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.