Coronavirus spike: There’s still a pandemic out there

Sunday, June 14, 2020

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COMMENTARY

You may have seen some warnings in your social media feeds the past few days, but I’m here to tell you that it’s all true: There is still a virus out there, and it still affects some people in a very bad way. Our number of new cases each day has ticked up quite a bit over the past five days or so, and many are worrying about a new coronavirus spike. This is to be expected, as most businesses have opened up and large groups of people are gathering for one reason or another. Of course, I shouldn’t be the one to tell anyone what you can do to lower the risk to yourself and others at this point — it’s been repeated many times just about everywhere, by everyone.

I will say it’s nice to see the conversation around COVID-19 is more data-focused now than it used to be (although I wish national media outlets would start using the COVID Tracking Project‘s numbers in reporting the news, but that’s another story.) There are more and more studies being published on the subject every week it seems, and with them we can evaluate our risks with daily activities. One thing that is becoming very apparent is that being indoors with a bunch of other people packed close together is, frankly, a terrible idea.

As we head into summer proper, a carefree time of the year, the desire for more social activities is only going to increase. That is to be expected. But facing a coronavirus spike, maybe we could do the unexpected thing and just… be careful.