It’s been a while since I wrote a COVID report. It’s been an even longer while since I showed the Indiana positive cases graph. We looked like we were coming out of the woods for a while, but the Delta variant has caused a new surge.

Some headlines have read that this is now a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” But someone on my team at work tested positive for COVID this week despite being fully vaccinated. She didn’t have a bad case — she was out of work only for a couple of days, and reported fatigue as her primary symptom. It remains to be seen whether vaccinated people who get COVID are at risk of long-term effects.
In Indiana, Delta and this spike have not led government to order lockdowns or even masks. There’s a tussle in our state government over whether the Governor has the powers to invoke the emergency measures he did in months past. The state legislature passed a law giving it powers to intervene during public health emergencies, curtailing the Governor’s power. In response, the Governor sued the state legislature. In response to that, the state Attorney General asked the state Supreme Court to prevent this suit, but the Supreme Court refused.
To me, this all seems like a bid to prove who’s the reddest Republican. Our state government is fully controlled by Republicans — this is the party fighting within itself.
Meanwhile, in this climate the government has issued no orders, not even advice, for how we should behave in the face of Delta. We’re on our own. Some stores are requesting masks of everyone, even those vaccinated; the Meijer across the street is among them. The CDC recommends masks for everyone in areas of high transmission. That would, it appears, include grocery stores and restaurants.
Yet I am loath to give up the freedoms we have only recently won back. I don’t mind masking up in the store, but every part of me wants to pretend that my vaccination will cover me when I sit at a bar or enjoy a burrito in the Mexican joint around the corner.
Indiana’s government is surely dysfunctional right now. But I wonder if a part of the reason it hasn’t ordered any COVID protections is because they would be unpopular with everyday people like me.