Covid Delta: Reopening, Uncertainty, Worry, Anxiety Syndrome

- 'The era of Covid ambivalence: what do we do as normalcy returns but Delta surges?' The Guardian, July 18, 2021. We imagined a gleeful summer of pandemic relief. Instead, new anxieties have replaced old ones - Ed.

We were promised a Hot Vax Summer.

The term – a riff on Hot Girl Summer, the hit 2019 summer single – emerged this spring as predictive shorthand for the (perhaps literally) orgiastic welcome of a post-vaccine reality. But, as might be expected of a phenomenon named for the last great summer anthem of a world before Covid-19, Hot Vax Summer connoted more than a gleeful exchange of fluids. It came to signal a best-case scenario for a time of transition. Pure celebration and best lives lived. In simplest terms, relief.

What has instead come to pass is a season of ambivalence. For many, the exhilaration of long-overdue hugs is offset by the anxiety of interaction. Optimism bumps against grief. Gratitude, tempered by the sobering rise of the highly contagious Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus (and frustration with the vaccine hesitation that has enabled its rapid spread in the US). As spring turned to summer, new uncertainties took the place of others. Hope keeps pace with pain.

A new phase of the pandemic is upon us: the dual reality.

Vaxxed, waxed and uncertain: This distinct era of competing truths became clear in the first full week of July. #CovidIsNotOver became a trending Twitter topic on the very day that the CDC updated its guidance on masks for in-person learning, announcing that vaccinated teachers and their students were clear to go mask-free in their classrooms. Some of us will emerge from the pandemic with a lingering aversion to excessive physical touch. "We’re at a new point in the pandemic that we’re all really excited about,” said Erin Sauber-Schatz, a Covid-19 emergency response taskforce leader at the CDC, per the AP. The spirit of the announcement seemed at odds with key developments that unfolded around it.

Already a growing threat across Europe, Delta was feeding a surge in Covid-19 cases across the US, with parts of Arkansas and Missouri reporting positive test rates unseen since the pandemic’s midwinter peak. In the UK, NHS medical staff voiced “dread and anxiety” over fast-rising numbers, particularly amid the continued loosening of pandemic restrictions. To some extent, ambiguity has defined the past 16 months. “Uncertainty is a pervasive, abstract stressor during pandemics, with Covid-19 being no exception,” says Steven Taylor, a psychologist at the Univ. of British Columbia and the author of the prescient The Psychology of Pandemics (2019)...

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/18/coronavirus-delta-anxiety-reopening