The COVID-19 pandemic

[jeffster]

Yes ... look at UK or Netherlands (or the US!) where the vaccination rates aren't all that much different from ours. The case rates are surging (and, yes, hospitalizations will follow, even if at a lower rate than before) as they have thrown the doors wide open, and people have going back to "normal life". There were over 1,000 cases in the Netherlands from a single outdoor festival ...

My main concern is what will come after Step 3. I really, really hope we will not be back to a total unrestricted situation. I would prefer that we stay at Step 3 until maybe the end of August, and then do a Step 4, with some further loosening of restrictions, but still with capacity limits, distancing and masks.

We have the pandemic pinned down on the mat now, let's not let go too quickly.

I actually read up on the Netherland festival, but you left out a lot of context: 1) Attendees must have shown proof of 1 of 3 things, linked to a QR code: vaccination, negative test, or prior covid infection. I can't find any comments regarding a previous infection, but: attendees could have had a single vaccination within hours before going to festival. Everyone knows you can get sick if you're not fully vaccinated. Further, a negative covid test was permissible even if it was 40 hours out (as was the case here).

The other thing is that they don't know that all, or even the majority, of cases came from the outdoor festival itself.

“We cannot say that all these people were infected at the festival itself; it could also be possible that they’ve been infected while travelling to the festival or in the evening before going to the festival or having an after-party. So they’re (the cases) all linked to the festival but we can’t 100% say they were infected at the festival,” Lennart van Trigt, a spokesman for the Utrecht health board, or GGD, said.

Bold is mine, but I bet they were all partying like it was 1999.

There is not step 4, but you're right that we can't be totally back to normal anytime soon.