In spite of masking and social distancing there are nearly 30 million tracked, positive-tested confirmed cases and likely 3-5 times as many unconfirmed. And 15 million vaccinated residents/citizens. The lower end is probably 105 million with direct natural or conferred immunity out of about 300 million. Upper end could be as high as 195 million. Conferred resistance if not immunity from previous coronaviruses could explain the high proportion of asymptomatic and low-moderate symptom cases. It's impossible to know for sure because the tooling for directly measuring via testing doesn't exist for T-cell memory or really even for related antibody presence.
Flatten the curve worked to mostly prevent overflowing medical care. New York and the border of Texas were exceptions to those successes and the New York circumstances were exacerbated by an executive order that allowed senior facilities to offload patients from hospitals in an effort to unburden hospitals and keep them functioning.
I don't think we could expect every team to master the protocols with zero failures. And therefore some teams will be outliers in avoiding exposure and in getting more exposure than the rest.
In addition: the year has been a beat down. The good news is cases have dropped precipitously since late January. There was s a possibility we are nearing the point where natural and conferred immunity starves out the virus if it doesn't mutate more.
Trying to saddle one team with extra reprobation and shame is not a healthy approach to the current circumstances. It's attempting to create a scapegoat. And one with zero faith or religious provenance. It's unworthy of us as well.
I'm fine with noting that something happened. But it's impossible to know how to judge that. Let me give an example.
If randomly three people test positive in a team of 1 and each of the three contact traces to five other on the team, then the whole team could be out. And the virus spread early without apparent rhyme or reason exactly that way. The masking and social distancing helps, but does not completely avoid exposure.
Our household (my wife and two sons) are working nearly daily with the public at warehouse clubs and grocery stores. As far as we know none have been exposed but significant numbers at the stores have been out. Not dissimilar from the example of one fifth of the team potentially testing positive all at once.
The clubs and stores have required contract traces to be tested and quarantine based on test results and it has taken out a significantly can't but not crippling proportion at various times. Other clubs have had bigger impacts and some have had smaller.
But our household interacts daily with typically two household members in essential roles serving the public on any given day and half the week three doing that. Whether we are blessed by God or just merely lucky, we haven't had a superspreader event in our own household.
I just don't get the intense desire to assign blame. Let this weird situation play out. The price for poor choices can be death or long-term crippling. Those are high enough stakes without adding additional shaming.
YMMV.
