Those living with you in the same home are the family bubble that you will be with and separated from others for the duration of the pandemic until enough people are immunized against the COVID virus.
The family bubble must wear masks and social distance when they go outside the home.
Until there is enough vaccine to inoculate at least seventy percent of the population restrictions will remain in place.
The vaccine requires two shots about three weeks apart for each person, which means that the total number of vials and does is cut in half.
The richer the country the sooner that its population can receive the vaccine and the poorer countries will have to wait which could take until 2022 for the world population to have enough people vaccinated to stop the virus worldwide.
Now that a vaccine is available, it will take well into 2021 for enough people immunized to lower restrictions, new cases, and deaths if people will follow protocols to slow down the virus.
This is a long term problem that is likely to become endemic meaning that it may be a recurring problem that may require injections every year like for other strains of the flu in the fall of the year because doctors don’t know of any long term effects of the vaccine in preventing infection from COVID.
Because people traveled during Thanksgiving there has been a delayed spike in new cases of infection and deaths that have caused more stay home orders in many cities. This will continue to get worse if people do the same during this Christmas of Hanukkah.
We all need to stay within our family bubble this holiday season so that we have more with extended family and friends in the future.
It is going to be hard to stay distanced and staying home but we must do it to protect family and friends.
Hang in and look to the future when we can regain some normality in our lives.
Things will never be the same as it was before the pandemic but there will come a time when we will be able to move about freely without masks and enjoy activities just like before the virus changed everything.
Wear your mask, social distance, and practice personal hygiene for now.
Robert Medak
Freelance Writer, Blogger, Copy Editor, Proofreader, and Reviewer