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COVID-19: Can a 4th Wave be Prevented?

In tsunamis, the first wave is not always the biggest.

I may have shared recently that I used to be a optimistic pessimist. Meaning, I know things will go wrong, but by all of us working together we can make for a better outcome.

After a year of COVID-19 I'm very close to becoming a pessimistic pessimist. Things are going to go wrong and there appears to be nothing we can do to stop it from happening. 

With the above in mind, see this Seattle Times article, Can a fourth wave of COVID-19 be prevented? Not likely, says Fred Hutch model — but the curve could be flattened

I've written about almost everything in the article to-date. I do think that this "eye of the hurricane" moment we are in right now with a trending down of coronavirus cases is having people let down their guard, governments open things up and then the hammer is going to come down in a matter of weeks, as cases surge due to the new virus variants. 

I'm almost resigned to the "It is what it is" stage of thinking, acting, reacting to the virus.

On a practical note, I'm due for my annual eye exam and I'm postponing that for a few months. My eyesight is just fine right now and there is little social distancing in an eye exam. I'm still thinking about the scheduling of an oil change for my car. I don't know what precautions they are taking at the dealership. 

I know of an instance where a young woman drove a car, a Ford Taurus, for 100,000 miles and never had an oil change. Of course the engine locked up one day. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.