I go out. Really, I do. I’m on a vacation with my son, and we’ve been eating indoors at restaurants and we even saw Black Widow in a theater. But whenever I’m out doing something normal, even though I’m vaccinated and know my personal risk is close to nil, I still have a nagging, ominous feeling that this is only a respite from the Covid storm. And the news isn’t helping. “Los Angeles County will once again require people to wear masks indoors as the number of new COVID cases continues to rise at an alarming rate … The requirement applies to everyone, regardless of vaccination status.”

+ CDC head Dr. Rochelle Walensky calls this the pandemic of the unvaccinated.

+ At least in America, we have the option to protect ourselves. Africa is not so lucky (and one imagines people there are repulsed by the anti-vaccine trends holding us up here). “The Delta variant is sweeping across the continent. Namibia and Tunisia are reporting more deaths per capita than any other country. Hospitals across the continent are filling up, oxygen supplies and medical workers are stretched thin and recorded deaths jumped 40 percent last week alone.” NYT: Africa’s Covid Crisis Deepens,
but Vaccines Are Still Far Off.

+ Cases surge to 6-month high in Tokyo a week before Olympics.

+ “It’s still pretty safe for fully vaccinated people to not wear masks, even indoors and even in mixed company. But it’s a little less safe this week than last week, and it’s likely to be a little less safe next week than this week, because Delta is spreading fast while vaccination rates have slowed and 32% of adults 18 and up (and 44% of the whole U.S. population) are still completely unvaccinated against Covid-19.” Stat: Since the CDC’s mid-May guidance on wearing masks, we’re no longer all in this together.