Stop Treating the Pandemic Like It's Over

We're in a full-blown third, fourth or even fifth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, but nobody seems to have noticed.

That's not strictly true: people are noticing that cases are rising in the US, and that the Delta variant is becoming the dominant strain of the coronavirus (if it hasn't already), but they're sitting there blaming it exclusively on people who haven't gotten vaccinated. By people, I mean pundits and random people on Twitter - hardly a day goes by when I don't see someone on there yelling at us all to get vaccinated (I have, thanks), or being derisive about unvaccinated people being hospitalized.

I find this tone worrying. As I said, I'm vaccinated, and I'm pleased that I got it so soon after it became available in my age group. I believe that the vaccine is safe and effective, and if we all got it, we'd be seeing fewer cases. I also think that those who are peddling misinformation, be it about the existence of the pandemic or the efficacy of masking or who are making baseless claims about the safety of the vaccines, are wrong.

Recently, though, I've been finding a weird equivalency between those of us who continue to wear masks and those who refuse to get vaccinated. Speaking to some neighbors the other week, outside and double-masked, I was asked if I hadn't been vaccinated. I answered that I had, but the question rattled me a little. It shouldn't be controversial for me to continue wearing a mask, and it's not the horrible imposition that some, like Tucker Carlson, seem to think it is.

Even Bill Maher (whom my girlfriend loves but I frequently find infuriating) has laughed at people who were still wearing masks outdoors, despite the fact that he got infected with Covid after being vaccinated. If anybody should appreciate the importance of continuing to take precautions, it's him - but I digress.

The fact is that California saw around 44,000 new cases last week. This article from the New York Times says that one in five new cases are in Florida, with appropriate doses of condescension for a Republican-led state, but it doesn't so much as mention California, which by this math accounts for over 10% of new cases. There are pockets of vaccine hesitancy here, which are frequently caused by politics, but it can't be the whole story.

There have to be more Covid breakthrough infections than we're hearing about - the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself admits that it's no longer tracking all breakthrough cases. This other article from the NYT notes that the more people you're around, even if you and they are all vaccinated, the greater your risk of encountering a viral load big enough to get you sick.

Some places are taking appropriate steps. I'm staying with my girlfriend at the moment, and the grocery/deli near her house has gone back to requiring masks indoors for all customers. When we went up to a mall in San Francisco a few weeks ago, the vast majority of people outside (we didn't go in) were wearing masks despite notices from the mall itself saying that vaccinated people didn't have to wear masks indoors.

I just think it's too early to start opening up again, and to start telling people they don't have to wear masks. More importantly, I think it's unwise to imply that the vaccine is the only thing that can save us from this pandemic, when wearing a mask is probably as important a step as getting the jab. There's still debate on the relative effectiveness of masks versus vaccines, but I think the point is, if you can do both, do both.

To sum up, if cases are rising in the US (and they are), then don't blame it exclusively on people who haven't been vaccinated. They might not be able to get it, for example because they're allergic, or they might not have gotten around to it yet. Even if they can get it, but are hesitant, telling them they're stupid and selfish is unlikely to convince them otherwise. And even with the vaccine, we shouldn't be declaring victory just yet - we may not want to admit it, but there's a long way to go to eradicate Covid completely, which should have been our goal in the first place.

Euro 2020: Done and Dusted

Well, that's another Euros in the bag. I wasn't positive about Italy's chances going into the final, since they'd be playing an England team that had been looking ever more unstoppable, and they'd be playing at Wembley, where the home support would be the twelfth man. My fears were confirmed (apparently) when Luke Shaw scored in the second minute of the game, but I was pleased that Italy regrouped, held on through a difficult first half, and then came back into it in the second.

I also had a bad feeling about penalties, but that fear was also dispelled when three of England's players missed or failed to beat the Italy keeper. I'm just sad to see that the ones who missed were all black, and my prediction that they'd come in for racist abuse has unfortunately come true.

There's been a lot of talk about racism swirling around this game for the last few days, both at an overall societal level and at a personal level, i.e. in my Facebook Messenger chats with friends before and after the match. What kicked it off was the England fans booing the Danish national anthem in the semi-final, and then doing it again to the Italian anthem this time, one of several acts that got the FA fined. English friends have predictably pointed to Italian fans booing black players in Serie A or throwing bananas at them, which is of course worse... but as we've seen for a few years, certain elements of English fandom are happy to go after black players if they're not performing to the required level, or if they're simply too "bling", which is racist code for buying themselves the stuff they were deprived of growing up.

My distaste for the anthem-booing also stemmed more from the unsporting nature of the thing, than any thought of racism, and from the lecturing that the rest of the world always gets from the English on how unsporting us foreign-types are. Yet certain subsets of the English fans seem to think that these sporting rules don't apply to them, or possibly that if they're doing something it can't be unsporting (see also diving to earn penalties).

But let's get back to the football, since it's what brought us here in the first place. I've talked about the ebb and flow of the game, how England were on top for the start, then Italy battled back and the game stayed level through extra time. It wasn't, perhaps, a game for the ages but it also wasn't a disappointing match; in fact you could say that this is the only result that made sense, since I felt the two teams were very well matched, and indeed the two best teams of the tournament.

