The pandemic has changed the way the world has lived forever. Every country is different in how they attempt to counteract the spreading of the new variants of COVID-19. My family and I went to Italy for Thanksgiving, and the difference between how South Dakota and Italy are dealing with the pandemic is very eye-opening.
The one major difference I noticed was that every restaurant, cafe and shopping center required us to always have a mask upon walking in. Everywhere we went, they would also ask for our vaccination cards, and if you did not have one, they would ask you to leave. Excursions, such as walking tours, site seeing and other famous monuments, all the security guards required us to show proof of vaccine and on the occasion, our COVID-19 negative tests. The sense of safety that checking the vaccine cards and or negative tests gave me, was amazing. The reassurance that everyone around us was fully vaccinated and that the probability of getting the virus was decreased tremendously and helped us feel safe,
While I was coming home, I overheard my mom talking to a flight attendant that lived in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and she was saying that all of Amsterdam was going into lockdown for three weeks. They handle issues so differently there and compared to South Dakota they are doing a much better job than we are about getting people vaccinated. According to graphics.reuters.com, Italy has 79.6% of the population fully vaccinated. For South Dakota, we currently have 54.4% according to mayoclinic.org. The difference is 25.2%. Almost 26% of people are choosing not to get vaccinated here.
In South Dakota, we do not require masks or showing vaccine cards at all. We do not have to show our green passes to eat at restaurants or even to get into another state. Nothing. Everyone is just free to do whatever they please and assume that they will not catch COVID-19. The people who do get vaccinated are not only getting vaccinated for themselves but most importantly, for everyone else who chooses not to. There is not a perfect solution for this issue, but there are ways how we, the people, can decrease the spread of this worldwide virus. The solution is to get vaccinated. It is that simple and potentially saves lives every day.