The View from the Hermitage, Day 374

First and foremost, kudos to our General Assembly and Governor. The Governor this afternoon signed the bill abolishing the death penalty in Virginia. We become the first Southern state to do away with it. There are things about this state that I have called home for 43 years that I do not like, but this is not one of them. On this day, I am proud to be a Virginian not by birth but choice.

Back to the pandemic. The CDC Director warned that the US could see an "avoidable" surge if it lets up on mitigation measures now. The next day, two states one of which was Virginia (the other was Indiana) announced a loosening of restrictions. In the case of Virginia, allowable attendance at outdoor events was raised to 30 percent of the site's capacity. Before, it had been 1,000 people or 30 percent whichever was less. 

According to WHO, global covid deaths are on the rise after weeks of steady decline. Countries are reacting to this in different ways. Iceland is closing schools, swimming pools, gyms, and bars for three weeks, and lowering the attendance cap on public gatherings from 50 to 10. For Iceland to close swimming pools says how bad things are getting. Belgium and France are also tightening restrictions. Discussion is ongoing within the UK whether France should be put on the "red list" of countries from which most travel to the UK is banned. The UK is also considering a $7,000 fine on anyone taking a nonessential vacation abroad, to which part of me wants to ask since when is a vacation nonessential. And India just saw its highest death toll this year. 

Here in the US, Michigan saw almost 17,000 new cases last week, a more than 300 percent increase over the same week last month. Michigan is also showing a positivity rate of nine percent, the highest since January. Epidemiologists are advising that the state needs to address a bottleneck in the vaccine supply; the state ranks in the bottom third of states on the percent of the population fully vaccinated. Part of Michigan's problem is apparently covid fatigue. People are moving around at near pre-pandemic levels with only a "consistently low proportion" still staying home. 

Dr. Fauci's advice? "When you get the overwhelming majority of your population vaccinated, the chances of there being a surge are miniscule. Just hang in there. Don't turn the switch on and off."

This morning's New York Times contains a fascinating (remember that my grad degrees are in psychology) article reporting that the US media offers a different picture of covid-19 from scientific journals or international media. Last year, 87 percent of national US media reporting regarding the coronavirus was negative, and this held for both liberal and conservative sources. In other words, the audiences are not getting the most accurate view of the reality; the media are not being clear about which developments are truly alarming. So, is the US media merely giving the audience what it wants? After all, the most read or shared Facebook coronavirus stories have been the negative ones. It's worth noting that US media must support themselves. They cannot rely on the government for funding as outlets such as the BBC can. 

Ford Corp. is offering permanent telework as an option for all white collar workers who can do their jobs remotely. That's about 16 percent of their employees. This makes them the largest non-technical employer to offer permanent work-from-home options. Microsoft has invited 57,000 employees in Redmond, Washington back to headquarters though they can choose to continue working from home if they want to.

Finally, The Professor had to ask: Does the fact that alcohol sales just fell for the first time since the start of the pandemic mean that we're coming out of it?