Back To Normal?

      Indianapolis/Marion County, the last chunk of Indiana with coronavirus restrictions, has lifted them as of today.  Capacity limits are back to whatever the Fire Marshall said was okay and there are no City-County social distancing or mask rules.*

      The latter had been made untenable by the previous rule, which had mandated mask-wearing only for unvaccinated people -- but did not require proof of vaccination to go without a mask.  Unvaccinated persons skeptical of the virus or just crossgrained simply did without masks and bragged about it in their social circles, like kids playing chicken with a third rail that's only electrified some of the time.

      I get the impression that public health officials have decided just about everyone who wanted a vaccine has had one, and have decided to let the thing run its course.  The shots are still available and news of flare-ups (if any) may spur some of the reluctant to take action -- and if not, well, I'm thinking of it as evolution in action.

      Note well that dire predictions of a biomedical dictatorship have not come to pass.  The positive side of public heath measures to limit the spread of infectious illness is that they are driven by publicly-available metrics; with infection and transmission rates falling to new lows over the last several weeks and some forty percent of Hoosiers being vaccinated (48% as of 2 July), there was no longer sufficient justification for restrictions.

      The more-transmissible Delta variant is still poised to become the prominent SARS-CoV-2 strain in the U.S. and it poses a significant risk for people who do not have immunity.  But if someone is still choosing to roll the dice after all the deaths and damage we have seen over the last year and a half and with vaccines widely available, there's no stopping them.  It's a free country.
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* I won't be at all surprised if medical facilities continue to require masks for quite some time.  Where else are the sick and vulnerable in such close proximity?  We may also see grocery-store and food-service personnel in masks for awhile yet, due to company-wide mandates and perceived PR benefits.