Happy New Year! Broken any resolutions yet? While I haven't made a pie or used the Instant Pot, I have decided on a fitness goal for January. It turns out I was wrong on what I thought the challenge set by my Apple watch would be, and the new, corrected one is doable. It's rack up 820 minutes of exercise in the month, or 26 per day. Now the watch times some activities better than others. If I swim, it gives pretty much the same time I get using the poolside timer. For walking, though, it seems to get confused by how fast I'm walking or where, and the time that shows up is not the actual number of minutes I was walking. I can put up with that and may even end up walking more one day.
The US surpassed 20 million covid-19 cases in December which just happened to be the deadliest and most infectious month yet. The stated goal for vaccinations given before the end of 2020 was 20 million. Attaining that would have been impossible since only 14 million doses were distributed. Only 2.1 million people were actually vaccinated, and states handled their vaccination programs very differently. Florida, for example, said they would vaccinate anyone over the age of 65, first-come, first-served. People showed up at ungodly early times, and the lines stretched so far people needed the chairs they'd brought with them. To add insult to injury, one person who waited all day in line said she would not be surprised if the wait in line ended up being a superspreader event.
Should the government be handling vaccinations at the national level? I'm not sure that would have been better given that the level of detail required to set up specific programs is probably better handled at the state or local level. Whereas at one point I was anxious about vaccinations, worrying how I would document my underlying conditions, I'm now more they'll get to me when they get to me. They may have worked most of the wrinkles out of things by then.
It's not clear whether the Olympic Games will happen in Tokyo this summer. They're getting the same surge in infections being seen elsewhere. In response to the new variant strain of coronavirus, they've now banned all non-resident arrivals. I know the Games would not be until July, but there likely are a number of details that would have to be set well in advance. I can't say I'd miss them if they weren't held. I actually find the Winter Games to be more interesting.
Less than three weeks from Inauguration Day, the Secret Service is swapping out members of the detail that guards Uncle Joe and Dr. Biden. Evidently, some of those agents may be more in favor of The Lame Duck than desired. In some cases, agents have discouraged mask-wearing by people around the Bidens. The new agents being assigned to them are mostly senior agents many of whom were in the Bidens' detail when Uncle Joe was Vice President.
It's been a quiet start to the new year. I did a wee bit of organizing and sorting. I copied about 20 posts from the blog view to a Word file. I figured finding something specific would be easier that way. That document is now over 300 pages long and contains more than 180,000 words. I don't think I'll ever print it out given how much paper it would take. I don't want to kill more trees than absolutely necessary. I can't use the excuse that I'm not doing much because we stayed up too late last night. We headed to bed at the normal 9:00 so as to get close to eight hours of sleep before the alarm at 5:00.
2 comments:
I'd never survive an alarm at 5am (why do you set an alarm, anyway? Is it for the Professor?). :-) We're in the "late to bed, late to rise" cohort, and like it that way. Some mornings are later than others, but I'm usually up before 8am; the coffee self-starts at 7:40.
As for the vaccine distribution, where's Mike Pence, "head" of the coronavirus task force and former governor, who should know what the states needed?
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