The Quarantine Is Over. (The Pandemic Isn't.)
Coronavirus Roundup, Part 1
After the past week, it seems like hardly anybody is talking about the coronavirus pandemic any more—which is a very good reason to talk about it.
A few weeks ago, a lot of people on the right and in the so-called "red states"—the whole Fox News-watching demographic—decided to act as if the pandemic is over and start just going about their lives as if everything were the same as before. Last week, lured by a political cause they just couldn't resist, everyone on the left decided to do the same.
This is probably not going to end well, because there's no reason to think the pandemic is actually over. We just popped back up to more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths per day in the United States, and there are an awful lot of days left in 2020, enough to more than double the death toll so far.
That's the optimistic scenario, assuming that the festival we've all been having for the past few weeks doesn't lead to a giant second wave of infection—which is not an assumption I would make at this point.
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