Millions of Americans are vaccinated and with more added to the count every day, the country is slowly heading back to a new normal.
However, high COVID-19 case counts in many parts of Ohio on top of recent gun violence in Columbus and throughout the country, some may ask themselves, where can we feel safe?
Austen Rey is a working single mother in Columbus.
“A lot of my concerns stem from when I’m out in public,” she said.
“Because of COVID, you just don’t really know how bad is it, because we’re getting so many different variations and then you add all of these things going on with the shootings.”
Ray said she does not take her family out in public as often as she used to.
“I feel like we’re in an abundance of fear now that we weren’t in before.”
Consider what’s happened here at home and across the country so far in 2021 alone.
In April, a 19-year-old man shot and killed 8 people at a FedEx distribution center in Indianapolis.
A man shot and killed eight people at massage parlors in Atlanta in March.
Ten people killed at a supermarket in Boulder in March.
In central Ohio, there were two instances of shots fired in two weeks at Polaris Shopping Place and a shooting inside Mount Carmel East hospital in March and April, respectively.
All these incidents are paired with an already record-setting year for gun violence in Columbus.
On top of the violence, the world is still in the middle of a pandemic.
It raises the question: Where are we safe?
“There’s just so much stress now you don’t really know what you’re going out into,” Ray said.
Arianna Gallagher works in trauma recovery at Wexner Medical Center.
“A proportion of people that experience violence will have a lasting impact,” she said.
“As these different kinds of stress sort of pile up for people, it does sort of skew people’s perspectives and make them question: ‘Gosh is there anywhere that’s safe for me?’”
Gallagher noted most people that go through a traumatic experience will go through a period of “hyper-anxiety and hypervigilance.”
So, how can we feel safe?
Dustin Randall, a retired police officer, military veteran and the Chief Operations Officer at Safe Passages Consulting believes people should not be afraid to go out in public areas as long as they have a plan for emergency situations.
“What we advocate is running, getting far away from the sounds of gunfire,” he said.
“Leave the store, leave the entire structure, get somewhere safe, a rally point, and then make that 911 call.”
Randall said the key to doing that is figuring out where the exits are wherever you go.
“Be more situationally aware. Understand what’s going on around you. Empower yourself to feel safe when you’re in public.”
Ohio Health’s Doctor Joseph Gastaldo said that same advice is also true in protecting yourself from COVID-19.
“If you are fully vaccinated, you have a great layer of protection,” he said.
“However, regardless of your vaccination status, when you’re out in public, you still have to wear a mask, socially distance and watch your Ps and Qs when it comes to COVID-19.”
Dr. Gastaldo said that rings true especially as public spaces and events start to re-open, but positivity numbers have to bottom out first.
“We’re not there yet,” he said.
Ray still has questions, though.
“People have been closed off so much from other people that no one really knows how to interact with each other,” she said.
“So I would love to say yes, ‘I can get back to normal,’ but can everybody else?"
With the pandemic impact we are seeing in Columbus and across the United States, Gallagher says it can be tough for people to feel a sense of “normal” and it all comes down to a personal perception of risk.
“What we want to steer clear of is sort of buying into those all or nothing statements: ‘Either I’m 100 percent safe in the world or I’m 100 percent unsafe in the world,’” she said.
“Being able to realistically evaluate which spaces do you feel safe in and what sort of conditions need to be met in order to feel safe."
She said that process can take time.
“Coping doesn’t always look exactly the same. So we can figure out what works and doesn’t work while you’re going through this period of more intense stress.”
Ray just hopes at the tail end of the pandemic, at least, she sees more people come together.
“I think we’re so divided right now and there’s so much chaos that we can’t really stop and let's say, ‘let's figure this out?”