The White House is sending a signal that we won the battle with the Corona virus – but is it too early to celebrate?
Too few choose to get vaccinated, yet there must be room for flags, parties, and draft beer.
My house is decorated in red, blue and white and with American flags, although in these times it has become equal to a political signal of the kind I do not profess. But I refuse to let myself be cowed. Republicans should not patent a flag that is ours all together and make its use a political statement. At least not on America’s biggest holiday.
A year ago, I sat with my family in Denmark and watched with horror the development of the corona pandemic in the United States. We were in Denmark due to illness in the family, and tried in the best way to understand what was going on “at home.” The death toll rose and rose while we in Denmark strolled up and down pedestrian streets and licked soft ice in us.
As you know, it got much worse and the official death toll is now here in the United States on the wrong side of 600,000, although institutions like the University of Washington believe the number is rather higher than 900,000. The number of daily infection rates is now stable (with a tendency for certain states to have sharply increasing numbers) of approx. 12,000 with approx. 300 deaths a day, far from the daily infection rate of 200,000 we had the day Biden was installed as president.
The trend is reversed, with us it no longer rumbles from there with hospitalizations and deaths. This year is the first time we are going to celebrate the 4th of July after Trump and after we so roughly got control of covid-19.
Therefore, Biden has invited to a party on his lawn outside the White House. His goal was that at least 70 percent. of the U.S. population over the age of 18 on July 4 should have had at least one shot of one of the vaccines available here. He does not quite reach that goal, the figure is 67 percent. But now he has still invited 1,000 guests to a party on Sunday. However, it sounds from the White House that we have not yet won, that we should celebrate our progress, but not let the parades fall.
I myself have gone from a life in almost complete isolation for over a year to having opened the door and wine bottles within a month in the company of people I do not share an address with. The children are now seen with their friends – most often without a mask. It has been overwhelming, frightening – and also amazing.
Here in the county (King County ) where I live, 76 percent. of the population over 18 years fully vaccinated. Unfortunately, this is not the case in all parts of the country, or in other parts of the state I live in. As with so much else here, even being vaccinated has become a political standpoint.
But tomorrow we will all celebrate Independence Day – together. And we do, regardless of whether we are not yet completely on the other side of the pandemic, regardless of what we think the American flag represents and regardless of how we feel about vaccines.
Happy 4th!
(Google translate)
Danish-American Eyes on Society 