Ahead On Points

There are times when success can be harder to observe than failure. Think of your car. When something is wrong, alarm bells go off, sometimes literally, and there is plenty of drama to let you know there’s a problem, whether it’s billows of smoke or a simple refusal to run. But when it’s working well, everything just seems … normal.

Don’t miss the moment when it comes to COVID-19 and the ongoing battle: We are winning.

This was never going to be a knockout — it’s going to be a fight that’s likely to go the distance, to be decided on points. And we’re ahead on every card right now.

None of which is meant to be premature celebration; if you’re a boxer who drops his guard and raises his hands in victory in the 13th round, you’re going to wind up on your backside wondering what day it is. The fight continues, and it ain’t over till it’s over, as a wise man once said.

That said, there’s no harm in taking a moment to acknowledge success, to look at it in context and to see what it suggests as a strategy to win this fight in the long term, and many more like it to come.

In Suffolk County, unvaccinated people are still at a very high risk of catching the virus, and the number of new cases has been trending up again after a major drop from the peak after the Christmas holidays. At the worst, there were more than 8,000 new cases a day in the county. By mid-March, that had fallen all the way to a low of about 1,000 new cases in a day, and now it’s back up above 3,000.

But step off this roller-coaster and you see a different set of peaks and valleys. The number of deaths — it averaged over 50 a day at its awful early high point in mid-April 2020 — has trended in the single digits or low two digits in recent days. It’s showing no sign of a sharp increase.

A few conclusions are possible. New cases are going to flare up from time to time, as pockets of the population will bump into the virus and get it. But those who have been vaccinated will be less likely to be infected, and to spread it further, and to be hospitalized even if they do get sick.

New York State has hit the three-quarters mark: As of Monday, 76.6 percent of state residents have the complete vaccine series. Nine out of 10 have at least one vaccine dose. And those numbers continue to rise. That translates into the success readily seen in the toll the virus is taking on individual lives — fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths. And this region has been a little ahead of the state vaccination rate, from the start.

This weekend’s holiday gatherings likely will create another jump of positive tests. Many people have stopped masking when it’s not required — and a judge’s ruling this week will mean fewer masks on airplanes and public transit — so a knockout win isn’t coming. This virus is going to survive a while longer, perhaps mutating into something more dangerous along the way.

For a moment, though, focus on the positive. Just as so many medical experts suggested, vaccines and careful behavior have led us from pandemic to endemic status. That means the virus is here, still a threat, but manageable. With a few stubborn exceptions, the region did what was necessary, and the benefits are starting to show.

It might not sound like victory, but a tired fighter who has taken more than his share of uppercuts is entitled to gain some confidence — and start preparing more assiduously for the next round.