The View from the Hermitage, Day 411

I survived my first of 14 stints working as an election official for early voting. We even had two people come in and vote. The morning shift had seven. Evidently, early voting rocked leading up to the November 2020 Presidential election, with a steady stream of voters coming in all day long. A one-party primary for three state offices? Not so steady. I can't complain, though. I got some reading and crossword puzzles done and got paid in the process. I have yet to find out just how much we get paid, but it's like found money.

New York City is primed to lift all covid restrictions by July 1, while one quarter of American adults say they won't even try to get vaccinated. I'm not sure how many of those live in New York City. The most entrenched vaccine resistance in the US is in rural, overwhelmingly Republican, 95 percent White communities, in other words anything but New York City. Try Tennessee. As a state, it has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, far below the national average of 55 percent reported by the CDC. Some people in smaller towns there are afraid to admit they've been vaccinated. In an interesting twist, some people decline to socialize with people who have been vaccinated. Some of the vaccine-resistant folks accept that they might get covid and die, and see this as a win-win. Because they are faithful Christians, they are guaranteed eternal life in heaven.

Vaccine resistance aside, the spring covid wave appears to be slowing in the US. Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have reported lower caseloads in the past two weeks. Nationally, cases are the lowest since October. The seven-day average for new cases is currently 52,009. That certainly sounds good, though Dr. Fauci has cautioned that restrictions should not be lifted until new cases are down to 10,000 per day.

Ten thousand new cases in one day. How about India's new daily record of almost 383,000 cases on Friday. The global count for cases now exceeds 150 million. One covid sufferer in New Delhi, who had a mild case with only a loss of taste and smell, described the situation in India. "It's like a horror movie. ...It's like a shot glass trying to bail out the Titanic." People at times have to obtain their own medications, if they can even find them. As I've written before, the cases reported likely fall very short of the true number. One woman whose whole family developed symptoms said everyone tested negative despite her father's oxygen levels dropping to 83. She said she would not be surprised if the numbers reported are one tenth of the true numbers.

To end on a brighter note, are you afraid of heights? The world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge just opened in Portugal. For a mere 12 Euros, you can experience the 516 meter bridge. The crossing takes 10 minutes if you want to take in the scenery. If you just want to say a prayer and run across, it takes about four minutes. Personally, running across would scare me more than walking. Given that I managed to make it through the canopy walk of an Amazon rain forest, I'd definitely give this a try. If the 516 meters seems too long, the previous record holder in Switzerland is a mere 494 meters long.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 410

The US is advising its citizens not to travel to India and telling the ones already there that they should leave "as soon as it is safe." I'm actually surprised it took this long for advisories such as these. India has continued its string of record-breaking days. Thursday there were 379,257 new cases and 3,645 deaths. Overall totals are now 18.28 million cases and 204,832 deaths. The US will send more than $100 million in supplies including almost a thousand instant (well, 15 minutes) test kits, along with 1,000 refillable oxygen cylinders and 1,799 concentrators that produce oxygen for patients from the air. The US is also providing the supplies with which India can produce more than 20 million AstraZeneca doses. 

The supplies being sent by the US will help but are not likely to be enough. India's largest drug manufacturer says it is so overwhelmed by demand that it could take five or six months for it to be able to manufacture the 3,000 doses per month that doctors say they need for New Delhi alone. With critical shortages of ventilator beds, medical oxygen, and medicines mass vaccinations become more important in helping to stop or even slow the progression of covid. About 26 million people have been fully vaccinated, but that is only two percent of the population.

By June or July, European kids between 12 and 15 years of age may be receiving the Pfizer vaccine. That will make herd immunity much easier to reach. Right now, bodies are piling up in Rome. Some of the deaths occurred as far back as January. One warehouse may be holding 2,000 bodies. There just aren't enough empty cemetery sites to meet the number of bodies that need to be buried. Elsewhere in Europe, France is preparing to lift some of the restrictions in force there. All schools should reopen next week, followed by museums, cinemas, shops, and outdoor dining. Inside dining may start in mid-June. President Macron did say that the restrictions might be reimposed in regions if cases rise.

So far, over 100 colleges and universities say they will require students to be vaccinated before they return in the fall. Some schools will require the same of faculty and staff. The question is how might this work in states that have prohibited the issuance or use of vaccine passports. Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida is re-thinking their decision to require vaccinations since Florida is one of the states to outlaw vaccine passports. Norwegian Cruise Lines is re-considering whether it can sail from ports in Florida while requiring all passengers to be vaccinated. I don't think this vaccine passport issue will be settled in the near future. Vaccinations in the US continue to slow down. Two weeks ago, 3.4 million people were vaccinated; this week, 2.7 million.

Early voting is not very popular yet; one morning or afternoon shift had but two voters. My bag is packed with a book, a crossword puzzle book, and some sashiko stitching I need to finish. That should be enough to fill four hours.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 409

I'm trying to figure out when I shall write my daily post on the days I am working early voting from 1:00 to 5:30 pm. Normally, I write, as now, late afternoon before I make dinner, time that falls in the last hours of early voting. That leaves morning or early evening. Except for one week in which I work Monday through Friday, my days are scattered between now and June 5, the last day (the "on-time" election is June 8). I'll see tomorrow morning if it works to write then. If it doesn't, I can try evening on the next early voting day.

Speaking of voting, over 360 bills with voting restrictions have been introduced by Republicans, mostly at the state level, since POTUS was inaugurated on January 20. This infuriates as well as saddens me. We should be making it easier for people on the margins--low-income, unemployed, etc.--to be able to vote. After all, casting that vote is one way they can help build a future that moves them in more.

I've been curious about covid testing after covid vaccinations. The local university told The Professor that he no longer had to get a weekly covid test since he was fully vaccinated. The guidance I found for the fully vaccinated was to get tested if you developed covid symptoms, or if required for travel or entry somewhere. Simply being exposed to someone with covid does not require testing unless, as noted previously, symptoms develop.

India is, well, India. In the 24 hours ending Wednesday morning, 360,960 new cases were reported, along with 3,293 deaths. The total death toll is now over 200,000. Crematoriums and cemeteries cannot keep up with the number of bodies. Outside some crematoriums, bodies lie on the pavement, covered with sheets and flowers. It is safe to say that cases and deaths continue to be under-counted. In Delhi, 2,127 people officially died of covid over the past week, but 3,472 covid-protocol funerals took place. The Pan American Health Organization is warning that on a global level, the pandemic not only is not over but also is accelerating. 

Australia has vaccinated only about seven percent of its population so far. The announcement that Australia's Olympic athletes and support staff will be fast-tracked for vaccination is making a lot of people very unhappy. I do not see it ending well if all the athletes and staff are fully vaccinated and the Games are cancelled. 

Here at home in Virginia, some measures of the pandemic such as the case count, number of hospitalizations, and number of deaths have leveled out. This is most definitely not a good sign. With an increasing number of vaccinations, those numbers should still be decreasing. Older adults, the age group with the highest vaccination rate, are experiencing fewer cases, while variants appear to be attacking 20- to 29-year-olds the hardest. Public health officials warn that the areas with low vaccination rates could provide "pockets" in which the virus can incubate for future transmission. The governor has been relaxing restrictions and says that with the exception of the mask requirement, all restrictions could be gone by June. Unfortunately, the local university's Biocomplexity Institute says that all its scenarios show cases could rise by June, and their worst-case scenario shows weekly caseloads in June topping those seen in January. 

Surges are also being reported in Oregon. Cases are up 54 percent in the past two weeks, while hospitalizations are up 39 percent. The governor there is reimposing some restrictions in 15 counties. Evidently, the state health folks had set thresholds for when restrictions would be imposed or reimposed. Public health experts cite a combination of factors driving the surge: more coronavirus variants, increased travel for spring break, and loosening restrictions before vaccination numbers had risen sufficiently.   

Air travel is rising, though business travel remains virtually nonexistent. I wonder if the utility of Zoom, Skype, or other communication apps will permanently decrease such travel. The airlines are redoing routes to account for more VFR or visiting friends and relatives. There are lots of hurdles: maintenance on planes that may not have flown in months, retraining flight crews, and, perhaps most important, re-certifying pilots. Fares are up from last year but still cheaper than pre-pandemic. And people who banked frequent flyer points from using affinity credit cards more often while staying home will be able to do lots of upgrading flights.

I mentioned celebrating my fully vaccinated day by getting my hair cut. Here are the before and after shots. The after hair reflects how the stylist styled it. Straight from the shower today, it's actually a bit curly.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 408

Global covid cases have now been rising for nine consecutive weeks. The situation in India continues to be dire, a "perfect storm" of mass gatherings, low vaccination rates, and more contagious variants. The positivity rate in Delhi is over 35 percent, which is better than the almost 50 percent found in Kolkata. So far, India has reported 17.6 million cases; however, the real number could be 30 times higher. The director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi says that the estimate last year was that only one in about 30 infections was being captured and counted. National surveys using serology tests estimate that the number of cases was 20 to 30 times higher, meaning that there could be 529 million cases in India. Even in normal times in India, some 14 percent of deaths go unreported, and only 22 percent of the reported deaths have an official cause. As of Tuesday, there had been almost 198,000 covid deaths reported, and that number could be under-reported by a factor between two and five. In other words, the real death toll could be close to 990,000. Right now, experts say that the death toll could peak at 13,000 per day, over four times the current daily number. 

