Every day I hear updates on the "Delta Variant." Every day the news sounds more dire. Its ability to infect is greater. Vaccinated people can be carriers. Breakthrough infections in the vaccinated are more likely. Hospitalizations are up.
And we are about to head into the fall season. School. Masks are again the hot topic. And divisive as ever. Yet on the outside it seems like we have largely to returned to life as normal. Or as close to normal as we could get. The remote life we experienced last year this time will probably not be the norm. We have seen that remote learning did not do so well in the majority of our schools. Businesses have changed and remote working is more the norm, but many are being recalled back to the office. My son was one of them.
It feels like we are in a kind of COVID Twilight Zone. In a pandemic, but not, or sort of. Vaccines are being pushed harder than ever. They are the gold standard for beating this thing, we are told. The Federal government is contemplating mandates of its employees. Businesses are contemplating the same. Yet my Pfizer vaccine is now rated at only 88% effective. It takes a hit with each variant. Not bad, but not nearly as good as the day I got it. And the company is saying some of us may need a booster. But the CDC isn't quite on board.
Our churches have largely relaxed many of their COVID protocols. But come fall will we be encouraged to put many of them back? My hymnals are back in the racks. Tape is gone off the pews. No one wears masks, with the one exception of the pastor and elder at the Sacrament (which is largely for optics at this point). We are talking about resuming Sunday School after a 19 month hiatus. We just had a voters meeting and decided that it was still too soon for the annual Harvest Dinner, especially with this nasty variant on the loose. I sense that if cases tick upwards in my area life may shift back to where it was just months ago.
A year ago it was tough. But now the uncertainty and the vagueness may be just as difficult to handle.
