More Of This

 Vox has a particularly good explainer of where we stand with Covid. In particular, it notes that most doctors who are fully vaccinated are basically not worrying about Covid anymore. They continue to mask and distance and avoid crowded indoor places, because the risk isn't zero, but they are done fretting about it. I no longer go to bars anyway, so why should I start now?

One thing I keep returning to is the difference between "mitigation" and "suppression." 

Suppression is what New Zealand and a few other countries (mostly islands, but Vietnam and South Korea seemed to get there) managed to do. You basically eliminate the virus in your population. Our school was able to suppress the virus due to rigorous testing. We did not have a serious case all year.

In order to spread, the virus must exist in a population (duh). The virus cannot spread in a population that doesn't have the virus. This is obvious, but this is the goal and outcome of suppression. The current uptick in cases in South Korea is less about what is happening in Korea, but rather importing the virus back into an environment where it had been largely suppressed.

Mitigation is simply blunting the impact of the virus. We will distance and mask so that the virus spreads with difficulty and hopefully doesn't get us sick at all. But societally, people will still get sick and some will die, because we aren't taking the drastic measures necessary to suppress it (actual lockdowns and quarantines, not the half measures we actually took).

The vaccine is our opportunity to suppress the virus, both in the US and globally. That's it.  That's the plan.

I don't think that plan has been adequately explained to those Americans who are vaccine reluctant (as opposed to the perfervid clutch of anti-vaxxers). The idea of "returning to normal" is intoxicating. We are planning on travelling in a few weeks. Exciting! But imagine a world where we suppress the virus and don't have to worry about it anymore. 

That's the goal and I don't think it's been adequately explained.