Remember the number of new student covid cases that had not been posted yesterday by the local university? It was eventually posted and was almost twice the 117 recorded the day before. There were 229 new student cases on Tuesday and another 168 yesterday. The kids are knocking it out of the park this semester! It seems that someone in the administration told the fraternities that they could have in-person rush if they followed the mitigation measures in effect at that time. Judging by comments and photos posted on the UVA subreddit, it was damn the mitigation and full party ahead.
The CDC announced that life expectancy in the US dropped one year during the first half of 2020. The last drop this large was in WWII. Perhaps more disturbing, life expectancy for Hispanics dropped two years, while that for Black Americans dropped three years. 2020 was the deadliest year in US history. For the first time, more there were more than 3 million deaths.
The oh-so-weird weather is wreaking havoc with vaccine distribution in the US, but we are still better off than the 130 countries that, according to the UN, have yet to get one single dose. The herd immunity we want is not just for our own US, and for the developing world to get the vaccination percent that gives them herd immunity, they need to start getting vaccine ... now. It does us no good to say that every American who wants a vaccination can get one by the end of summer if developing countries are only then starting their vaccination programs. Scientists are working on it, but right now we do not know for sure how long the period of immunity is for either vaccine being given in the US. If our immunity is wearing off and no boosters have been developed, whether all countries have been or are getting vaccinated becomes even more important.
For the first time since early November, the US is averaging fewer than 100,000 new covid cases per day. Only three states--North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska--have new case rates that are increasing. Rates are steady in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico. New case rates in every other state are falling. How the variants growing in prevalence will impact these rates isn't clear yet. The UK variant is supposedly doubling ever day, which is not a good thing if we want to keep the case rates going down.
The Professor is strongly considering getting up at midnight and seeing if he can snag a vaccination appointment at CVS. He admits to being nervous whenever he goes out knowing that he could be somehow exposed. If he does not or can not get one of the drugstore shots, he's likely waiting another six to eight weeks with me. If the drugstores move to my priority group, I might be able to get something sooner, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
Texas remains at the mercy of Mother Nature, while we were somewhat spared here. We had about an inch of snow overnight that was covered with sleet during the morning. Fortunately, we never got the freezing rain that would have coated surfaces with ice. There may be more snow or sleet coming overnight, but the forecast for tomorrow has it well above freezing. Climate change. It's not for wimps.
2 comments:
From what I can understand, if you have good masks (or layered masks) and are not among the public for long, you're not likely to pick up a significant amount of virus, that is, enough to make you sick. If you stand within 6' of someone who has a raging case but doesn't know it, your infection risk goes up, but only if they sneeze cough and don't wear a mask. If you don't have N95s wear two batik masks or one plus a filter layer, and keep your distance. (This is what we did at our first shot appointments. The fact that there were high ceilings and decent ventilation helps too.) CVS ceilings aren't as high but still higher than at home, but the biggest risk is prolonged proximity to someone with an infection, and the statistics say that's pretty low when people wear masks. I hope the Professor is able to get an appointment, and that you will be able to soon as well!
Hi Janet,
We typically use an N95 covered by a cloth mask. And, yes, I never dally and do try to keep distanced. Gotta avoid infecting the Boss... oh, yeh, and me.
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