Dr. Robin’s Covid-19 Updates
Keeping Covid Out of Your Holidays
Saying Yes to the Science and No to Big Gatherings
Against the drumbeat of the election we have rising cases in much of the US and Europe. Like really rising. As in, Friday saw the most US cases ever — even more than in the spring.
In the spring, we didn’t understand a lot about this virus. We didn’t know how easily it could be spread from one person to another. We didn’t know it could be spread by asymptomatic people. We didn’t know a lot.
But on the other hand we did know some basic stuff about epidemics; things that are always true every time. You need to be able to test easily, with quick turn-arounds, to contact trace, to be able to isolate the infected and quarantine the contacts.
So we worked at that, at least on the local levels, while pouring government money into vaccines.
And in the meantime, the science accumulated. We learned more about how Covid spreads, and how and why it’s important to have six feet of physical distancing. We learned about how being with others inside was consistently less safe than the same activity outside and we re-learned lessons about hand-washing. We learned about the absolutely critical role of masking.
