Pfizer says it has made a vaccine, Everett can’t escape ‘Red Zone’
By JOSH RESNEK
The Pfizer Company announced Monday it had created a working vaccine that defeats the Coronavirus.
It remains to be seen exactly what this means in terms of when the vaccine will be ready to distribute and how it will be distributed and to whom.
With 33 new cases Sunday and 29 new cases Monday, and Tuesday’s numbers at 30, the new week began with significantly raised virus numbers bound to impact the city.
In all, there were far more than 200 new cases reported by the Department of Public Health in Everett last week.
If ever the vaccine is needed, it is now.
Virus infection numbers had been running at about 10 a day here until the virus went out of control all over the nation several weeks ago.
Everett’s numbers are symptomatic of the expanding numbers of those infected across the land.
Right now, the nation is adding more than 100,000 new cases a day, an incredible number as the virus spins out of control.
More than 1,000 Americans are dying every day.
The death rate has fallen among those who contract the virus. But it remains at about 7.6%, perilously high, far greater than the flu or anything else that attacks the population every year.
What is at risk, according to experts and epidemiologists, is the likelihood that hospitals everywhere will become filled with COVID-19 patients, without available beds for those suffering from other medical problems.
The breakdown of the health system is what is at risk, according to doctors and hospital administrators now dealing with bloated numbers of beds taken up with COVID-19 patients.
The tide is rising.
Here in Everett, face-masks are required.
Social distancing is required.
The state’s strict social distancing measures and restrictions on businesses remain in effect.
In the weeks to come, it is expected that as a natural product of so many new cases being found from day to day, that deaths will spike everywhere.
Unless and until the virus is brought under control, massive social disruption and business restrictions will cause the economic recovery to wobble, and possibly, to be entirely lost.