CDC: "We have longed for this moment"

New CDC Guidance:

"If you are fully vaccinated you can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic."

The CDC Director Rochelle Wollensky said:

We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy. Based on the continuing downward trajectory of cases, the scientific data on the performance of our vaccines and our understanding of how the virus spreads, that moment has come for those who are fully vaccinated.

Behavior on the ground moved quickly. Like bankruptcy, the masks came off gradually, then suddenly.  Yesterday afternoon was the suddenly part. 

In a store that sells nearly everything that a rural farmer, rancher, or homeowner needs, from fencing to hardware to fertilizers to gopher traps, most customers wore a mask yesterday morning. That afternoon few did.  The store is in Trump country, servicing the needs of a population that polls show vote overwhelmingly for Trump: White, rural, outdoor people, mostly male. They took off those darned masks.

Polls also suggest a great many of those rural Trump supporters are vaccine refusers, but they will shop mask-free anyway. A new custom has been established--don't ask, don't tell. 

I bought "Vaccination" buttons from Amazon this morning for two dollars each--the illustration at the top of this page. They will arrive tomorrow. I don't plan on wearing a mask anymore, but I am negotiating the new way to show courtesy to others and respect for public health. I will announce my vaccination status. Before my mask communicated "I don't want to hurt anybody." Now the button will say it.

Republican officeholders around the country are making statements and writing legislation to ban "vaccine passports." People who aren't vaccinated want to interact mask-free with people who are. It is all being sorted out now, each group of people getting about what they want. People who had been concerned about COVID were wearing masks and socially distancing, and nearly all of them got vaccinated by now. The people who were not concerned about COVID and thought it was all overblown, resented masks and social distance rules. I followed this car out of the parking lot of that ranch store yesterday afternoon. Kate Brown is the Oregon governor, a Democrat, and overall her policies have been "better safe than sorry." She prioritized saving lives over opening up the economy, so she has been a focal point of criticism from Republican officeholders and voters. They call her a socialist tyrant at war with business. 

Now, at long last, we may have an equilibrium most people can accept. Domestic tranquility was at the center of the Biden campaign promise, and this may smooth off a point of daily irritation. Maybe we can all get along. Both the vaccinated and un-vaccinated believe they are at low risk, so except in tight quarters like subways, airplanes, and health care facilities, people will go mask free. It will suit most people, but not all. The equilibrium is harmful to people with compromised immune systems or some other reason not to be able to get vaccinated. Their best chance of survival was for as few people as possible to get the disease, not for more people to get the disease and have mild or asymptomatic cases. This is a setback for them.

The CDC announcement signals the end of an era, which, of course, starts a new era of public re-openings. Americans established new habits about ordering take-out, about shopping online, about remote work, and about government intervention into the economy. New habits mean new ideas.

Click: NPR

The abortion issue. Every salesman experiences how the act of voicing a sales script or arguing a point causes one to internalize and believe what one is saying. Trump's approach to COVID brought citizens along with him, with two consequences for the "abortion debate." Republicans who argued that "every life is precious" found themselves asserting that COVID shutdowns were an over-reaction and prioritizing saving the vulnerable from COVID hazards needed to be balanced by economic freedom and justice to businesses that were hurt. Lives were important but there were other considerations, too. They minimized the death counts and argued COVID victims would have died soon anyway. COVID mortality was put into a broader context.  Moreover, a great many Republican voters and officeholders argue for "body autonomy" on the issue of vaccines. They argue that no government nor do-gooder busy-body has a right to pressure--and most certainly not to compel--someone to do something to their body they would rather not, and for any reason they please. Their body, their choice, period. The body-autonomy-rights idea has joined forces with the don't-tread-on-me idea, joining two very different constituencies. I may be too optimistic, but perhaps it will pave the way toward better acceptance of the Row v. Wade compromise on early-stage abortions. They will have been asserting "my body, my choice" often enough that they may come to believe it.

The period of March 2020 to May 2021 will be special and memorable in the lives of nearly all Americans. For a retired 71-year-old, it was an inconvenience. My 69th and 70th years of life were not that different from my 71st. But I recall my childhood and youth. Each year was a developmental adventure. A person has but a single chance to be a third grader or a sixteen-year-old and for them it was a kind of lost year. My favorite neighborhood restaurant run by an immigrant family from India, closed and the owners left town. Sad to me. Catastrophic for them. 

The CDC announcement is a milestone, marking the end of something. We will remember this as the COVID year, and I think this is the beginning of a new year.