The CDC now says that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outdoors except in crowded situations. I think I'll keep mine on for now. Dr. Fauci was asked recently about going to sporting events. He said that he would go to an outdoor event but would wear a mask. He recommended checking attendance guidance on the venue's website, taking hand sanitizer and extra masks, eating before you go to minimize having to remove your mask, and avoiding lines such as at restrooms at halftime. 

Almost 150 faith leaders from around the world are calling for an end to vaccine nationalism. They say there is a "moral obligation" to distribute enough vaccines to immunize the entire global population, that mass immunization is "a global common good."

At the same time, some 1,250 clergy from Christian denominations across the UK have released a statement that says the "introduction of vaccine passports would constitute an unethical form of coercion and violation of the principle of informed consent." Covid status certificates would be "divisive, discriminatory, and destructive." Further, "This scheme has the potential to bring about the end of liberal democracy as we know it and to create a surveillance state in which the government uses technology to control certain aspects of citizens' lives. As such, this constitutes one of the most dangerous policy proposals ever to be made in the history of British politics." They also considered a situation in which a passport would be required for entry into churches, saying, "For the church of Jesus Christ to shut out those deemed by the state to be social undesirables would be anathema to us and a denial of the truth of the gospel." There's a lot there worth thinking about, but I still have a question: How the heck did they get 1,250 people to agree on the statement? I've done group writing, and even a small group can be too many authors. I'm just askin'.

The free speech war being seen on social media is moving to print media. Several book publishers have been presented with petitions asking that they not publish books written by associates of XPot. While social media has an obligation to host anyone's speech, print publishers are free to choose some authors over others. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. 

Somewhat related is what is happening to the "Op-Ed" page in The New York Times. Things published there will now be called "Guest Essays." If you were like me (and you probably don't want to be), you've always thought "Op-Ed" referred to "Opinions-Editorials." Well, it doesn't or didn't. The term refers to outside contributions running on the page "opposite" the official newspaper "editorial." 

Finally, a German bomb squad was called in when a jogger found a bag containing what appeared to be a grenade. This evidently happens a lot given the amount of un-exploded ordinance there. The bomb squad first determined that the grenade was a rubber grenade replica. The fact that the bag also contained condoms and lubricants led to an Internet search that revealed the rubber grenade was a sex toy.

No, I did not make any of this up.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 407

The Oscars were last night. I had read a bit about Nomadland, the winner for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress (Frances McDormand was also a producer, meaning she won two Oscars). Most of the other film titles were totally new to me. I ran through a collection of photos from the "Red Carpet." I had heard of Glenn Close and Chloe Zhao (director of the above Nomadland), but had not heard of any, repeat any, of the other people shown. Most of the dresses (women) and suits (men) were not at all to my taste either. I'm feeling old and curmudgeonly today.

Starting next Monday, I have a series of five medical or dental appointments that I put off while staying in the Hermitage. A mammogram was the last thing I did health-wise, so the mammogram I'll get next week is really only about six weeks late. Last March, I called my dentists' office to cancel my checkup, and they later closed the office which would have canceled my appointment anyway. This means that it will have been about 18 months since my last checkup. I do floss almost every day; still, I'm prepared to hear a list of things that have developed over time. The last appointment calendar-wise is with my hand doctor. That's the one I did occasionally consider doing even as things were closed. I'm not sure what she might have to say about both thumbs and one wrist, but I need them fixed in some way. The final two appointments are to have the ear doc check the screw he embedded in my skull and my annual physical.

The postponement of those medical checks was my choice, and postponing them was in no way life-threatening. But directing health resources toward covid has caused significant drops in critical preventive care including childhood vaccinations, STD testing, HIV/AIDS, substance abuse services, and screening for lead. Data from one large commercial lab showed the lab processed 669,000 fewer HIV tests. Almost 5,000 fewer cases of HIV were identified in 2020 than 2019. The immunization director in the Michigan department of health and human services fears that a new pandemic will take the place of the current one as the result of fewer childhood vaccinations. Measles, for example, needs 95 percent immunization or immunity to maintain herd immunity. Only 81 percent of children 19- to 36-months old and 76 percent of five-year-olds have are current with the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccinations. 

The head of the European Union announced that US tourists who are fully vaccinated will be able to travel to the EU this summer. The Professor may get to do his in-person research meeting in Germany after all. It also appears that fully vaccinated people may not need to wear masks outside any longer. I'm holding off on that one for now. If I have to put a mask on to go into a building, it seems easiest just to wear it outside as well. Half of Americans expect to wear a mask at least half the time after the pandemic has ended. One in four say that they anticipate "frequent" mask wearing.

India just recorded the world's highest daily caseload for the fifth straight day with 352,991 new cases. There were 2,812 deaths. In other words, things are only getting worse. Fewer than 10 percent of Indians have gotten one dose of vaccine, and only 1.6 percent are fully vaccinated. India's surge may, in some parts of the country, be due to the British variant, but that is not the dominant strain throughout the country. Politics have played a major role in spurring the surge. Social distancing and quarantine measures were loosened in March, followed by Prime Minister Modi's holding large election rallies and cricket matches in stadiums bearing his name. India's health infrastructure is one of the most poorly funded in the world. India was the world's largest producer of vaccines but is now experiencing shortages, never mind that the current surge is too high for the country to vaccinate its way out. 

The US has announced that it is prepared to share up to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with other nations as long as the doses clear a safety review by the FDA. Unfortunately, the plant that manufactures the AstraZeneca vaccine in the US is currently not producing any after having to discard millions of doses manufactured incorrectly. There was no announcement of which countries might receive the vaccine. There are 10 million doses that could be given after FDA approval, but the other 50 million are in various stages of production. The US has already given four million doses to Canada and Mexico, though when those were initially announced they were mentioned as being a "loan." I'm still wondering if the loan will have interest as well as in what form repayment will be made.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 406

Fifty-eight weeks! Hooyah! So here's a news item that stretches pretty far back in the annals of the coronavirus pandemic over those 58 weeks. A Florida man and his three sons have been indicted for fraudulently marketing and selling a toxic industrial bleach mixture as a cure for covid-19. Not only does this solution cure covid, it also cures cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, autism, malaria, hepatitis, Parkinson's, herpes, HIV/AIDS, and some other medical issues even if it seems as if there are no other medical issues in need of a cure. They sold tens of thousands of bottles of what they called a "miracle mineral solution" earning more than a million dollars in the process. They actually wrote XPot in April 2020 promoting their product as "a wonderful detox that can kill 99 percent of the pathogens in the body."

They sold their magical elixir through a business called Genesis II Church of Health and Healing which they admitted had nothing to do with religion. They said they had set the business up "to legalize the use of Miracle Mineral Solution" and to avoid "going to jail." After being indicted, they threatened the presiding judge and warned that if the government tried to prevent their distribution of the elixir, they would "pick up guns" and instigate "a Waco." And pick up guns they could have done as multiple loaded firearms were found on their property including a pump-action shotgun concealed in a custom-made violin case. If convicted, they could face life in prison. I wonder if there might be a market for the elixir there.

On the lighter side of covid, several dating apps have added covid vaccination status as a selection factor, saying that over 60 percent of people would not consider dating someone not getting vaccinated. You are, of course, trusting someone to have told the truth, but then that holds for every factor you see about a person when using a dating app. Dating apps did not, of course, exist when I was dating, which is a good thing. The Professor had best stay alive because I'm not sure I want to have to consider using one now.

New Zealand just held the biggest live act in the world since the dawn of the pandemic. The band Six60 played for 50,000 in Auckland. It must be nice to be an island. I was about to say that I wondered how many years it might be before we had such an event here but then remembered that there has been at least one baseball game with a stadium filled to capacity. The limiting factor on a concert may be if the lead artist or group is willing to do such an event. 

Here in the US, almost 8 percent of people who got their first Pfizer or Moderna shots missed their second ones. Some skipped the second shot deliberately, out of fear of the side effects. Others think they are sufficiently protected by one shot and do not need a second. In some cases, the person went for a second shot and, usually in the case of shots at a pharmacy, the correct vaccine was not available. In the case of college students, they may leave to move home in the three or four weeks between shots. From the start of vaccinations, public health experts have warned that this might occur. The good news is that one shot gives you some protection. The bad news is that one shot may leave you more susceptible to variants. It is also not clear how long the protection from a single shot might last. Actually, 92 percent of people returning for a second shot is a good percentage. Only 75 percent of people come back for a second vaccination against shingles.  

Case rates continue to stay high in the US; there were over 50,000 new cases Saturday. Case rates now are similar to those seen in the second wave over the summer. Here's the big "but." The average number of vaccine doses given each day peaked at 3.38 million but is now down to 2.86 million. Dr. Fauci has advised that restrictions should remain in place until new cases stabilize at10,000 per day or lower. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington says that this won't happen by August 1. A Johns Hopkins epidemiologist described restrictions as a "pause button," noting that pressing "play" brings the virus back with a vengeance. 

In the hot spot of Michigan, cases are peaking among the young. One ER doctor said he was putting more patients in their 20s, 30s, and 40s on oxygen or life support than at any other time in the pandemic. The British variant is driving the increase; it is more contagious and more severe. Young people are out and about more and are less likely to have been vaccinated. 

