WACO, TX — This time last year we started to see a spike in Coronavirus cases, if you remember scientists were telling us the summer months would help slow the spread but the opposite happened.
Memorial Day and the Forth of July holiday were when we saw major spikes in cases as many wanted to spend their weekends with friends and family.
Today, cases are much more attainable and numbers are decreasing. On June 23, 2020 the new daily case count was 5.5 thousand and today the DSHS calculated only 873.
As cases have gone down, more are excited to travel this summer and for tourist Teresa Barrs she is visiting Waco from Seattle.
"It was definitely an adjustment not being able to have that freedom to go anywhere," Barrs said.
Her mom lives in Dallas and Barrs was able to visit a few times last year but not as many as she would like if there wasn't a pandemic.
"I just had to figure out a different way to entertain myself and kind of get that same energy from travel that I was getting for not being able to travel," Barrs said.
We know a lot more than we did a year ago, we have the vaccine which is now available to those 12 and up. Communications Lead for the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District, Kelly Craine said the vaccine saved us from seeing the same high numbers a year later.
"We didn't have all the tools, all we had was social distancing and masks. With our knowledge we know that vaccines work, we've seen historically vaccines have changed the world," Craine said.
Traveling became limited with the increase in cases and now that we're heading in the right direction Barrs is happy to be back out again.
"Its great I love it, like the mask mandate is different you have more freedom to walk around. it takes a bit getting used to not wearing the mask but it's definitely really nice," Barrs said.
The number of those vaccinated grows daily, currently more than 11.5 million are fully vaccinated.
"We're seeing the difference that it's making with the number of cases that we've had with hospitalizations all of those numbers are getting in the place that we need to be," Craine said.
We've all stuck together, have helped each other through hard times. of course many small businesses couldn't make it through last year and Barrs has come to realize she isn't taken the small stuff for granted.
"Seeing what's still around it's really sad to see the different business that had to close because of the pandemic but seeing stuff reopen and seeing everyone get back to normal life I appreciate it for sure," Barrs said.