Ending of Restrictions is not and Indicator of the End of Covid

It's really tiring to keep seeing people say that ending mandates is an indication that things are getting better or that we're going to be able to return to normal. The pandemic continues. We're continuing to improve on the backside of a wave, yes, but we're not even to low transmission and already appear to be stalling out on our progress based on, well, pretty much every indicator.  

This isn't over.  

The relaxing of restrictions is not an indication of things getting better in the future, it is the best indication you have that we're going to start increasing the spread again in a few weeks.

This was the case in 2020. This was the case in 2021. This is the case in 2021.

Somerville, for example, is still at rates that are higher than pretty much any time from February 2021 through the end of November 2021. Our ending our mask mandate doesn't change that. And our ending our mask mandate doesn't mean that there is any part of the calculation that has shifted in the last 2 months to cause any reason to believe that the shifting to risky behavior won't cause our rate of spread to increase.

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