Got my first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine dose in May and second dose in July. Only major side effects were muscle aches and fatigue the day after the second dose, gone the next morning. As of this week, wife and I are officially fully immunized — but not our son, so until a vaccine is approved for children under 12, we continue to mask up and avoid most social contact to avoid the slim chance of bringing home an asymptomatic breakthrough infection.

Meanwhile Nova Scotia is on the tail end of a third wave of COVID-19 that maxed out at over 1700 active cases, but was brought back down to single digits by hard restrictions. Low numbers with no (?) community spread persist now even after a gradual multiphase reopening, so the vaunted Atlantic Canadian pandemic response seems to have worked once more.

I’m troubled by governments and individuals running victory laps, unmasking, and relaxing on safety before we’ve approached herd immunity levels of vaccination coverage, especially with no immunization options yet available for children under 12. The pandemic is not over and things can change quickly, especially with more infectious variants constantly developing; nor is vaccination a magic bullet, especially where uptake or supply is low.

Got a bad feeling that with relaxation of restrictions and the messaging switching to “we have to learn to live with COVID,” things are about to get bad again, for vaxed and unvaxed alike, just in time for when school starts in September — and the Delta variant is more dangerous for children.

Hope we’re wrong on this but for us it’s gonna be Swiss cheese for a while longer.