It was only November/December when the delta variant was identified in India, which is a lesson for all of us to understand. Even if we were able to have 90 percent of Americans vaccinated, the unvaccinated around the world will be a breeding ground for new COVID-19 variants.
It is a given that more variants will appear. Perhaps they will be even more transmissible and deadly than the delta variant, which is twice as transmissible than the original COVID-19 virus, called alpha.
I think that everyone here in the United States was looking forward to having whipped COVID-19 by this fall and things would be going back to normal — not so! We are averaging 100,000 people hospitalized on a daily basis and the death count hit 2,000 nationally just the other day.
We are deep, deep in the darkness of the swamp of COVID-19, and that light we keep seeing is imaginary.
I use that imagery because of my military experience of walking in the swamps of Florida. My last night of Ranger School, when I was exhausted from an 11-day patrol, was the worst night of my training. We were stumbling through a swamp in the night and I was carrying the radio, in addition to my normal pack, for the patrol leader. I kept thinking I saw light up ahead and that we were coming up out of the swamp. Nope! My hope was not realized for many hours later.
Waiting for and expecting things to get better always makes the time pass slowly and the trip grow longer. We are in the COVID-19 swamp right now!