Internationally, Thailand's case load is spiraling up, and Brazil just reported its deadliest month yet. India reported 349,691 new cases on Sunday, setting a record for something like the fifth day in a row. The US has said it will offer assistance in the form of extra help to healthcare workers. It is not clear if this might include more vaccine doses. As of Saturday, at least 1,002,938,540 vaccine doses have been administered in 207 countries and territories. On Friday, though, there were 893,000 new cases with India accounting for a third. The high-income countries, home to 16 percent of the world's population, have given 47 percent of all doses. Only 0.2 percent of doses have been given in low-income countries. 

Australian immunologists and virologists are questioning the ability of the population to achieve herd immunity, asking if it is even possible. Issues include immunity waning over time as additional variants evolve. The situation could be similar to influenza, with the vaccine giving a baseline level of immunity and decreasing the severity of any virus caught but not getting rid of the virus. The scientists suggest that herd immunity might be more of a general principle than a specific target.

Want to go on a cruise? The CDC has issued a set of technical guidelines to help cruise companies prepare ships to start sailing in line with the new regulations. The Cruise Lines International Association, though, says that the guidelines are "so burdensome and ambiguous that no clear path forward or timetable can be discerned." The Senators from Florida and one of the two from Alaska (not Lisa Murkowski) have introduced a Cruise Act bill that would revoke the CDC's conditional sail order and require new guidance. The state of Florida has also sued the federal government over cruise regulations. 

And finally, a man in Mallorca has been arrested on suspicion of assault for going to work and a gym knowing that he was positive for covid-19. In those two places, he is said to have infected 22 people. And people wonder why I locked myself down for over a year. That man could have a kindred spirit anywhere.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 405

No post today. The Professor and The Sons are off to Lynchburg where The Sons are running a 50K-plus race. The -plus is because the race director always adds a couple of miles onto the 50K. With The Professor's absence, I've taken it upon myself to--gasp--clean up a bit. I've swept, vacuumed, and dealt with a bunch of odds and ends piling up on counters. I still have dusting and more odds and ends.

 Oh, I ensured The Professor will notice and compliment my efforts by telling him what I was doing when he called to report how The Sons were doing.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 404

My thoughts go out to my friends in Perth, Western Australia. Covid-19 has once again reared its ugly head and a serious three-day lockdown has been ordered. Yes, it will help the battle against the coronavirus. But why did it have to happen this weekend? Sunday is Anzac Day. The first time The Professor and I visited Australia, we were in Perth on Anzac Day. I will never forget the reverence of the sunrise service. And the silence, the deafening silence. You can read about it in the blog post I wrote afterwards. I am sure the services this year would not have been nearly as large as the one we attended, but the lockdown may well prohibit even two families from marking the day together. 

Japan continues to struggle against its latest covid surge. Officials insist that the Olympics will be held despite nearly three-fourths of Japanese wanting them cancelled or postponed. It's worth noting that the Tokyo Motor Show scheduled for several weeks after the Olympics has been cancelled for the first time in history (the show is held every other year, which is why it was not cancelled in 2020), citing covid concerns. An event after the Games is cancelled due to covid, but the Games themselves are not. I don't buy that an auto show would be more crowded than the spectator-less Games that will still have coaches, officials, judges, not to mention athletes.

The pandemic is accelerating in South America, including Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. This could be due to the Brazil variant, otherwise known as P1. P1 is more contagious but also increases levels of re-infection, which can reduce the efficacy of vaccines. India remains the world's hot spot, reporting 332,348 new cases on Friday. The national total now exceeds 16 million cases. Hospitals are running out of oxygen. Trucks transporting it to hospitals now go with police escorts. 

The first covid cases have been discovered at Everest base camp. A Norwegian climber thought to be suffering from pulmonary edema was evacuated by helicopter to Kathmandu where he tested positive for covid. A sherpa in the Norwegian's party also tested positive. The climber tested negative before leaving Norway and again while in arrival quarantine in Kathmandu. He said he headed quickly to base camp from quarantine to reduce the chances of catching covid. Nepal has issued 377 Everest permits so far and expects to exceed the 381 issued in 2019, meaning there could be lots more cases. Evacuation from base camp is one thing. Higher might be open to question. It would be impossible to evacuate people by helicopter above 8,000 meters. 

Scientists in the UK have found evidence of human-to-cat covid transmission. Fortunately, no evidence of cat-to-human transmission has been found; however, animals could act as "viral reservoirs" allowing continued transmission even with vaccinations. 

Stepping totally away from coronavirus, I executed my April Instant Pot and pie resolutions. I mayde Thai Cashew Chicken in the Instant Pot Wednesday. It was very tasty; I'll be eating the leftovers after I publish this. I am not really sure, though, how much faster using the Instant Pot was compared to doing it on the stove. This morning I made miniature apple pies. 

Next time I make these, I will do a better job of rolling the crust out as a rectangle and cut better squares that would be neater to seal. I will also add cinnamon and possibly nutmeg to the apple filling. The recipe only included ginger, and cinnamon was noticeably lacking. I have two pies scheduled for May 1--a roasted corn and pepper pie and a coconut cream one as we celebrate the belated birthdays of The Professor and Son #2.

 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 403

Happy Earth Day! It's not a legal holiday, but it's an observance that began in my lifetime, on April 22, 1970. I was 13. The idea of an Earth Day seemed very hippie-ish to me then, despite its being started by a Senator from the Midwest, Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.

Good news for those of us who have been vaccinated--there have been very few breakthrough cases in which someone fully vaccinated has contracted covid. The CDC is putting together new travel guidance for vaccinated Americans. The Internet quilt guild to which I belong has been discussing a gathering in Phoenix, Arizona, in February 2022 or a gathering in Nebraska for the sandhill crane migration. Either would be a bit less than a year away, but I'm taking nothing for granted when it comes to our friend the novel coronavirus.

The US virus numbers are not looking any better. Only six states are reporting decreases between 10 and 50 percent: Idaho, Nebraska, Iowa, South Carolina, Vermont, and Hawaii. During the last week in February, we had an average of 65,686 new cases each day. Eight weeks later, that number is essentially unchanged at 64,814. Deaths sit at 700 per day, which is way down from the peak of 3,500. We're approaching a tipping point between vaccine supply and demand. Demand was outpacing supply, but that's changing. Many places are not able to administer all the vaccine they have. Two out of three Americans so far un-vaccinated say they are unlikely to seek vaccination. 

Some people are suggesting that a faith-based approach to encouraging vaccination might help. Of the people who say they are vaccine-hesitant or vaccine-resistant, 57 percent are Hispanic Protestants and 51 percent are Black Protestants. White evangelical Protestants may up 54 percent of those not enamored of being vaccinated, and half are Mormons. In noting that Catholics were not cited as any of the vaccine-avoiding groups, I wondered if the fact that Pope Francis was vaccinated and encouraged vaccination made a difference. Paging Franklin Graham or the current Mormon prophet, wanna help out here?

The manufacturing plant that ruined 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has multiple procedural failings according to the FDA. All the Johnson & Johnson doses given in the US have come from overseas. The problem with the ruined doses was evidently that the plant used the harmless virus used in the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is not authorized for use in the US. Various European countries are still using or are about to use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, including France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and Greece. We should hear tomorrow what's recommended here.

India's case and death numbers keep rising; there were 314,835 new cases on Thursday. The health system is collapsing under the strain. At least 22 patients died when a leak in a hospital's main oxygen tank cut the flow of oxygen to covid patients. Contributing to the surge, the government recently allowed a massive Hindu festival, Kumbh Mela, to go on. Those attending, and they number in the millions, seek absolution for their sins by taking a dip in the Ganges River. The government has also held packed political rallies in several cities. Meanwhile, vaccine supplies are running low, and the country is not likely to meet its goal of vaccinating 300 million people by summer.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are piloting a "fully vaccinated section" at Saturday's game against the Padres. Adults must show that they are two weeks out from their final vaccine dose. Children between 2 and 15 can attend with proof of a negative covid test in the last 72 hours. Masks will be required, but there will be no distancing requirement. The stands can be filled shoulder to shoulder. If turnout is good, such a section might be offered for future games. Would I go? No, but then there aren't many tickets for which I would spend $124 to $154. 

Three in 10 health care workers are considering leaving the profession. Over half say that they are burned out while more than six in 10 say the pandemic has hurt their mental health. I can't imagine what they have gone through. In the early days of the pandemic, about a year ago, much of the pandemic news concerned the frontline health care workers. The extent of that coverage has changed drastically. The media seem to be taking the same workers they lauded a year ago for granted today. Again, I cannot imagine going through what they have gone through. 

On the "what the hell" front, the Texas House has passed legislation t allow election judges, who essentially operate as poll workers, to carry guns in most polling places. Supporters, who tend to be Republicans, frame this as a safety issue. Democrats say it will contribute to voter intimidation. I'm with the Dems on this one.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 402

Yesterday's verdict was guilty on all three charges. Minneapolis remains intact. Mr. Chauvin's bail was revoked, and he was remanded to the custody of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. He is being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. He gets one hour a day for exercise, but even that is done without other inmates. I'm guessing they want to keep him alive until sentencing in eight weeks. He was remarkably stoic as the verdicts were read and as he was handcuffed and taken out of the courtroom. Was he anticipating at least one guilty verdict? Or did he not want to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him react?

