'The vaccine', and not a moment too soon

Just as the science begins to fall apart on our social distancing, we're introduced to more (and hopefully better) science: BNT162b2 is a lipid nanoparticle–formulated, nucleoside-modified RNA vaccine that encodes a prefusion stabilized, membrane-anchored SARS-CoV-2 full-length spike protein....whew. I just hope Pfizer and the rest are as good as they say they are.

'Stay six feet away, and let conversations last fewer than 15 minutes' has been the mantra for months. The CDC has defined close contacts as those that offered exposure at less than 6ft, or a cumulative 15 minutes in a 24 hour period; somehow providing clear guidelines to an uncertain RNA virus. While it has been comforting to think that distancing at 6ft, or an interaction was below the threshold (at a mere 14 m and 30sec); these soothing whispers from our most trusted public health bodies are obviously meant to appease our unilateral brains- and our collective need for definitive instruction and guidance. But, in reality, quantifying the dose-response relationship of Cov-2 infection has been a moving target since last January, in Wuhan. Six feet of physical distance- to presumably mitigate droplet transmission-seems inadequate now that South Korea has shown us a 20ft vector circle, with aid of laminar air flow. Isolation is, in itself, a public health risk. Mental health crisis' have been well documented, and as a local Pediatrician noted in a recent conversation, "All the kids I'm seeing have mental health concerns.....I'm more concerned about that, than them contracting Covid." It seems that we are at a crucial juncture: as 6ft of distance becomes less of a barrier-and social isolation becomes an increasing health concern-will we reach our goal of herd immunity in time to reverse our societal losses?