Party's over

This week's data from the Oregon health bureaucrats confirm what the media has been squawking about: Covid's coming back. Here are the statewide hospitalization and death curves for the year:

Here are the new-case counts in the tri-county area including Portland:

All the curves have turned back up. So have fun, but remember: The virus doesn't care how much you want to get back to normal. And even some vaccinated people will catch it. Do your own weighing of risks against rewards. Be smart about it.

It seems this thing will always be hanging around. It's not going to be eradicated soon, or probably ever, and so we're all going to have to do what we choose to avoid the dangers. It will persist like the flu, coming and going in waves. That is not a message that anybody wants to hear, of course. But I'm afraid it's the reality.