On the coronavirus front, vaccine supply in the US may soon outpace demand. Vaccine enthusiasm is  slowing with only 26 percent of Americans fully vaccinated and 40 percent, having had a single dose. They've done focus groups with vaccine-hesitant XPot voters to look into how they might be persuaded to get vaccinated. In an earlier group, most people were at least swayed a bit by factual presentations on the virus, the vaccines, and how the two combine. In the latest group, people held firm that they will not get vaccinated. These are the diehards, I guess. Having lasted this long, they're not going to change their minds. Here's the scary thing, though. Most of the people in the second focus group wanted to obtain a fake vaccination card to enable them to attend events and travel. I have a problem with that. Their choice not to get vaccinated should not include license to continue to spread the virus. 

Besides pandemic fatigue, there is something called pandemic trauma. Especially as vaccines roll out, some people's anxiety may grow and develop into PTSD. The pandemic has been a time of great uncertainty and unreliability. It has also created planning fatigue from the constraints on meetings, the vaccination status of other people, and masks or no masks. Some people are more comfortable avoiding going out into the world, preferring the emotional safety net of their home and personal pod. Symptoms of all this include flashbacks, nightmares, racing thoughts, and somatic responses such as heightened heart rate, tension headaches, or GI symptoms. Those don't sound as bad as covid symptoms, though.

India's caseloads are now growing by almost 300,000 every day. Yesterday set a record of 295,000 new cases. Japan is about to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and two other regions.The Olympics are like the elephant in the room. Most Japanese oppose holding the Games this summer. But with so much money already spent on the infrastructure not to mention public relations, can the government really cancel the Games? The IOC has said there cannot be another delay. It's now, well, this summer, or never for the 2020/2021 Olympic Games. 

Today is Queen Elizabeth's 95th birthday. She had asked that her birthday be downplayed this year, not wanting to detract from Prince Phillip's 100th birthday in early June. The official mourning period ends on Friday; the private one may never end. I struggle to wrap my head around 73 years of marriage. A lot of lives don't last that long, let alone a marriage.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 401

I checked my phone to pull up any late-breaking coronavirus news, but the only new news is that the jury in the Derek Chauvin trial has reached a verdict. Word is that the verdict will be announced between 4:30 and 5:30, or potentially in about 30 minutes. I haven't written about the trial because I didn't want to open floodgates on the trial and possible consequences of whatever the verdict is. If the verdict is not guilty on all three charges, Minneapolis will burn tonight. The riots in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict will seem bush league compared to what could happen tonight. Part of me thinks that the jurors would not have reached threenot guilty verdicts this quickly, but perhaps that is wishful thinking. 

Back to the novel coronavirus that is far past seeming "novel." The WHO announced there have been 5.2 million new confirmed cases over the latest week, and deaths rose for the fifth straight week. India was a major contributor to the number of new cases, with six consecutive days of over 200,000 new cases, for a total of 1.5 million cases in a week. The number of cremations suggests that the announced death toll there is smaller than the actual toll. Some Indian hospitals may start running out of medical oxygen this week. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cancelled the trip he was about to take there. The US State Department is updating travel guidelines to more closely match the travel recommendations issued by they CDC. Once they've completed this, 80 percent of countries worldwide will become Level 4: Do Not Travel countries. Currently about 16 percent are. 

One discussion of international travel listed the following points as guidance in any decision to travel. (1) Check where you can go and what you can do there. Germany, for example, prohibits entry from the US, and tourists are not permitted to stay in hotels. (2) Consider travel insurance. Personally, I won't get a plane ticket without also getting insurance. (3) Pack your vaccine card with your passport ... then check if you also need a vaccine passport. (4) Prepare to be tested before, and potentially after, you travel. You may even need to be tested even if you have been vaccinated. (5) Make sure you still have pandemic essentials. Don't assume you won't need masks, gloves, disinfecting wipes. You might. 

A survey found that 91 percent of Americans were aware that administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been paused, and 88 percent thought that pause was a good thing. There was very little difference between Republicans and Democrats on whether the pause was good. Seventy percent of the people responding in this poll reported that they had already been vaccinated or will get vaccinated as soon as possible. Finally, 63 percent said that they wore a mask whenever they were outside their home, a proportion I wish were higher. From another poll, two in three of the Americans who haven't gotten a vaccine say that they don't plan to, another statistic I wish were different. 

Finally, on a less serious note, coronavirus restrictions dropped Czech beer consumption to its lowest levels since the 1960s. The Czechs have long boasted of having the highest beer consumption per capita in the world. During the coronavirus, average consumption has dropped by almost seven percent. 

The verdict is still to be announced.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 400

Day 400. Do I hear a five? Five hundred? When will we hear a "sold" to indicate that we're emerged unscathed--or not--from the pandemic? One hundred days from now will be in late July, about the time schools should be deciding how they will start the academic year. I really hope that this year they start as they traditionally do, in person and on time ready to go the distance through the semester. I'm not sure The Professor can take another year of asynchronous instruction, especially not if they figure enrollment in a virtual class is not limited by the size of a classroom and let 500 students enroll.

Interestingly, it's not been easy to find coronavirus coverage of where we are here in the US, at least not specific coverage. Starting today, all Americans 16 and older are eligible for vaccination, though the ones 16 or 17 can only get the Pfizer vaccine. Dr. Fauci says that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be back in use with warnings or restrictions by the end of this week. That would increase the number of vaccinations that could be done. There is concern, however, in some quarters that a new emphasis on getting the younger folks vaccinated might backfire in terms of lessening emphasis on the one-fifth of people 65 and older who have yet to be vaccinated. 

There are counties that deserve kudos for having vaccinated more people proportionately than most others. Unfortunately, many of these counties have hit a saturation point with fewer and fewer people signing up to be vaccinated. Malheur County, Oregon, for example, has a mobile unit ready this week hoping to distribute 2,000 doses. Public health officials say distributing half of those would be a "tremendous success."

The website endcoronavirus.org sorts states and countries into three groups: those that are beating covid, those that are nearly there, and those that need to take action. Right now, there are no states in the beating covid category, though Guam and the US Virgin Islands are. The fifty states and the District of Columbia are pretty evenly split between the nearly there and needing to take action groups. Virginia is in the latter category, I am sorry to say. Michigan remains a real hot spot, and has one tenth of the British variant cases in the US.

Assuming that the role of government during a pandemic is to save lives and save jobs, the state that has been hit the hardest is New York. New York lost 55,000 jobs per million people, second only to Hawaii, the economy of which is pretty much based solely on tourism. New York had 3,300 extra deaths per million people, on a par with Arizona and Alabama. The worst state based solely on excess deaths is Mississippi, which had 3,800 excess deaths per million people. Interestingly, there were two states with net job gains: Idaho and Utah. No reason for those job gains was given, and I haven't been able to come up with my own explanation. 

Dr. Fauci late last week butted heads with Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) over the issue of continued restrictions, accusing Dr. Fauci of working to deprive Americans of their freedoms. Dr. Fauci noted the irony of 45 percent of Republicans who won't get vaccinated while wanting to be free of restrictions. He noted that the core issue was a public health, not a civil liberties one. I remain unable to fathom why so many Republicans, or people in general, refuse both mitigation measures and vaccination. It seems so simple to me. I need to keep in mind my brother-in-law's observation that half the people have IQs under 100 and see if that helps.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 399

Three hundred ninety-nine days, or 57 weeks if that's how I should count it. Five days out from my second dose of Pfizer, or does that mean I get to start counting down to when I can safely re-emerge if I so desire? If so, it's RED (Re-Emergence Day) minus nine. 

This morning's Washington Post Travel section had a column on the decision to travel again (or not) as the pandemic wanes (or not). Those who wish not to travel now (or ever) may be suffering from what a Miami psychiatrist has termed "cave syndrome." He defines it as "loving isolation to the point that you become dysfunctional." He has patients who have become reluctant to leave home as a result of the pandemic. Some people are taking a temporary break from travel in the flesh but may travel virtually. Some other people have a more permanent view and say they don't think they can ever feel comfortable traveling again. I'm not really sure where I fall along that continuum. I have grown to love the sense of isolation I've cultivated, but I'm not sure it's to the point of being dysfunctional. It is, I have decided, to the point of being picky about when and why I might leave the family cave. Overnight travel, especially in the form of traveling internationally, will require some personal reflection and intention. I may well be more inclined to do an organized tour than before in that a tour should have some safeguards built in. I'm not yet at that point of thinking, so I'll see how things shake out over the next months and into the next year.

The president of the International Olympic Committee will visit Japan but not until May 17. The Japanese prime minister is on a state visit to the US right now. He's been able to obtain extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the only vaccine approved for use in Japan. He's gotten enough to guarantee that all people over 16 can be inoculated by the end of September. What that means for the Olympics in July is anybody's guess. I'm still in favor of cancelling them much as that will hurt all the athletes who have trained for years for these Games. 

Canada has pulled ahead of the US in new daily cases per capita, and officials are saying that the worse may be yet to come. By Friday, hospitalizations were up 22 percent, ICU admissions were up 34 percent, and deaths were up 38 percent (to 41 per day) from the previous week. Children's hospitals in Ottawa and Toronto have opened ICU beds to adults. Ontario has relaxed some of the restrictions I wrote about yesterday. Police will not be stopping people at random but will only be able to question people they believe are "participating in an organized public event or social gathering." Playgrounds will remain open, though tennis courts, basketball courts, and other outdoor recreational grounds will be closed.

