Since my last post, my family and I have moved back to Texas from California and the differences with how people have been doing things between the two states is like night and day as far as social distancing and mask use. It's a contagious feeling too - I saw that there was nobody else in a restaurant wearing a mask, staff included. I sliced open my foot paddle-boarding and needed stitches and the medical assistant at the doctor's office wasn't wearing a mask. You start thinking, "well if nobody else is doing it, and the whole goal is to protect other people, why can't I get back to normal like they seem to have done?"
I'm in that position where I'm getting news from every angle on COVID-19. I read about it on CNN, I get forwards from my mom and my mother-in-law, texts from my sister, updates from the American College of Physicians, the Texas and California Medical Boards, my old employer, my new employer, facebook updates from physician groups and probably a few other places. I've had several family members or family friends who have either been diagnosed with COVID or probably had it but were unable to get testing. It really is overpowering, especially with how quickly the news changes.
Putting all that together, I still don't think we know enough to know anything. My high school debate coach once said, I think paraphrasing or quoting someone else, that "there is so much we don't know, we don't even know how much we don't know." That seems applicable here. It's compounded by a balance of fear taking normal life from others and a fear of missing out (FOMO) on normal life events now. This whole thing is a balancing act on a wire - we open up too much and more people get sick, not enough and people can't live either.
As there is more of a push towards antibody testing and vaccine development, we still don't even know how well that stuff will work. Currently a positive antibody test is as accurate as a coin-flip - the latest data shows it's only accurate 50-70% of the time - plus we don't actually know how long it gives immunity for or if it truly does (but early research is reassuring). As for the vaccine, they are actually gearing up to take action if it ends up being efficacious, developing millions of doses just in case it does work, which is probably a good step since when the new shingles vaccination came out a few years ago, there were so many people who needed and wanted it that it was on back-order for almost a year.
But let's say that everything works out and the vaccine is perfect. Already there's a large chunk of people, almost 25%, who say they won't get it because of their views on vaccines. The data I've seen has said that we need somewhere between 60-80% of people to get the vaccine in order to gain herd immunity. If we've learned anything through this whole pandemic, it's that you can have totally opposite views from someone else, but Coronavirus don't care - Coronavirus gonna get both of y'all.
Remember when there were some measles outbreaks around the country and everybody was freaking out and needing to get antibody titers and re-vaccinated? Yeah and that's when over 90% of the country was vaccinated for measles. Interestingly, I think I realized that all the places that had measles outbreaks have also been the centers of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks, mostly due to a combination of population density and therefore a larger number of people who don't get vaccinated (just my guess).
As I write this, my new home and original home state has finally said it's going to stop opening everything up in light of becoming the new hot spot for COVID-19 cases, though for some reason California is also getting slammed. I think people are tired of behaving. Every question I get from someone about "is it really as bad as they say it is" just seems to stem from trying to latch on to some glimmer of hope that things are going to be okay and back to normal soon.
I wish I had better news, but all I have is just the regular news. The good part is that vaccines do seem to be forging ahead, kids don't seem to be getting horribly sick, and all of the sheltering at home with nothing to do aside from read the news has probably helped with the widespread social change support that has bolstered the Black Lives Matter movement, now giving people more time to learn about what's going on around them and worry less about making it to the gym.
If I had to guess right now, while the best course of action might be going back to serious shelter-in-place mode, I don't think anybody is going to tank their political career to recommend it and I think anyone who has acted on the itch to come out of their shelter isn't going back in. So at this point, it seems like the answer is going to be tell everybody to mask up and hope that does enough until there's a vaccine, though the odds are slim on that.