Delta Surge Drives Home Painful Truth: Covid Isn’t Going Away

... in recent days, even as the highly contagious Delta variant ravages the South and has caused upticks in all 50 states, mayors, governors and public health officials have treaded lightly when considering whether to reimpose restrictions. With more than twice as many new virus cases being reported nationally compared with last August, baseball games, music festivals and state fairs have forged ahead, and restaurants, gyms and movie theaters have stayed open.

In many places, people have been largely left to decide for themselves whether to start wearing masks again or change the ways they work, socialize and vacation.

Americans have entered a new, disheartening phase of the pandemic: when they realize that Covid-19 is not disappearing anytime soon. A country that had been waiting for the virus to be over has been forced to recalibrate. ...

Scientists had warned for months that the coronavirus was likely to become endemic and that herd immunity was increasingly unlikely. But even though the vaccines remain effective, the virus has mutated and spread at a pace that has surprised some experts.

This summer started out on a hopeful note. The United States was reporting the lowest coronavirus case totals since the pandemic’s start, and officials had given permission for vaccinated people to shed their masks in most situations. Then came a worrying cascade of outbreaks, overflowing hospitals and fears over what the virus would bring next.

Hospitalizations have reached their highest levels since winter. And in parts of the South, including Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida, the Delta variant has shattered case records and overwhelmed intensive care units. ...

About 130,000 cases are being reported across America each day, almost twice as many as last summer’s highest levels. Even as some of the first hot spots of this summer, including Missouri and Nevada, show glimmers of progress, much of the country continues to see explosive case growth.

During the latest surge, the United States is armed with vaccines that are highly effective in preventing severe illness and death, and are available to anyone 12 years and older. But only about half of Americans are fully vaccinated, and daily vaccination rates have risen only modestly, to about 700,000 doses a day, since the Delta surge began. ...