It doesn't help things that Moderna has begun shipping less vaccine to Canada. Pfizer will be sending an additional eight million doses, though. Unlike the US, Canada has been concentrating on giving as many first doses of vaccine as possible before proceeding to second doses. As a result, only two percent of Canadians are fully vaccinated compared with 25 percent of Americans, and 19 percent of Canadians have gotten one dose compared with 39 percent of Americans. Canada should catch up over the next few weeks despite the reduced number of Moderna doses. 

I've avoided the possible surge(s) here in the US, but I'll try to write more about that tomorrow. Denial is a great defense mechanism. 

I made notes relating to the bar shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin that left three people dead and two people injured. Now, there has been a shooting in Austin, Texas that has left three people dead in Austin, Texas. Shootings are happening faster than they can be reported. It has come out that the gunman who killed eight at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana was known to the local police. His mother had informed police that he might commit suicide by cop. The police took a gun away from him a year ago, and he was still able to buy another. When will we ever learn? Oh, when will we ever learn?

On a lighter note, POTUS played golf yesterday for the first time in his term. Interestingly, he did not own the golf club at which he played. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 398

Remember that line from the movie Jaws, the one about needing a bigger boat. Life can be like that sometimes. Like today, when the only slide organization task remaining was sorting and organizing the digital photos, something I decided to do after one play-it-safe trip to the garage to make sure I'd brought all the slides inside. 

Yeah. Right. The task I set for myself today was repairing the disorganization that happened when one of the tray-style boxes got opened while upside-down. I've done that. I've also alerted The Professor that the Girl Scout cookie box labeled "SLIDES TO SORT" contains only slides he shot before we met. They're in little cardboard boxes and do not appear to have been labeled. I told him that I'd scan them to a dedicated memory card which I would then give to him to do with as he pleased. I told him I'd put them into sleeves as I scanned them and have ordered more sleeves to take care of that.

The global death toll from covid has passed three million; this is not an occurrence worthy of celebration. We here in the US have done our share of getting the number that high. We just hit 566,224 deaths out of 31,575,640 cases. On the better side, 22 percent of the US population is fully vaccinated. 

Interestingly, the least vaccinated US counties share a commonality: The residents voted for XPot. Willingness to get vaccinated and actual vaccination rates are lower on average in counties that voted for XPot in November 2020. One county in Wyoming asked the state to stop sending them first doses of vaccine because their freezer was stuffed to capacity. A county in Iowa told people who had volunteered to administer vaccine shots to stay home; they would not be needed. And a county in Pennsylvania got 1,000 doses ready for a drive-through clinic, and only 300 people showed up. Vaccine hesitancy is highest in rural counties with lower income levels and college graduation rates. The vaccine gap is smaller in wealthier counties that voted for XPot, but the partisan gap between vaccine-positive and vaccine-hesitant people holds even after accounting for income, race, age, population density, and the county's covid infection and death rates. 

Covid rates in Canada are edging close to those here in the US. Vaccination rates in Canada, however, lag behind those here. Despite Canada's having enough doses to vaccinate each citizen 10 times, the vaccination rate is nowhere near high enough for them to vaccinate their way out of trouble. They must instead keep people from interacting. Ontario is trying a new lockdown. Police have the power to stop drivers or pedestrians and ask for their address and reason for being outside. Fines up to $600 US can be assessed for failure to comply. Check points have been established on the borders with Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east; there are no check points (yet) on the border with the US. Restrictions have been placed on playgrounds, camping, and outdoor sports. These restrictions make sense to me as models show that if the current growth in cases were to continue, there would be more than 15,000 new cases per day by June. 

I can't say we're doing great here, though. New cases have risen eight percent from the mean two weeks as states have eased restrictions. We're averaging over 70,000 new cases each day. At least 21 states have seen at least 1 10 percent increase in the number of daily positive cases. At least deaths due to covid are down 12 percent. We're going full-steam on vaccinations at least for those who want them. I just wish we could keep enough restrictions in place to help the vaccines do their job. 

A little humor with which to end. Yoga is banned in public schools in Alabama because Christian groups claim yoga can leave you injured, psychotic, and a Hindu. I don't make this stuff up, I assure you.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 397

It's going to be a short post today so I don't get distracted and forget to click on the magic, orange Publish button today as I did yesterday. (Thanks, Mom!) Today, I finished scanning slides today and got them all in sleeves which went into binders with dividers inside and labels outside. I'm nit done yet, though, since I still have to copy from the scanner's memory card to my laptop, organizing everything into folders, and then backing up on a couple of hard drives. Unless a new tray pops up somewhere, that's it for the slides. 

I woke up to the news of another mass shooting, this time at a Federal Express facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. The gunman, who apparently was a former employee, killed eight people, wounded more, and shot himself as the police moved in. When will we find a way to end these shootings? 

Japan has extended its quasi-emergency measures, allowing heads of prefectures to put in pandemic restrictions. Does this make the Olympics more apt to be cancelled? Your guess is as good as mine. While part of me feels strongly that the Games should not be held, another part of me hurts for the anguish of the athletes who have trained now for five years, aiming at these Games. Some will be too old to compete in four years or want to have a family or not have the money to keep training. 

The CEO of Pfizer says it is "likely" that people getting the Pfizer vaccine will need a third shot within the next 12 months with annual boosters needed after that. Moderna is also working on a booster shot as well as studying whether the covid vaccine could be added to a flu shot for a double whammy effect. As for needing annual boosters, I'm good with that. I get a flu shot every year and can easily add a covid one.

 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 396

One tray of slides to go! Today one of the trays I scanned was from before The Professor and I were married. Wow, did we look different then! Younger, thinner, and, in my case, blonder. There were also a few from Son #2's last day of preschool, though I'm not sure if it was the last day of his last year of preschool. Talk about blonder! And what a smile! I can't say I will be sorry to be done with this once I get all the photos sorted and backed up. It's been a major undertaking, but it will no longer be one of those "I really should" tasks that are so easy to put off.

I'm still feeling tired from Tuesday's shot. I may have been running a low-grade fever overnight. At least I don't usually have chills overnight. Son #1 was feeling fatigue this morning from his shot yesterday. The Professor hits the magic "two weeks from second shot" tomorrow, so he'll be good to "do" the world if he wants to. And he no longer needs to stop for a covid test before setting foot on the local university's campus. That will save him some time when he goes in to meet with his grad students.

Today would have been the day on which The Professor would finish and submit the federal tax forms. With the new deadline being May 17, I expect he'll get started on May 12 or 13. At least he e-files now and not making an evening rush to the post office. 

As an update on the chances we'll make herd immunity or not, a Monmouth University poll found that 21 percent of Americans will "likely never" get vaccinated. And in a Quinnipiac University poll, 45 percent of Republicans say they will not get vaccinated. That's a lot of people, especially if those adults then keep their kids from getting vaccinated once vaccines are approved for all ages. More universities will be requiring vaccinations for fall. Rutgers was first but since then Brown, Cornell, and Nova Southeastern Florida among others have hopped on the bandwagon. It's not totally clear to me if a university or employer can require a vaccination that has only been approved under an emergency authorization. Universities already require proof of vaccination for things such as meningitis; they can also offer medical or religious exemption. Of course, there is always a flip side. Dickinson State University in North Dakota won't require masks in the fall. Infected if you do; infected if you don't?

A wave of new infections and hospitalizations is wreaking havoc in 38 states. Michigan continues to be the hot spot. The state reported an average of 46 daily deaths yesterday, 30 more than one month ago. Many states are joining with Michigan in relying on vaccines to control the spread of the virus. They're abandoning mitigation measures in part because they may very well not be followed. While vaccinations will likely make a new surge less deadly, the extra time will give the virus a chance to mutate even more, possibly into variants that could be troublesome.

A senior member of Japan's ruling political party has gone public in saying that the Olympics might need to be canceled. He noted that there were many issues yet to be resolved, saying, "If it seems impossible, it needs to be stopped." One report I read over a month ago suggested that the deadline for canceling the Games would be in the third week of March, or about a month ago. There might be a solution, though. The International Olympic Committee has said that they will not delay the Games a second time; they will only cancel them. Pressure is growing, though, for countries to boycott the Winter Game scheduled for Beijing in 2022. How about those Games get canceled, and the Tokyo Games held then? Just one of the random thoughts that surfaced as I was scanning slides earlier.

The temporary hold on administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is likely to last for seven to 10 days. Two new cases have been reported, bringing the US total clot sufferers to seven women and one man. I'm not sure how I would feel if I'd gotten that vaccine. All the people affected so far developed the clotting problem within two weeks of having been vaccinated. Whether that means anyone having gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine more than two weeks ago can rest easy, I do not know. The one in a million chances of developing the problem are better than the chances for winning the lottery. All things considered, though, I'd rather win the lottery.

In non-pandemic news, the French are taking the front of one submarine and welding it to the back of another. That's cheaper than building a new one. It seems that a fire destroyed the front part of one sub. A sister sub that had been retired in 2019 had not yet been dismantled. They're cutting the front off that one to attach to the back of the other. It's cheaper than a new sub but will require100,000 hours of engineering studies and 250,000 hours industrial work by 300 people. This is not the first time two halves have made a whole; the US evidently did something similar in 2005.

