A few weeks ago, I changed the header picture on this blog from the one of me masked and wearing gloves back to the one of me sitting happily at my computer, working away with an unmasked face. I also stopped titling posts "Dispatches From the Fortress of Semi-Solitude." In light of the new resurgence of the Delta variant, I decided to go back to semi-isolation mode. So it's Day 496 here.
If they hadn't called it off, Day 500 of my avoidance of possible COVID contacts would have been the Friday of this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. I recall that when they announced the con would be online instead of in-person, a lot of folks thought this was caution taken to a needless excess…and maybe it was. But it seems somewhat wiser today when the headline on this morning's Los Angeles Times is "L.A. County coronavirus spike hits alarming levels."
One hopes the reinstituted precautions are not as necessary as some say…especially if One understands that if the worst doesn't happen, that doesn't mean you were wrong to take precautionary steps. If the weather forecasting people say there's a 60% chance of rain and it doesn't rain, that doesn't mean you were foolish (or deceived) to take an umbrella.
I dunno what the chances are of us vaccinated folks getting this Delta strain — I'd imagine they're pretty low — but maybe we need to roll back that feeling of "it's over" a notch or two.
It's not so much that we're afraid of getting it. It's just that we want it to be over for everyone.