Lately, an almost-forgotten emotion has been returning: Optimism. Along with another blast from the past: Impatience.

The optimism comes, of course, from the vaccine rollout, which is picking up steam. The state will release updated figures Tuesday, but already roughly one out of every nine adults in New Hampshire has been fully vaccinated.

With the start of Phase 2A – covering teachers and childcare workers – and the arrival of one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, that percentage will keep rising more quickly.

It’s only a cautious optimism, however. As you’ll see in the numbers below, our progress against COVID-19 has stalled in the past week despite the vaccines, with the number of new cases and hospitalizations both plateauing.

And people keep dying, one or two of them every day. This week the total death count will pass 1,200, which is more than the population of Danbury. In other words, COVID-19 has killed the equivalent of an entire New Hampshire town and it isn’t stopping.

What’s causing this pause in what had been two months of improvement? Perhaps it reflects the arrival of more contagious variants, perhaps it’s people starting to relax their guard, perhaps it’s warm weather letting us get out and spread contagion.

Which leads to my second point: impatience.

I’ve had a pretty easy pandemic. I kept my job, nobody I know has gotten really sick, and my life was boring anyway. It’s been easy for me to stay calm, even phlegmatic, in the face of the pandemic.

But suddenly, I’ve had it. Perhaps it’s the weather or the one-year anniversary of the lockdown or just time passing, but whatever it is, I can’t wait to get back to normalcy.

Working all day in my “home office” (much more professional than “former kids’ playroom”), never going to the movies or bars or eating in restaurants, wearing that stupid mask when shopping – ugh. I am ready to be done with that.

But I’m a responsible grown-up and I know that my irritation doesn’t change reality. I can’t wish the SARS-CoV2 virus away. I also know that staying the course, no matter how frustrating, is the only way that we’ll really get back to normalcy.

So I’ll keep ordering take-out and watching movies on TV and writing stories in the playroom – er, office – until we’re really in the clear. 

A few more months, folks, that’s what it will take. Hang in there.

Number of new cases – what’s the trend? Unchanged for the past week.

The average number of new cases reported each day peaked at 871 on Jan. 15 and then fell sharply to just 259 on March 9. But since then it hasn’t budged.

Number of hospitalizations – what’s the trend? Also unchanged for the past week.

Similarly, the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 peaked at 335 on Jan. 2, and had fallen to 73 on March 9. Since then, however, it hasn’t budged.

Number of deaths – what’s the trend? No longer going down.

In mid-January, New Hampshire saw 10 or 11 people die every day from COVID-19. By March 7 that number had fallen steady to an average of just two deaths per day. Since then, however, the toll has stopped getting better: It’s still 2 per day.