 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 395

As I start the two-week countdown to full immunization, I'm feeling the same post-injection fatigue that I felt after the first shot. The location of the shot hurts a bit more than it did last time as well. The vaccinator did say that reactions could be delayed by a day or two, so I'll see what tomorrow holds. In the meantime, I'm glad I got a walk and a workout in first thing this morning before the fatigue really kicked in. 

While scientists are saying that temporarily halting administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the safe thing to do, public health officials fear this could heighten vaccine hesitancy. The one in a million case rate may be too much for some people. There is also concern that the halt and extra study could be a boon for conspiracy theorists, and that the pause" might kill more people than it would have saved. In the related case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Denmark is the first country to permanently stop administration, while France will use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as planned. The EU is not cancelling its existing orders for the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, but will not place any new orders in the near future.

The Olympic Games are 100 days away as covid cases in Japan continue to surge. Parts of Tokyo and other cities are under a quasi-state of emergency. Over the last week, 3,200 new cases have been reported daily. Shots for people over 65 years old are just now beginning. Up until now, only frontline medical workers have been vaccinated, and they make up less than one percent of the population. In other words, Japan will be very far from being fully vaccinated by July 23 when the Games start. Seventy percent of the Japanese public would like to see the Games delayed again or cancelled outright. 

There is a new fatigue to go along with general pandemic fatigue, Zoom fatigue. Zoom fatigue is of five types: (1) general (overall tiredness); (2) social (desire to be alone); (3) emotional (feeling overwhelmed and drained); (4) visual (eyestrain); (5) motivational (lacking the drive to start new activities). Interestingly, women of all ages score higher than men on all five of those. Zoom also raises the issue of mirror anxiety, a psychological phenomenon where one's image in a mirror triggers heightened self-focus which in turn can contribute to anxiety and depression. Because of this, researchers urge Zoom users, especially women, to turn the self-view option off.

I think I've mentioned the Krispy Kreme incentive of a free doughnut daily for the rest of the year if you show them your vaccination card. Other incentives offered in parts of the US include Brazilian doughnuts, marijuana, beer, arcade tokens, vaccine card lamination, popcorn, free video games, water equipment rentals, and my personal favorite, cash. Some other incentives offered around the world include a gold nose pin for women or a stick blender for men in one Indian city. Other Indian cities are offering snacks, car repair discounts, stationery biryani, sweets, chicken dishes, and a five percent tax rebate. In parts of Beijing, an extra box of eggs, chicken wings, tissues, flour, and cash have been offered. Try ice cream in Russia or restaurant discounts in Dubai. And there's a variety of incentives in Israel as well: Coca-Cola, alcoholic or nonalcoholic beer, a loaf of challah, pizza, and pastries. If incentives work, might disincentives work also? In Indonesia, those who don't get vaccinated will face fines or have their welfare payments cut. 

A New York Times op-ed piece argues for making covid vaccinations mandatory in certain cases. The authors argue that "Vaccines should be required for health care workers and for all students who plan to attend in-person classes this fall--including younger children once the vaccine is authorized for them by the Food and Drug administration. Employers should also be prepared to make vaccines mandatory for prison guards, EMTs, police officers, firefighters, and teachers if overall vaccinations do not reach the level required for herd immunity." The authors also note that as of March 7, just under half of all frontline health care workers had not yet been vaccinated. For some, the employer had not yet offered vaccination. Still, 18 percent said they did not plan to get a shot, and 12 percent were undecided. Certain vaccinations are already required by K-12 schools and universities; why can't covid be added to those lists?

Finally, as someone who tries to at least get a walk in every day, it was gratifying to read that sedentary people are far more likely to be hospitalized and to die from covid than people who exercise regularly.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 394

Closing in on Day 400, I should decide if that merits one of the two bottles of champagne we have on hand. In some respects, it feels as if the last year never happened. At least it had none of the things that normally mark a year. No vacations. No weddings to attend, though possibly a funeral or two. No graduation ceremonies. No moving into a dorm for a first year at university. 

I had my second shot of Pfizer this morning. Going through the maze of switchbacks reminded me of why I like having TSA Pre-Check when I travel. It even felt like Disney World in a way. Most people had their noses to their phones. I was the only one I saw there with a book (Children of the Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings). As I was wondering if behind one of the masks there might be somebody I knew, there appeared someone I thought I might know. She was trying to figure out if I were me as I tried to figure out if she were who I thought she might be. We chatted briefly until our progress in opposite directions on the switchbacks pulled us apart. 

Now I have two weeks in which to decide just what I might be comfortable doing other than medical and hair appointments and working early voting (where there will be plenty of mitigation measures). The Professor has suggested going out to dinner; I countered that I would only go if we could eat outside. As for travel, other than visiting Son #2 and DiL=, not gonna do it. Going back out into the world will not be easy. I have enjoyed being free of the social pressures that being social brings. One day at a time, I guess, one day at a time.

After yesterday's thoughts on school shootings, I must note that the Knoxville, Tennessee district attorney says what happened yesterday was not a "school shooting." Rather, it was an "officer-involved shooting at a school." While part of me wants to say, "Picky, picky, picky," the circumstances do differ from the usual school shooting in that students and/or teachers were not intended targets. Knoxville has been having serious issues with gangs, and it is likely this was gang-related. 

Half of the adults in the US are expected to have gotten at least one dose of vaccine by the end of this week. Those getting vaccinated this week, though, will not be getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The CDC has recommended its use be paused while the issue of blood clots is considered. Six women between the ages of 18 and 48 developed blood clotting problems. One woman died, and another is in intensive care. US officials have said that one point of interest is whether technology shared by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson could be linked to clotting. That technology, an adenovirus platform, uses a second, weakened cold virus to deliver genetic information from the coronavirus to the immune system to spur the body to make antibodies. AstraZeneca uses a virus derived from chimpanzees, while Johnson & Johnson uses a human virus.

Issues with the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines could negatively impact vaccinating people in developing countries. AstraZeneca is being produced for free and is easy to transport and store at room temperature. Johnson & Johnson is a single dose cutting costs and making it easier to use in countries with shaky health systems. I hope they will still be able to use these two vaccines in the developing world, because I can imagine big problems with the temperature requirements of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Sweden currently has the highest new covid cases per person in Europe, at 625 new infections per one million people, Sweden also has more covid patients in ICU than at any time since the first wave a year ago. The European country with the case rate closest to Sweden's is Poland, with 521 new infections per one million people. Sweden's neighbors have much lower rates. Norway is 132, Denmark is 111, and Finland is 65, all new cases per one million people. Surveys show that Swedes have been paying less attention to recommendations in recent weeks. 

The Austrian health minister has resigned, citing persistent health problems caused by overwork. In the past month, he has had two episodes of sudden fatigue as well as high blood pressure and tinnitus. He became health minister a short time before the pandemic reared its ugly head, a heck of a bad time to take on that job. 

Remember the Ever Given, the container ship stuck in the Suez Canal for a week? It's still there, in the lake at the middle of the canal. Egypt says that the Ever Given cannot leave Egyptian waters until its owners pay $900 million compensation for the six-day blockage of the canal. I wonder how long that will take.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 393

I was going to take a few more notes on various things I noted in my journal this morning, and then I saw the report of another school shooting. I say "another" though there hasn't been one that I know of since the pandemic shut schools down just over a year ago. This one was at a magnet high school in Knoxville, Tennessee. A police officer was shot as well as students. The report I saw said no information had been given out yet as to whether or how many people died. We'll be told tomorrow if not tonight that there is no reason for additional controls on firearm sales; we just need to direct our thoughts and prayers in the right direction. Damn! I had almost forgotten the number of school shootings we once had. 

I own three handguns and two rifles. My father was a duck hunter in his youth and a bit of a gun collector in later life. One of the handguns I have, while not the one he had (and sold), is the type that was his favorite. I have only ever shot soda cans, paper plates, or paper targets. If the government passed something saying I could no longer have those five guns, I would be willing to turn them all in. The problem is that were such a law to be passed, too many people would actively perhaps violently protest and refuse to surrender their firearms or put them into hiding to pull out as needed. The last four years and especially the last four months have shown me just what people who call themselves Americans are capable of. Shit!

So, the governor of Michigan has called for more vaccine doses to help fight the surge that is happening there. So far the feds have said no, but they will help with distribution and administration of the vaccine doses Michigan is scheduled to get. The CDC Director says Michigan should "shut things down" rather than try to depend solely on contact tracing and testing until enough vaccinations have been carried out. She said, "If we try to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan, we will be disappointed..."

Nationally, cases and hospitalizations continue to rise, but at least death rates are declining. The nation's death toll is now over 562,000. There are bad signs, though. Demand for vaccination is dropping in the South. At the same time, variants are starting to infect more kids even as schools are re-opening.  New research confirms that existing vaccines don't work as well against the South African variant. The UK variant is driving the surge in Michigan but, as noted above, how that surge should be addressed is open to question. A CNN email update noted, "What's next: If we don't control the virus well enough, we could spend years living through new variants--some of which might be more deadly, and some of which might be more resistant to vaccines."

This has been a downer of a daily summary. [Insert more profanity here.] To end on a lighter note, here's the text of a note in this morning's local paper that I cut and taped into my journal.

