Is COVID Still a Thing?

I just finished up a 14-month long emergency response mission to support COVID operations in the state of Texas. I was engaged in the management of many medical staff, working in hospitals across Texas, that were paid for by state funds. There is a process for federal reimbursement of most of these expenditures, but I highly doubt that all the expenses will be recouped. I am not talking about a small amount of money spent by the agency that I worked for; our expenses were over 4 billion dollars during this 14-month operation. This mission spun up in a big hurry and stayed at a very high tempo, however, it seemed to end almost as fast as it started.

I find it very interesting that the COVID precautions and guidelines, in the United States, have shifted to the point of almost normal, seemingly overnight. I understand that the mission to get people vaccinated was also a high energy operation, which also has slowed down to a crawl. However, we are nowhere near completing the vaccinations for all Americans, yet many states are relaxing the precautions quite drastically. Reaching a “herd immunity, has been the tagline for so long, but it seems like this has also gone to the wayside. I am certainly not saying that I believe that COVID is what we have long been told it is supposed to be, but to stop the push suddenly and strikingly for vaccinations and precautions seems very odd. In the United States, we have…