Senior News Line: The COVID numbers

How does it feel when you’re the only one in the whole grocery store who’s wearing a mask? Or, when you get three phone calls from the senior center asking if you’re interested in signing up for the monthly ladies lunch, after you’ve already said no?

Do you feel tempted to explain to the young person who gives you the eye in the dairy aisle? Or worse, apologize to the senior center staffer who no doubt voted to dispense with all masks months ago?

Don’t.

Don’t explain. Don’t apologize. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing for three years now, which is taking care of yourself as best you can.

Depending what source you read, you might be tempted to believe that COVID is no longer a problem, that it’s safe to go to lunches where everyone is sitting inches from each other, that it’s perfectly fine to go without the mask in stores.

However, if you look at graphs and charts and follow the progress of COVID, you’ll see that it’s still very much among us.

Data taken from The New York Times indicates that for a two-week period in February, there were in excess of a half-million positive COVID cases in the United States.

Individual states are doing better or worse than the average. In my state, the 14-day change has gone up 50%, and we’re not even in first place.

Those positive COVID numbers are from people who were tested at a facility that reports their statistics.

How many millions of people are using those at-home test kits and never see the inside of a doctor’s office and therefore don’t have their results reported?

None of us has a crystal ball to see when COVID might leave us for good. While it’s still here, take care of yourself.

And, yes, keep washing your hands.