To say I was chagrined when Virginia lifted its indoor mask mandate “for fully vaccinated persons” without requiring even a question, let alone a shred of proof, of vaccination status would be an understatement. My immediate assumption was that a majority of those who would now go maskless indoors would be the unvaccinated who had gone along due to some weird version of pandemic-induced peer pressure. Thus, my fully Pfizer vaccinated self has firmly kept that mask affixed to my face whenever I go into a place of business, and any idea of returning to indoor dining or going to a movie or anything like that has never entered the picture.
I live in Northern Virginia — Fairfax County, to be exact. Those that know Virginia politics know that we have drifted from light red to solid purple to lighter purple over the past five years-ish. That move has largely been due to changes in the electorate in three specific Northern Virginia counties — Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William. For the sake of ease of reference, I averaged Trump’s vote percentage across these three counties for both the 2016 and 2020 general elections.
- 2016 Trump percentage: 34.8%
- 2020 Trump percentage: 33.4%
To me, that’s worryingly consistent. To wit, roughly 1/3rd of Northern Virginians in these three counties stuck to Trump.
Now let’s shift that percentage to consider the following of COVID direction and precautions throughout the pandemic. I live in a highly educated, high income part of Fairfax County. From the moment COVID regulations were published, they were enforced. Over 12 months — March of 2020 through March of 2021 — I only saw one person once in a place of business not wearing a mask. She was heading into the grocery store as I was heading out, and for all I know she masked up as she entered. But that was literally all I saw.
At the same time, following discussions about masks and social distance and all of that on NextDoor.com showed a lot of hesitancy, intellectually, to embrace the idea of masks and social distancing. Lots of complaining, lots of regurgitation of right-wing talking points about mask efficacy, lots of clutching of pearls and rending of garments over the alleged abridgement of “freedoms” from these policies. Yet in the wild? Everyone was wearing a mask. Everyone. I can only chalk that up to peer pressure of sorts from the 2/3rds of us who believe Trump is/was a moron and is/was a danger to us all, and literally to our lives. Bully for that.
But then… here comes the “you don’t need a mask if you’re fully vaccinated BUT you also don’t need to prove you’re fully vaccinated” guidance. I knew right away that the 1/3rd to had acquiesced to COVID peer pressure could now drop their masks without getting accosted or getting the side-eye. Indeed — in the first two weeks after the easing of those restrictions, very few people were in stores without masks. But over the past four weeks? It’s a free-for-all. COVID is over, folks! Didn’t you get the memo? It’s now more remarkable to see someone wearing a mask in a place of business than it is to see someone without it. Social distancing inside restaurants and on restaurant patios are gone — and they are PACKED. Starbucks opened its indoor seating back up, and it’s PACKED full of maskless faces.
My immediate thought when I see that is that at least half of those mouth-breathing through their maskless faces are NOT vaccinated. I follow the vaccination statistics in my county, and the only numbers that matter to me are FULLY vaccinated persons as a percentage of the TOTAL population, not just those eligible to receive a vaccine. That figure in Fairfax County is 55.6%. So — slightly over half of humans in my county are fully vaccinated, leaving slightly less than half still eligible as spreaders. For accuracy, the figure of total Fairfax County humans with at least one dose of vaccine is 63%. Better, but cold comfort give that that’s still only 2/3rds of population AND that the Delta variant eats the partially vaccinated for lunch.
Another resource I’ve followed daily is covidactnow.org. Imagine my (lack of) surprise to open it today to see that Virginia has moved from ‘medium’ to ‘high’ risk in the past few days. The statewide infection rate (the number of people an infected person infects) is back over 1.0, the number of people per 100K testing positive is up, wash, rinse repeat. I’m sure it’s a coincidence that this uptick and upgrade in risk level comes almost exactly 6 weeks after easing the mask mandate for the “fully vaccinated”, right? Right?
A few seemingly unrelated related observations — on the way out of Starbucks this morning, as I got back to my car, a woman with a Lexus SUV was parked nearby. I didn’t see the woman — but she had a pink “Women for Trump” car magnet that stood out like a turd in the punchbowl against her white car. My first thought was — “that’s a choice”. It’s a magnet that could be easily removed (compared to an actual bumper sticker). The second was a total lack of surprise to see that she also had a “Roll Tide” magnet and her plates were from Alabama, one of the bottom five states in terms of vaccination with even one dose (41%). This was an apt reminder that in addition to the roughly 1/3rd of my fellow Fairfax Countians who think the pandemic is — at best — overblown, we are in a season where a lot of ‘Murica comes to our area as tourists, mouth-breathing and spreading happily away.
The second is the alarming lack of understanding of how viruses work that I see on local platforms like Nextdoor. I see a lot of comments similar to what Rule of Claw was talking about in his diary today — essentially, that people are looking at breakthrough infections in those fully vaccinated and twisting that to believe that vaccinations don’t work, so why get them? I see that A LOT. But the fact is, viruses are efficient little fuckers that evolve quickly to serve their only purpose — to spread and increase. The Pfizer vaccine, for example, provided 94.3% protection from any symptomatic COVID through May of this year. In June, as the Delta variant advanced throughout Israel (where the data is coming from), that figure has dropped to 64%. To be clear — that’s against any kind of COVID infection, both asymptomatic and mild cases. The figures for severe COVID that requires hospitalization and potentially results in death is also degraded. Pfizer’s protection in May and before of these types of outbreaks was 98.2%, and now it’s 93% (source). It’s important to note as well that this analysis is limited because right now, the best data set to use to gauge what is coming here in the US is the data from Israel, which has a fully vaccinated rate of about 57% compared to the current US rate of 48%. One can expect the US outcomes to be worse given its lower fully vaccinated rate compared to Israel.
Viruses mutate through continued infection. Continued infection only occurs through continued spread. Continued spread only occurs because people either aren’t vaccinated or aren’t practicing mitigation tactics to cut down on spread. In the US — the lifting of mask mandates + our low rate of full vaccination is a deadly combination.
I love using that little graphic at the head of my diary. I saw it months ago, and thought it hit the mark. But honestly — while it’s true, the virus will also “fix” the smart, the vaccinated, the careful if this keeps going. Prior to Delta’s arrival as people dropped their masks, Pfizer-vaccinated folks only had a 1.8% chance of catching COVID and dying. Now that’s 7%, and I expect that number to grow. I hate that I have to live with such skepticism of my fellow humans, that I now look at their maskless faces in the Starbucks or the grocery store and consider them potentially as dangerous as someone actively brandishing and shooting a gun. But that’s where we’re at — and it’s going to get worse, because people are tired of COVID.
Unfortunately, COVID isn’t tired of us. If you aren’t already, keep your mask on in places of business. Avoid crowded environments. Do all the things you were doing before there was a vaccine, because once again, your survival will likely depend on it. For the rest who have the opportunity to get vaccinated and refuse to do so and do not have a medical reason for skipping the vaccine? My only hope is that this round of COVID rips through them fast enough to either lower their numbers (sorry — but that’s just a fact) OR it frightens them into getting vaccinated, before it invalidates the vaccine so many of us have responsibly recieved.
SMH.