Our case curve has stopped falling, and for the moment it appears flat. When it stopped declining, B.1.1.7 (British variant) was about 15% of positive tests. There's a bit of a testing lag, but by now it should be around 35%. That's enough to boost overall transmission by about 18%, which is easily large enough to stop our decline.
B.1.1.7 will be the overwhelmingly dominant variant by the end of the month, likely passing 50% by mid month. That will dramatically increase overall contagion all else being equal.
We know the virus can spread wildly in March, it was the time of the huge outbreaks in Italy and New York. And removing mask mandates and reopening fully will amplify the effect of the variant. With only 15% of us vaccinated and maybe another 30% already infected, that still leaves plenty of fuel for things to get out of hand.
A month or six weeks from now that might not be the story, but reopening now just as B.1.1.7 takes hold is a very risky move.
I'm still flabbergasted at how many people I hear talking as if this is a move without risk. Like the sky won't fall because of vaccines, but this is an incredible gamble at the worst time nevertheless.
And really I truly don't get the arguments of the sort that this move is good because it signals the measures are not meant to be indefinite. Do you hear any experts say the measures don't have an endpoint? Fauci literally said today he expects measures to be lifted as the most vulnerable are vaccinated. But Texas has barely vaccinated its most vulnerable so far. The discourse this pandemic is so weird.
