Great news....as is the cases dropping in other areas hard hit by the B-117 variant. I listened to Dr. Osterholm's podcast today, and he's very concerned about that variant taking off here....in the coming weeks. Time will tell if he's right, but he's become very vocal on getting one dose into as many people over 65 as possible...delaying second doses. He's saying we're on a sunny beach right now, and a category 5 hurricane is out there and you'd never know it. His concern is that we're not getting enough vaccines in people and that states are prematurely beginning to open up.
That's happening here in NJ....little by slowly, but it's happening. I heard another leader in the northeast the other day. The metrics they used to shut down restaurants in mid-December were at 40-something cases per 100,000 people. Now they're opening up at 25% indoor....when cases are in the 60s per 100,000 people. He sounded like he was an event planner..."you can get engaged at one of our restaurants on Sunday and have a 250 person indoor wedding in our state in March".
Osterholm is saying that this is too fast, and there's too much "wood" left for this virus to burn through. And with cases of B-117 doubling every ten days....that we're potentially facing a big problem.
I'm not saying this will happen....I have no idea. But he seems pretty confident that it will. I guess we'll find out in the coming weeks. It's also important to keep in mind that in the areas where these variants really took hold, there are very strict lockdowns in place....like the Northeast last spring, but more severe in some cases. This article from The Washington Post addresses this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/02/13/covid-variants-europe-longer-lockdowns/