JUDGE KILLED: A Florida woman who claimed she is Harry Potter fatally struck a federal judge visiting from New York and seriously injured a 6-year-old boy after swerving her car onto a sidewalk, officials said. Nastasia Snape, 23, is charged with vehicular homicide and other felonies for Friday's crash.                                                         --Associated Press

The View from the Hermitage, Day 392

The slide scanning continues. Each slide reminds me of the pre-digital, film days. What do you mean I only took six photographs there? Oh yeah, I only had one spare roll of film with me and there was no convenient place to get more. That shot is so over- or under-exposed, or there are people in it and wouldn't it look better without them? Same old sad song of not enough film or not realizing the exposure was as off as it was. In Vietnam, Son #2 took some 70 photographs in a storm until he got the lightning shot he wanted, something not really possible with the uncertainty inherent in film that had to be developed. Digital has spoiled us. Film kept us humble.

I jotted down another pandemic phrase and admit to not also jotting down the details of who used the expression.

"Follow data not dates."

Things have been locked down too long based on the calendar? What do the case and death numbers tell us? Maybe things shouldn't open up just yet. Yet another pandemic keeper phrase came from today's Ask Amy column in a question about adapting to a post-covid world. The questioner noted that during the pandemic people have interacted differently. The questioner indicated a preference that we continue 

"treating people as human beings--not human-doings."

I have often spoken of vacations that are doing and vacations that are being. I like extending the concept to how we treat each other.

China, in a rare admission of weakness, has said that the effectiveness of the vaccines they have made domestically is low. Researchers in Brazil found the efficacy of one Chinese vaccine to be as low as 50.4 percent. The UAE has invited people to get a third dose of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine after antibody tests indicated insufficient immune response after two doses. China is considering mixing the different vaccines together in hopes that will offer greater protection. China is currently only issuing visas to people who have been vaccinated with Chinese-made vaccines. Yes, I do see a problem with that.

British Columbia is apparently the center of the world's largest outbreak of the Brazil covid variant outside of Brazil, with 877 confirmed cases, 200 of which are in Whistler, Canada's most famous ski resort. How the variant arrived is unknown. At least none of the first 84 cases identified in Whistler reported any travel outside Canada. A factor contributing to the spread in Whistler is a housing shortage. Rents are so high that many young people may occupy a small apartment using even closets as bedrooms.

Finally, research in Germany and Norway has found that people with clotting issues after an AstraZeneca vaccination produced unusual antibodies that activated platelets, a blood component involved in clotting. Younger people are more susceptible to this, though no pre-existing conditions are known to predispose people to this rare reaction.  

And now I am off to watch the Masters, the only tournament that I watch voluntarily, especially in the last round. I am rooting for the golfer currently in second place, W. Zalatoris, who sits three shots behind the leader, Hideki Matsuyama. Zalatoris is 24 and playing in his first Masters. He can go out and play a round of golf free from the weight of expectations. We should all be so lucky to be free from expectations at least for a couple of hours. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 391

Yesterday, I mentioned that some cities here in the US were working to increase tourism by offering gift cards or money that could be spent locally. Extend that idea to countries, and you have what Malta is considering doing for foreign tourists. Those who stay at least three nights in a 5-star hotel would get 200 Euros. Half that amount would come from the Tourism Authority, and the other half, from the hotel. Staying at least three nights in a 4-star hotel would be rewarded with 150 Euros. You probably see where I'm going with this, but at least three nights in a 3-star hotel woould be rewarded with 100 Euros. If you're  concerned about safety, Malta has the highest vaccination rate in the EU: At least 42 percent of adults have had at least one vaccine dose. 

The European Medicines Agency, having looked into the possibility of a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare form of blood clotting, is now looking into a possible link between the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and blood clotting. I do not know whether the specifics of the clotting problems are the same for the two vaccines. Reports are that there have been four serious cases in the US, one of which was fatal. Three of the cases occurred during vaccine rollout, and one occurred during the clinical trial. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is not currently in use in Europe, though it has been approved for use there.

Michigan is now home to nine of the 10 metro areas with the country's highest recent case rates. The governor shut things down during previous surges, but has now asked people to take a two-week break from activities such as indoor dining, in-person high school, and youth sports. The change reflects the "shifting politics" of the pandemic. The public grows impatient with any answers that are not vaccines. Cases are rising even with one in three residents having gotten at least one vaccine dose. One in five is fully vaccinated. 

Not that it might have any impact on national defense (yeah, right), but nearly 40 percent of Marines have declined to get vaccinated. Whether this is personal preference or a distrust growing out of previous military vaccination campaigns isn't clear. Vaccines cannot be deemed mandatory until they have full authorization from the FDA. Right now, they have only emergency use authorizations. 

Possibly due to skies lacking much of the light pollution that is usually out there and more people home during the evenings, UFO reports have surged during the pandemic. Sightings doubled in New York to about 300 in 2020. Sightings rose by about 1,000 nationwide to over 7,200. There is evidently lots of UFO footage on TikTok, a claim I am not going to try to verify. I expect that there is more detail available from NUFORC, the National UFO Reporting Center. The article I read reported that one woman who had been "taken" by aliens says that she was not "abducted" but went willingly. As Dave Barry may still write, I am not making this up.

My trip down Memory Lane continues. Next to be scanned are slides from my summer study in Spain and travel in Europe in 1975. Franco was still in power in Spain then; he did not die until November 1975. I remember sitting in a garden with two other students, one of whom was Cuban-American and postulating what we would do should he die while we were still there. I'll consider it fortunate that we did not have to find out. One of the first nights I was there, I went for an evening stroll, alone, and was not prepared to see someone in uniform patrolling while carrying what appeared to be an uzi.

As I have scanned slides, I have marveled at the different places I had somewhat forgotten I have been. Last evening and this morning, I scanned slides  ranging from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Bay of Fundy, from the mountains of Montana to the farmland of Nebraska. Besides Spain and Europe in general, tomorrow, I shall scan slides taken in Hong Kong.  I am reminded just how fortunate I have been in terms of the paths on which my parents started me and then prepared me to continue on my own, and in the traveling companions I have met along the way.

 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 390

The pandemic has wreaked havoc with travel and tourism. As a result, there are cities that will pay you to come be a tourist. Payment is typically in the form of "money" that can be spent at local businesses, though one city, Santa Maria Valley, California, is giving out straight $100 Visa gift cards. Redmond, Washington, home of Microsoft, offers $100 in Geek Out Gold that can be spent within Redmond. In similar fashion, Glenwood Springs, Colorado offers $100 in Glenwood Gold, again spendable with the city. That alone would not motivate me to fly across the country, but if someplace more local were offering such a deal, I'd at least think about it. 

Forecasters are predicting another overactive hurricane season, with 17 named storms, four of which will be major as defined by Category 3 or higher. And just for yucks, here are the 21 basic names for this year's storms. Numbers 22 and over will get names from a supplemental list. The 21: Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Elsa, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Julian, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam Teresa, Victor, Wanda.

The Norwegian prime minister has been fined for breaking coronavirus rules when she organized a family birthday party for 13 people when the limit on such gatherings was 10. She was fined 20,000 Norwegian kroner or $2345.83 in US dollars. 

The Brazil variant has now been identified in at least 15 countries in the Americas. There are actually two Brazil variants, P1 and P2. P1 is the more problematic. It has three mutations to the spike protein rather than the one that P2 has. It is P1 that is capable of re-infecting people who had had covid and thought they had natural immunity. March was Brazil's deadliest month since the pandemic began, and the variants are a large part of that.

Mississippi yesterday had 73,000 slots open for coronavirus vaccinations, but can't get enough people to sign up to fill all the slots. Right now, 25 percent of Mississippians have gotten at least one dose compared to the national 33 percent. Other Southern states such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Georgia show similarly low vaccination rates. For Mississippi, demographics are a big part of the problem. It is a reliably Republican state, and Republicans are more apt to be vaccine hesitant or resistant. It also has a large Black community, and Blacks nationwide have been slower to get vaccinated than whites. One Mississippi statistic that jumped out at me was that 55 percent of college-educated Republican women under the age of 49 will not get vaccinated. I have to wonder just what courses their colleges required, especially science and history ones.  

There has been a large drop in the number of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine delivered this week. Last week, 1.9 million doses were distributed; this week, only 700,000. The federal government divided doses between states based on each state's adult population. For example, California received 572,700 doses last week but will get only 67,600 this week. Perhaps more troubling, the European Medicines Agency is looking into the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after reports it was linked to blood clots. First, AstraZeneca, and now Johnson & Johnson. I must admit that it makes me glad I got the Pfizer vaccine.

Back to scanning slides and strolling Memory Lane. As for the Lane, here's me in 1976, at the top of Mt. Katahdin in the state of Maine. I'm not sure I could do the hike/climb to the top now at age 64, but it was no problem for the 20-year-old me.

View from the Hermitage, Day 389

I'm probably making today a quickie post today so as to finish something I've been putting off for over five years. Five (or more) years ago, we bought a scanner that will digitize the slides I took in a past life. Since I've been going through camera equipment, I figured this would fit right in. It somehow never occurred to me that I would have to do this one slide at a time. No conveyor belt sending them through one right after another. I'm about a third of the way through the first tray of 300, which covers the 1990 part of our academic year in the Netherlands. To complicate matters, it seems that I only wrote down on the guide sheet where the first 150 were taken. I can probably identify the rest, though, and always have The Professor if he remembers where some shot was taken. 

