It’s Time To Recalibrate: New Covid-19 Strains Will Only Make The Pandemic Worse
(Posted on Wednesday, December 30, 2020)
The new variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerging in the United Kingdom has made its way to the United States. As Covid-19 grows worse in the United States—around 180,000 cases and 2,000-4,000 deaths per day—this new, potentially more contagious variant of the virus will only accelerate the hardship of the coming months. It’s time to recalibrate. Measures to control Covid-19 in the US are not working and vaccine rollouts are slower than we hoped. Things will only get worse. We must rethink our strategies to manage Covid-19 to save the hundreds of thousands that will die in the coming months.
The recipe for Covid-19 success requires quality ingredients. The first of these is to follow France’s lead: shut things down across the country. Asking people nicely to stay home, as we’ve done in the US, has unequivocally failed. As thousands lose their lives, nearly a million Americans flew on Christmas Eve. France experienced worse infections rates than us in recent months, but reduced rates by twenty times with strict lockdown enforcement.