It was also a fitting final to a tournament that I believe has been particularly fun. I've mentioned before how many more goals we've had than last time, which is one (imperfect) indicator of how teams are playing. I believe I've also talked about how this tournament has felt like a necessary catharsis for Europe after suffering so heavily from the pandemic - Italy and the UK have been overtaking each other for most deaths from Covid-19 for about a year, and essentially every country in Europe has had trouble getting it under control, or rolling out vaccines, or something else.

This is why I believe that holding the tournament across the continent wasn't the foolishness that the podcasts I listen to claim it is. That doesn't take into account the pandemic, though it doesn't seem as if it's spread particularly rapidly other than through England matches - I can certainly imagine that having 24 sets of fans converging on one location and then bringing it back to their own countries would have been worse.

From a footballing perspective, though, I think that holding the games in some of Europe's greatest stadia was a wonderful idea, because it spread the festivities around. My mom and my sister, who are currently in Rome and London respectively, could each attest to the carnival atmosphere in their cities, which they wouldn't have had if there hadn't been games in those cities. My one objection was the amount of travel that some teams were subjected to, particularly those that had to go back and forth from Baku, Azerbaijan.

Perhaps a more sensible approach would have been to award the group stages to six different countries, and then held the knockout rounds in a decreasing number of venues until we got to the final at Wembley (which I think we can all agree is probably the most iconic football stadium in Europe). Certainly it would have cut down on player fatigue, air-travel emissions and (by not holding games in Baku) authoritarian fuckery.

Still, all in all, I think this has been a great tournament, even beyond Italy winning it. It started inauspiciously, with Christian Eriksen's collapse in Denmark's first game, but fortunately he recovered, and that incident brought the Denmark team together in such a way that made them a second-favorite for many neutrals.

The football was good, and characterized by team cohesion rather than individual heroics. I just hope I can be in Europe for the next one.

Euro 2020: On to the Semis

We've now had two knockout stages, and I think it's fair to say this tournament has continued to deliver on its promise of fun. The round of 16 held its fair share of surprise results, with the biggest being Switzerland's defeat of France on penalties, while Ukraine's win over Sweden and the Czech Republic's over the Netherlands were close behind.

I watched part of the Switzerland-France game and managed to catch the first four goals. Switzerland did well to get on the scoring sheet first, but I'll admit I gave up on them when Karim Benzema scored his two goals in rapid succession, and when Paul Pogba scored his screamer not long after. I switched off, and only later did I learn that not only had the Swiss equalized, but they'd beaten the world champions on penalties. This makes it so much more disappointing that Switzerland did so badly in the next set of penalties against Spain.

The other one that caught my imagination (other than the obvious Italy match, about which more below) was Ukraine vs Sweden. At the outset this one promised to be brutally boring - for all that the Swedes are effective at getting far in tournaments, they're one of the dullest sides around. Ukraine, meanwhile, doesn't have a much better reputation, as football journalists still hold up the Switzerland-Ukraine matchup from 2006 as the dullest game in the history of football. So I was surprised to find myself captivated by this match, in which I jumped out of my chair when Ukraine scored its winning goal.

As for Wales-Denmark, I have to admit I was one of the millions that was rooting for the Danes this time, given the narrative surrounding Christian Eriksen's collapse back in the first match. That said, I wasn't expecting a 4-0 demolition (nor, presumably, were the Welsh). With that narrative in mind, I wasn't too sad to see Denmark go on to beat the Czechs in the quarterfinal, even if it meant that yet again an Eastern European team wouldn't go on to win the tournament.

England continues to have a good tournament. Not only have they not conceded a single goal yet, but they've improved markedly from the slightly ponderous team that we saw in the group stage. The 2-0 defeat of Germany wasn't too surprising to me, since the Germans had failed to convince in their own group stage, but the 4-0 against Ukraine shows that the English have found their stride, particularly striker Harry Kane. It's getting harder to imagine who can stop them - certainly it doesn't feel as if the Danes are going to be able to do it.

And to be honest, I'm not sure Italy has it in them to do it either. I don't want to get over-confident, since Italy doesn't have the greatest record against Spain, but it's hard not to look past possibly the weakest team still in the tournament, and what I see there is likely England.

In terms of overall quality, I think it's fair to say that Italy is the best team remaining. They had an easy group stage, held off a stronger than expected Austria and controlled the game against Belgium, which is still the top-ranked team in the world. But knockout games turn on a moment, and the slightest weird wobble against Spain or whoever awaits in the final would see them going home. After all, it's rarely the brightest team that wins a tournament, especially at the Euros.

The other thing that has me worried is (I hate to say this) Gigio Donnarumma. A friend of mine laughed at me when he conceded in the Austria game and I asked if we could sub in Gianluigi Buffon, but my question was sparked by what looked like panic on Donnarumma's part. Even with that fantastic defense in front of him, he suddenly looked brittle, and I haven't shaken this sense of unease about him. It's odd, because he's meant to be a great goalkeeper, but I suspect that anything that dumps Italy out will stem from him.

But I hope not! I'd love to see Italy comprehensively banish the demons of 2018 by winning this, and in a style that puts paid to foreigners' lazy stereotypes that our football is negative and cynical. And if both Italy and England are firing on all cylinders for the next two matches, then we're in for a great tournament.