doses over the past seven days . And of course, a significant portion of the population has already been immunized by contracting the virus and recovering from it, which means that the actual immunity of the population will be above 50% by the day we reach this vaccine milestone. Collective immunity could be implemented by April. And certainly, with so many seniors vaccinated, the risk of hospitals being overwhelmed by another wave will be all but gone by then.

Why, things are going so well right now from a supply perspective that even the Michigan Blue State led by Gretchen Whitmer is preparing to reject “fairness” considerations by prioritizing the vaccine and open it to everyone in just a few weeks:

The Michiganders will celebrate July 4th however they wish.

When our friends in Europe can once again celebrate holidays en masse, that’s another matter, as Italy, Germany and France are plagued by an increase in the number of cases right now. Italy is considering another lockdown around Easter and German scientists say a “third wave” has already started in their country, with more restrictions to come. How come? This is partly because the British variant is going wild, but partly also because they have trouble getting vaccinated. Here’s how they compare to the United States in terms of cumulative vaccinations per capita:

We’re about three times better. Measured by the current seven-day moving average, we’re twice as fast. I wonder how back-to-normal scenes in the US and UK are going to play out on the continent this summer. I hope this will lead to less hesitation about vaccines among Europeans, but I wonder if there will not be political fallout for governments on the slow pace.

I leave you with this dark story, characteristic of the media. Strictly speaking, this is not wrong: the only way to “end” COVID is to vaccinate the planet, which is not going to happen anytime soon. As long as there are populations where the virus can spread, the risk of the emergence of a variant capable of beating current vaccines will remain. But the pandemic as we know it will end here by summer, and mRNA vaccine developers should be able to quickly adapt to variants as they emerge and provide Americans with boosters. The pandemic is not “over”, but it is over.



[ad_2]

Source link