Four months ago, COVID-19 was no longer considered a public health emergency, but a recent resurgence has citizens concerned about the possibility of new covid-related restrictions. After more than two years of lock-downs and masking, many people are pushing back.
New York’s daily average for confirmed cases in August was 204. In the last 7 days, New York’s daily average for confirmed cases increased to 825. When Covid first started, New York had the most cases of any state. This remains constant even today. Covid, again began to spread across the United States. During the month of August, there were over 1.4 million confirmed cases and over 1800 deaths. The amount of confirmed cases increased by 38% since the start of July.
People are worried because when COVID first arose, New York was an epicenter for the virus. Hospitals were full and only essential workers were allowed to work in-person. Businesses such as gyms, restaurants, movie theaters, and casinos were forced to close as they did not bring in any revenue. The city that never slept was silent.
In Virginia, the 7 day case average went from 173 on June 12th to 1,038 on September 12th. In the past 13 weeks, Fairfax county experienced the most cases of any county in Virginia with 4,588 by date of illness.
The Center for Disease Control and Protection(CDC) believes that rates will continue to rise. A school in Kentucky closed for over a week due to one fifth of the students getting COVID. Other schools around the country are starting to mandate masks again in order to prevent the spread. Right now, the world is vulnerable to COVID because people aren’t worried after it stopped being a public health emergency. Another reason is that the majority of people have stopped wearing masks, which increases their risk of infection.
Even though the country is no longer in a public health emergency, with the new development of covid-variants, there is always a chance that a stronger variant will come along. The problem with variants is that they are a stronger version of the main disease. When you get a vaccine, doctors put a small amount of the virus in your body so that your body adapts to the sickness. The Covid Vaccine is different from previous vaccines because it doesn’t actually utilize any parts of the virus itself. It’s called an MRNA Vaccine because it uses the genetic material and your own cells actually create the harmless parts of the virus for you to build immunity to. It took about a year to develop the vaccine, but now, doctors are focused on making vaccines for variants.
