Incrementally the strain caused by the pandemic is easing, although the progress can seem painfully slow and regressive.
This week the state of California lifted its stay-at-home order and businesses that had been forced to cease operations are now allowed to resume. But let’s be clear: despite the order, despite state and local appeals to business and community leaders to act responsibly and in consideration of the people they serve there are plenty of bad actors who disregarded the law, for personal or political reasons.
Nevertheless the bars and restaurants and salons that had shuttered their doors in December as a way of limiting the spread of the airborne virus can welcome back patrons as long as they stay outside, observe social distancing and follow other health and safety guidelines.
We are also seeing more COVID-19 vaccine centers opening and while the scope of recipients is limited to those age 65-and-older and the vaccine supply is not as plentiful as we were lead to believe, there is no denying we are further along now than we were just four months ago. Also consider that roughly 10 months ago we knew very little about the disease, its transmission or treatment and that talk of vaccine development realistically wasn’t foreseen until the first or second quarter of this year. We have and continue to make progress.
But we need to progress slowly, with almost the same amount of caution we had in the beginning.
Remember that after the initial shutdowns in early 2020 to “flatten the curve”, businesses were asked to close and people asked to stay home because cases of COVID-19 were skyrocketing. Those upticks corresponded with periods in which restrictions were relaxed and more people felt comfortable in bending social distancing rules. Whether it was the summer time barbecues over the weekends or the “small” family dinner during the holidays each time we let our guard down, we paid the price later.
Given that we now have vaccines slowly becoming available and restrictions on gathering eased, we might be tempted to relax as we had in the summer and fall. Don’t. We’ve seen too many times that when we do our neighbors and businesses suffer. Proceed cautiously in the knowledge that we are making progress. It may be slow, but it’s in our control
