For months, California kept a lid on COVID-19. Now it’s leading the surge

“If you start a small fire in your kitchen, you can put it out with a small fire extinguisher,” said Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. “But, once the fire spreads to your whole house, you can’t put it out with 25 fire extinguishers.” … The process of putting the brakes on COVID-19 will take time, though. “It’s like stopping an ocean liner, not stopping a Ferrari,” Noymer said. “The big game-changer is the vaccine,” he continued.