COVID-19 - Still Deadly, Still Churning

Modern humanity has never faced such a formidable, invisible and deadly enemy as the Novel Coronavirus and its COVID-19 disease, which is still very much an active spreading pandemic infecting more than 9-million people worldwide, thus far, and killing more than 470,000.

The persistence of the pandemic across the United States (US) clearly rejects the non-scientific jargon that the disease would "disappear" in the warmer months. The US, at time of writing, has upward of 2.3 million COVID-19 infections and deaths of over 120,000, as according to a CNN report, half of the States are recording increases in infections, including the warmer States of Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. Yet, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the disease is disappearing.

COVID-19 is still present, deadly and pesky as a scourge to Americans and to the rest of humanity as a whole. While the death rate from the disease might be slowing across the US, increasing testing for COVID-19 confirms the prevalence of virus in communities. Deaths and infections in India, Russia, Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, remain stark. Also, confirmed new imported cases of COVID-19 in Beijing, China, are indicative that in the absence of a viable vaccine, even previous disease-free locations, are susceptible to threats of new infections. Spikes in COVID-19 cases have also been confirmed across the European Union (EU).

As more locations across the globe reopen from lock downs because of the Novel Coronavirus, and in the wake of their worse experiences with the pandemic, many are awakening to the reality that complacency to the dangers of the disease could extend their wave of infections and deaths, or even worse, force a new wave, which could lead to the re-shuttering of communities.

New societal norms with respect to preserving public health - wearing of facial masks and social distancing, have been implemented in many jurisdictions in attempts to contain COVID-19. But resistance to these scientific means to protecting public health have been politicized, thereby prompting science-doubters not to comply with health directives, thus leaving larger than accepted segments of communities, vulnerable to catching the Novel Coronavirus.

COVID-19 is still deadly and is still spreading. Until a safe vaccine is developed, all people have a responsibility toward pushing back against the highly contagious pathogen. Wearing facial masks as required and social distancing as necessary, are but two easy ways to help contain the pandemic.