And what a walk down memory lane! Son #1 was going through the not-so-terrible twos, and The Professor was the young man I had met in a laundromat five or six years before. Son #2 was in utero for the first set of places and a babe in arms in the others. I have yet to see myself in any of the slides given that I was the family photographer as the kids grew up. I should show up in some eventually. Somewhere around here is a box labelled "slide projector." Besides a projector, that box contains the slides I took while doing study abroad in Spain and some general travel throughout Europe in the summer of 1975. I saw said box in the basement a few weeks ago; it is possible that The Professor moved it out to the garage in his quest for organization. When we find those slides, I'll be going even farther down Memory Lane.

Quickies from the coronavirus's international front: There is an outbreak in Bangkok that may take two months to control. That can't be good for tourism. India has set a new daily case record of 126,789 cases. Possibly related to this, New Zealand has for two weeks suspended entry for all travelers from India including citizens of New Zealand. Due north of here, the province of Ontario is entering a one-month lockdown; new cases tripled throughout March. ICU admissions have increased at a rate faster that the province's worst-case scenario modelling. The French Open tennis tournament will be held a week later than planned in response to the coronavirus situation. Personally, I'm not sure a week will be long enough.

Here at home, the British variant is now the dominant strain of coronavirus here and is one reason that case numbers are rising. Between March 30 and April 6, cases in Nebraska increased in the 50 to 100 percent range. Increases between 10 and 50 percent were recorded in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, Rhode Island, Illinois, Colorado, Arizona, Hawaii, and Delaware. The only states showing decreases between 10 and 50 percent were Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia. All the other states, including Virginia, are holding steady between decreasing 10 percent and increasing at the same rate.

Cases in children have been rising due to re-starting many youth sports such as soccer. One article mentioned parents who said that their child's emotional well-being depended on whether they could do organized youth sports. I guess kids don't just go to the park and kick balls around or shag fly balls any longer. While that would also allow virus particles to spread between kids, there would be fewer kids there than there are in an organized soccer game. My kids did t-ball for a year or two then no longer wanted to. They were never interested in soccer. Both did play ultimate Frisbee while in high school, but that was about the extent of their organized sports experience. Now, of course, they both run ultra-marathons, definitely not a team sport. 

As might be expected, the pinata business has been hurt by the coronavirus. No parties means no real need for pinatas. There is, however, one pinata in particular that has been very popular. That would be the pinata shaped like a spiky coronavirus particle. I could almost see ordering one of those for a party marking the official end of the pandemic. 

Back to those slides!

The View from the Hermitage, Day 388

The photographic equipment dump continues. I can now tell you what is or isn't on too many SD cards. I have sorted various filters and matched them with the appropriate camera. There are some that match no camera. I have four film cameras, one of which takes only 110 film cartridges. Do they even make those any longer? And if they do, how exorbitantly high might the price be? Is it worth it to have four rolls of film developed? Will the surprise of seeing the photos be enough to match the trouble of finding a place to develop them and pay what might seem too much? The obviously outdated unused film--toss or see what neat things I might do with it? Weaving? The possibilities are endless and answers to all the above questions may or may not be determined tomorrow.

The pandemic has a plus side, at least in the UK. There is increased interest in science among teenagers who say that they would like to "stop the next pandemic." At one university, interest in nursing is up 67 percent. Midwifery, biological sciences, pharmacy, and biomedical sciences are also seeing larger than normal increases. Perhaps more important for us number nerds, there is increased interest in math, statistics, and data science. This "suggests that there is a greater interest in statistical modelling and the use of mathematics to understand trends and explain data." 

Though public health officials say we should get the first vaccine we can get, there appears to be a preference for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, especially among those people who say they want to wait and see how things go before they get vaccinated. Letting people choose their vaccine then may very well up the number of people actually getting vaccinated. Some people don't want to have to get two shots for reasons such as having to take time off work twice instead of once; the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the only one currently requiring only one shot. There are apps or websites such as vaccinefinder.org that show which vaccine(s) a particular entity has available. 

Nearly 80 percent of teachers, school staff, and child care workers had gotten at least one dose by the end of March. News reports say that almost half of US adults could have at least one vaccine dose by this coming weekend. The US will have enough doses for all Americans by the end of May. Then it's just getting everyone who wants a vaccination scheduled. You're waiting for the "but," right? But some willing adults may be waiting until the end of the year due to the slow rollout in some states. The patients requiring hospitalization are getting younger and younger. Finally, 34 percent of people who do get infected are showing psychiatric or neurological conditions after six months.The most common, experienced by 75 percent of these people, is anxiety. Much rarer are stroke and dementia. For the number nerds, after accounting for factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, and existing health conditions, there was a 44 percent greater risk of neurological and mental health diagnoses after covid-19 than after influenza.

A lot of people have used the pandemic to get closer to nature. This has a good side and a bad side. The good side is people's getting outside and getting some exercise. The bad side is the inexperienced adventurers who have flooded remote areas and often need rescuing. While the National Park Service handles this within the boundaries of a park, search and rescue outside the parks falls to volunteers who are getting overwhelmed and who could quit at any time.

At least in Wyoming, many who need rescuing are out-of-staters who simply do not understand the risks. They think that all they need is a cell phone. Even those who don't need rescuing can cause problems such as discarded trash, human excrement improperly buried along trails, and emergency beacons activated by accident. During Labor Day week, one search and rescue group conducted eight missions to help 23 people. There were lost hikers, injured hikers, and hikers with improper gear for the cold front that blew through. One volunteer called it a miracle that no one was killed. 

For the Teton (Wyoming) County Search and Rescue, January and February 2021 were the busiest since the group was formed in the 1990s. Besides the volunteers' time, rescues cost money. Some states have started to charge those rescued for the cost of the rescue. Other, such as Colorado, offer adventurers the chance to purchase membership. While this creates a constant revenue stream, it may dissuade non-members from requesting the help they need.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 387

Globally, North Korea has pulled out of the Olympics in Tokyo, citing coronavirus concerns. I think that they officially claim not to have had any cases, but if you believe that, well, that's up to you. As for Japan, it appears to be entering a fourth wave in large part to variants that are more infectious and may be somewhat vaccine-resistant. To complicate matters, vaccines are not yet widely available in Japan. Moving to the Middle East, only pilgrims who have been immunized--two doses or one dose at least 14 days prior--or who have recovered from covid will be allowed to enter Mecca on an umrah pilgrimage. Such a pilgrimage is not mandatory and can be done at any time, unlike the hajj. The restriction begins at the start of Ramadan, which is next Monday. One also needs to be immunized or recovered to enter the Prophet's mosque in the holy city of Medina. 

A senior official from the European Medicines Agency says that it is "clear" there is a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the rare form of blood clotting being seen, but he does not know a specific cause. The EMA later said that it hd not yet reached a conclusion, the review is ongoing, and they will release the results tomorrow or the next day. Starting in two weeks, there will be quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand. What economic effect this might have is not clear. It is thought that the first travelers will not be tourists spending money but people visiting relatives. England will start easing lockdown next week, allowing pubs, shops, hairdressers, and gyms to reopen. Finally, covid-19 is spreading faster in India right now than it did at any time in 2020.

Turning from coronavirus to foreign affairs, Vladimir Putin has signed a law that would let him run for two more terms as president, extending his rule until 2036. He will turn 69 this year, so he would be in his eighties then. He is currently in his fourth term which ends in 2024. He was president from 2000 to 2008 and returned in 2012. XPot must be oh so jealous and wonder why he could not get similar rules passed here.

A crowd of 38,328 people, many not wearing masks, watched the Texas Rangers lose to the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday. It was the highest publicly documented attendance at an event during the pandemic. Super-spreader? That remains to be seen. 

The UK variant has now been identified in all 50 states. The states with the largest increases in cases are states with a strong variant presence. The recent increase in covid hospital admissions is because of adults under 50. No longer are the elderly occupying the majority of hospital covid beds. It seems that the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C can emerge several weeks after a child gets the virus. Many children who developed MIS-C were asymptomatic when they were infected or had very mild cases. MIS-C appears to occur when patients' bodies have produced a maximum level of antibodies. 

A survey of American parents reported that 74 percent were concerned about a fourth wave. Other results included that 71 percent had already gotten vaccinated or intended to as soon as possible; however, only 52 percent said that they were likely to get their child vaccinated as soon as the child was eligible. I was not surprised to see that Republicans were most reluctant to have their children vaccinated. I was a bit surprised to see that only 28 percent of parents reported that they had worked from home or remotely in the last week. I know that states have been relaxing restrictions, but I thought more people would still be working remotely. 

In terms of remote work, 26 percent of workers plan to look for a job at a different company once the pandemic has subsided. Concern over career growth was the motivator for 80 percent of those workers, while 75 percent said that the pandemic made them rethink their job skills. Most workers said that they would like to work remotely at least part of the time after offices reopen, but nearly half of remote workers said they would be nervous about job security if they stayed remote while other workers went back to the office. 

Remember the toilet paper and cleaner shortages at the pandemic's dawn? Restaurants have been dealing with a national ketchup shortage. Covid-19 upended the condiment world order as takwout boosted the demand for ketchup and other condiment packets. Many managers are using generic versions, pouring bulk ketchup into individual cups. Costco has become quite popular. 

I found the cake pan and this morning baked a chocolate cake with coffee buttercream icing. Dinner will be The Professor's choice, Mongolian beef. And perhaps tomorrow I shall discuss the two days and counting it is taking me to go through photography equipment and documentation while pondering which camera no longer with us took the 55mm filters that don't fit any of the current cameras in the family.