COVID-19: In the Season of Light — More Cases, More Hospitalizations, More Deaths

There is an Amy Grant Christmas album with the title A Christmas to Remember. Christmas 2020 will not be one to remember fondly, but one to document and learn from.

Here are some statistics from the New York Times from Saturday:

"It’s been only a week since the Food and Drug Administration approved a Covid-19 vaccine for the first time, the one by Pfizerand BioNTech. As trucks have carried vials across the country and Americans began pulling up their sleeves for inoculations, more ominous numbers have piled up:

• Monday: 300,000 total deadin the United States.
• Wednesday: 3,611 deathsin a single day, shattering the previous record of 3,157 on Dec. 9.
• Thursday: More than 17 milliontotal confirmed cases; over 1 million new cases in just five days.

"Three months ago, new cases were trending downward and death reports were flat. But those gains have been lost: Now there are nearly six times as many cases being reported each day, and three times as many deaths, according to a New York Times database.

"The South is on a particularly worrisome trajectory. Georgia, Arkansas and South Carolina have all set weekly case records. Tennessee is confirming new cases at the highest per capita rate in the country."

What does all this mean? More sickness and death over the Christmas and New Year holidays. 

We are on the cusp of having two vaccines being distributed across the United States. While that is great news and light at the end of the tunnel, it is still a long tunnel. I won't feel comfortable with where we are at until the third quarter of 2021. Even then, the need to wear masks when out in public spaces and on mass transit will remain a necessity, in my humble opinion. 

The bad news/good news I can see out of all the deaths and illness is that maybe it will start sinking into people's noggins that the virus is real, it can kill, and it can also dramatically alter one's health conditions longer term. Unfortunately, it appears the disease needs to touch many people in person for them to understand the hazard and risks being faced. Personally, long-term illness is what worries me. I was in the Army, I'm familiar with the concept of death. That doesn't bother me — it is getting ill and then being permanently disabled by the disease for the rest of one's life that can haunt my thinking. 

On that happy note, "Merry Christmas!"