It Broke Through

 My family is not its own little break through infection from Covid, likely the Delta Variant. 

My eldest son had been fighting a sinus infection off an on all summer and then felt really sick. There had been a close contact at work so we had him tested. He came up positive. My younger son felt sick, but tested negative. My wife - who's been fighting Lyme's Disease - also tested positive. Meanwhile, I'm in Georgia. I feel achy one day and run a fever that night, but then feel fine. I make it back to my family and almost as soon as I get home, I hit the wall. Fever, chills. My wife feels like a truck hit her. 

My eldest son is fine and we both felt so much better this morning.

I'm not worried about our health; we are on the road to recovery. Here's what's concerning. Massachusetts has some of the highest vaccination rates in the country. Nantucket has the highest vaccination rates in Massachusetts. 

Delta found a way around that.

When I was in Georgia, after finding out that my family was sick and I was likely sick, too, I wore a mask when I was around people. For the most part, everyone was fine with that. One guy at the hotel I was staying at asked me why I was masking. I didn't want to come out and say "I have Covid" but maybe I should have. Instead, I said I had been in close contact with someone who tested positive. Maybe, I said, I could shed the virus, so I was wearing a mask to protect others.

His response was illuminative of a certain mindset. "Those idiot doctors don't know nothing."

I wanted to tell him that there was much they don't know for certain about what is, after all, a novel virus. The original "Masks don't work" in March of 2020 was...bad. The fact that most Americans don't know what '95% effective" means is...bad. Delta broke through in our family, but we are going to be OK. I'm a little concerned about my wife, because of her Lyme diagnosis, but hopefully we are on our way through this.

However, if Delta is actively working its way around the vaccines, maybe we are headed for another hellish Fall. That scares me, because most people are simply done with giving a shit about each other. A year of Trump's endless messaging problems ("Hey, kids, let's inject bleach!") made everything worse.

If we can reach 75% vaccination rates, we will likely STILL see some breakthrough infections. We need a plan for that.