Vaccines! Yay! Huh? Oh. Good news; the vaccines are arriving. Not so good news, there is some confusion about the appointments, who is eligible, and all manners of bureaucratic confusions. (The County’s Phase has been redefined. Don’t ask.) Such is the modern world. The best measure of the progress may be tracking social media comments from people who’ve had the shot(s), those who missed out, and what might come next.

Some other good news, the case counts are down. There’s a term that was new a year ago but common now: case counts. Looking back, we’re back to November levels, only about a third of the peak during the holidays. As for the optimistic days of April through June, well, we’ll get there.

Washington State is looking better now, too.

We’ve been fighting the pandemic for over a year now (depending on how you want to start it). Education, masks, distancing, and such are helping. Island County continues to do well, relatively at the state level; and the state is doing well; relative to the national level.

It is difficult to fight any epidemic. Pandemics are more difficult. Now that we have vaccines and a plan, it would seem to be a time to declare victory; but victory is not assured because of mutations, pandemic fatigue, and backlash. The projections are that cases will continue to crop up into the summer; but before then there will probably be some relaxation of restrictions – especially because of our progress and the value of the tourism industry.

We’re getting there, but not there yet. Stay tuned. Keep it clean. Thanks for helping.