Judith Davidoff
Sign on downtown Madison building requiring masks
Some Madison office buildings never relaxed their mask requirement; others are reinstating it.
For much of America, guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control earlier this spring advising COVID-19 vaccinated people could go maskless indoors were met with a shrug of the shoulders. Everything seemed on its way to normal. For me, taking meetings in coffee shops seemed relatively safe and I wasn’t too scared to hang with my friends indoors.
Scientists were telling us it was okay to unmask when vaccinated, and most of us didn’t question it all that much. We’d been following their direction this entire time, so why wouldn’t we when things were getting better? The Biden administration had designated July 4 as somewhat of a coronavirus Independence Day after all.
“If we do this together, by July the 4th, there is a good chance you, your family and friends can get together in your backyard or in your neighbourhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day," President Joe Biden said in an address to the nation. It seemed like the pandemic would be approaching its final phase by the fall.
But here we are, at the beginning of August, possibly on the verge of another shutdown as the Delta variant, a highly transmissible version of the coronavirus, threatens everyone, including those who have been vaccinated.
So what went wrong?
The answer is the same as it has been during every stage of this pandemic — we didn’t actually listen or do as we were told.
The CDC never said we’d be completely immune. Experts explained over and over that while the COVID vaccines were effective in preventing most people from getting the virus, a small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated could still get the virus if they were exposed to it.
Vaccine “breakthrough” cases were never off the table. “No vaccine prevents illness 100 percent of the time,” said the CDC. The way to prevent the spread of new variations of the coronavirus was to make sure everyone who could get vaccinated got the shots. And that didn’t happen.
Seventy percent of U.S. adults have had at least one shot of a COVID vaccine, according to recent data by the CDC, while only 50.2 percent have gotten both doses. We are a month late achieving the goal set by Biden to have those numbers by July 4. And I think we are now paying the price for that complacency.
America did not take the risk of vaccine resistant mutations of the coronavirus seriously enough, nor did we fully comprehend or appreciate the risk unvaccinated individuals posed to all of us or to each other. Most of us who got the shot fell into a pre-pandemic normality that, for the most part, led us to where we are now. Just look at the estimated 100,000 people per day turnout at the Chicago concert festival Lollapalooza; we are at a crisis point of possible transmissions — we’ve gotten far too comfortable far too soon.
While here in Dane County, vaccination rates are higher than in other parts of the state and other places across the US — sitting at about 70 percent of all residents vaccinated with at least one dose — disparities in who has gotten inoculated are still rampant. We aren’t safe just because we boast one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, and that should be a lesson for everyone. In fact the New York Times on Aug. 5 rated Dane County as very high risk for unvaccinated people.
According to Public Health Madison and Dane County, regions with lower vaccination rates have seen higher transmission of multiple emerging variants, including the Delta variant. That is a scary reality when only 37.6 percent of Black residents and 58.4 percent of the Hispanic population have received at least one shot here in Dane. These demographics, failed historically by public health policy and by vaccine inaccessibility, are at great risk of exposure to Delta. Despite community effort and outreach programming, if policy doesn’t catch up soon, people of color will be ultimately harmed the most.
So while it’s great that places like Dane County are following the CDC’s new guidelines and advising that masks be worn inside, health officials need to understand that availability of the vaccine does not mean accessibility, and they must really get to work bridging the gaps in trust that prevent many from getting inoculated.
To be clear, there’s blame all around for where we are right now. Personal irresponsibility, government inaction, the politicization of this pandemic — all of it has prolonged the virus’ presence in our lives. No one entity is at fault. However, in order to get out of this nightmare, we must abandon the moderate approach and face this impending crisis with mandates.
On Aug. 3 Mayor Rhodes-Conway and County Executive Parisi announced that the city and county would require all their employees to be vaccinated or to take a weekly COVID-19 test. Measures like this will likely save lives, especially if they are mirrored by other employers. Imagine if we’ve had them this entire time.
There is still room to improve our approach to this pandemic, and we must, or we will never get out of this nightmare. It’s time to do as we are told and get everyone vaccinated.
Nada Elmikashfi is a former candidate for state Senate and chief of staff to state Rep. Francesca Hong.
