A powerful man, looking harried and desperate for a win, is speaking to a digital scrum of reporters and members of the public. His constituents are tired of severe shutdown measures. He feels pressure mounting from all sides – but especially from corporate interests – to produce some good news. New daily Covid cases have fallen sharply and a key metric that tracks the disease’s spread has fallen far below the level at which new daily cases might be expected to grow in the coming days.
While admitting things are looking up and acknowledging the feelings of hope inspired by the still new vaccine rollout, he stops short of giving in to demands to relax restrictions. His administration, he says, will take a look at the matter in mid-February and not before. He concludes: “I think people want to see us making sure we don’t throw [recent progress] away by having a premature relaxation and then another big surge of infection.”
This […]
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