We (2 dads and a preschooler) just spent the past week on vacation in Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod. Family Week, probably the planet’s highest temporary concentration of families like ours. It was planned, and hoped for, as a joyful July 2021 celebration of our new vaccinated life.
Provincetown was still a delightful place to spend six days, and long may it continue to be. But, no, the pandemic is far from over. We learned (while driving out there last Sunday!) that our destination was rapidly becoming a Covid-19 epicenter. The count is now 900+ Covid cases (or rather, Covid-positive test results) as of this morning, and probably over 1,000 by end of tomorrow (Monday Aug 1) among visitors to Ptown, employees and residents in Ptown, and those later infected by them.
Some things we learned:
(1) Masking up and taking fuller precautions… works wonders.
July 11 to 17 was Bear Week (gathering for hairy and often big-bodied gay men), in which Covid infections ran rampant. Direct sources tell me there were lines to get into crowded indoor clubs/dance spaces (the A-House etc), and it was all honor-system. You know how that plays out. “Be vaccinated, or just say you are, and you’re free to go unmasked.” Crowded restaurants and shops, all customers and many employees going unmasked. And there was no doubt a boatload of hookup sex going on; many of these men came to PLAY after a very non-hedonistic Summer 2020. In their defense, they (if fully vaxxed) were doing what many of them believed the CDC was saying it was now OK to do. The “Okay, I got vaxxed, now I want my life back” mindset. And to be honest.. I sort of had that mindset too, in large part, until a few weeks ago.
But by the time Family Week kicked off last Sunday the 25th, Provincetown had made changes. Masks were now required in all indoor situations except for at-table dining*. (*That, too, is likely very unsafe from Delta Covid, but Ptown’s economy is very restaurant-heavy, so it remained allowed.) All official Family Week events for kids and their grownups were held both outdoors *and* masked. And on Thursday, when the inevitable happened and ONE single positive Covid test result occurred in a Family Week attendee (a Dad), the organizers promptly cancelled the rest of the week’s programming. Shut it down.
We don’t know yet, but I expect it will turn out that the mask-wearing, more-careful Family Week attendees contributed little to this ongoing gallop of Ptown Covid cases that started around the 4th of July and then grew exponentially during Bear Week.
(2) There is real socioeconomic pushback on “mask mandates” in a town where the economy is tourist-dependent. Even in a very blue part of the country.
We spoke with a few locals and learned that, generally, the predominant feeling among the “townie” employees is that everyone got or is getting infected; nearly all everyone either stayed asymptomatic or had a mild case of symptoms; yet they’re angry about the newly reintroduced masking policies. The feeling among many seems to be that masks hurt business, and that that’s worse than actual spread of disease.
The reality — as I see it — is that if your tourist town gets featured on national CNN as a Covid danger zone, as Provincetown has been, then that’s hella more problematic and customer-repelling than having to ask customers to wear masks. But the feeling above was shared, vehemently, by several of those “on the ground” working in restaurants and shops.
(3) Question: Is it time to start focusing more on Covid Hospitalization #s, and less exclusively on Covid-positive test results?
So far of the 900+ cases tied to Provincetown in July… I saw a report today there are/were just 7 hospitalizations. It’s been reported that, of the 900+ Covid-positive cases (i.e., positive test results), 75% have been in fully vaccinated persons. And this really gets me thinking.
If more and more vaccinated people are going to get lightly infected or asymptomatically infected… and if serious illness and death are the real things we fear…is it time to refocus our data on those most-feared things? Yes, larger case numbers matter and they need to be tracked. But there aren’t 1,000 sick people so far, from the Provincetown spread. There are 1,000 Covid-positive test results. To an extent, this is becoming a thing we are all living with. I personally know a dozen cases of vaxxed / infected people over the past month, I expect that number to climb, and it may eventually include me and you as well. Data on Covid *hospitalizations* may come to feel just as relevant, if not more so, as Summer turns to Fall.
Just some thoughts from the back seat of a day-long family drive back home. Delta Covid is truly everywhere in America right now. Vaccinated people’s feelings on what should and shouldn’t be done about this, are proving to be divergent and passionate. Mask up whenever you think it’s wise to do so!
Good health to us all.