Masks off but precautions here to stay

Next Wednesday, June 30, Washington state will fully reopen under Gov. Jay Inslee’s Roadmap to Recovery plan for public health and economic guidelines to protect residents during the coronavirus pandemic. If 70% of residents 16 and older have gotten at least one vaccination shot against the virus, Inslee will give an earlier go signal. Through Monday, June 21, 67.8% of eligible residents were vaccinated.

As this paper noted earlier, Inslee bet on an aggressive vaccination campaign to drive down the infection rate.

He has won his bet, even against the COVID-19 variants now prevalent in our state.

On the streets of La Conner and in its businesses it looks like June 2019, the good old days of normalcy, with the caveat that shoppers smiles are seen while almost all staff in every restaurant and store are masked.

La Conner School District has a strict policy of mask wearing.

The campus has a bit of an appearance of a hospital setting – students and staff are all masked, all the time, it seems.

School is now out for summer.

The coronavirus restrictions for the next school year will depend on the infection rate and county and state guidelines in mid-August.

Given that the vaccine makers continue to brew elixirs that halt coronavirus mutations infections, the vaccinated among us – probably a higher percentage of the greater La Conner population than Skagit County’s overall – will continue to show our smiles, even as a first question when people cross a doorstep tends to be “Are you vaccinated?”

What a long and contentious 15 months it has been since mid-March 2020. And, for almost all of us, seemingly, it is over. Come July 4th we will either line up on First Street or parade down it. Many will be on Gilkey Square for the C.C. Adams band concert at 2:30 p.m. It is likely that the crowd on the boardwalk for fireworks that evening will rival the December boat parades of past years. Given good weather, stores and restaurants will be jammed all day.

Has this community or Skagit County residents changed, in small or large ways, in response to the last 15 months? In this county, over 5,300 have been infected, based on Skagit Public Health data. Since June’s start, new cases have declined sharply, with 10 new cases daily or more reported only twice. Hospitalizations continue to increase, though slowing in the last week. Those cases prove the analyses reporting the dominant coronavirus variants are more virulent – dangerous.

Statewide, 73% of cases are in the age groups under 50 years old. It is the strongest – and most stubborn – among us who are getting infected, hospitalized and dying. Those who are vaccinated are perhaps 5% likely to get infected, and their cases are less serious because of antibodies.

If the vaccines – and updated boosters – continue to be effective against variants, almost all COVID-19 cases going forward will be among those unable or unwilling to get vaccinated. If those unable can manage to get vaccinated, or staff masked and maintain social distancing, then new cases will be primarily among many who, their rhetoric says, are championing their freedom to decide to be independent of the rest of the community, in Skagit County, the state and nationally.

Those choosing their freedom to not get vaccinated will continue to be a danger to themselves and the larger community. Their freedom may be so important to them that they are willing to take the chance to get sick, make others sick, put themselves, and perhaps others, in the hospital and even end up dead.

It is one thing to be willing to die for freedom. It is another to put your neighbors and family’s lives in danger and your own, also. Yet that is the present state of some responding to the worst pandemic in 100 years.