This year started with the promise of new COVID-19 vaccines that could push North Carolina and the country beyond the pandemic. It ends with the rise of a new COVID-19 variant that once again has the state and the world on guard. COVID-19 cases spiked after last year’s Christmas holiday. Infections caused by the delta variant, which spread more easily than earlier ones, led to another surge this summer that filled hospital beds.
...vaccine hesitancy
A distant cousin of mine recently died of COVID-19. We had long ago lost touch when we both moved from our North Dakota hometown, me to Minnesota by way of stops in Florida and Georgia, and she to Texas, where she worked as a teacher, got married and raised a family for more than 30 years.
...Orphaned, infected, in crisis: How the pandemic is traumatizing and causing lasting harm to children
WASHINGTON — The coronavirus pandemic has brought heartbreaking consequences for millions of U.S. children, even as most avoided serious illness themselves, pediatric experts told Congress on Wednesday. Take, for instance, a young girl from Tennessee named Sophia, whose story was relayed by Dr. Margaret Rush, president of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University.
...I am angry. You are angry. Hell, the entire nation is angry. But what makes this such a challenging time is that we are not all angry about the same things. I am angry that we have developed vaccines that dramatically prevent the spread of COVID, but that in much of the country, the vaccine itself is treated as if it were the plague.
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