The View from the Hermitage, Day 429

The weather is always a safe subject, so let's start there. That by no means signifies that this post will be at all unsafe; it just jumped to mind as an opening line. I keep the weather app on my iPhone set for five places: where I live (Charlottesville, Virginia), where my brother lives (Bangor, Maine), where my brother-in-law lives (Tisdale, Saskatchewan), where Son #2 and DiL= live (Richmond, Virginia), and where their cabin is (Ruther Glen, Virginia). Imagine my surprise last night when, looking for what our overnight low temperature would be, I discovered that it was in the 80sF in Tisdale, Saskatchewan. It's 88F there now even as I type this. But don't get used to it too much, Tisdalians. There's a 50 percent chance of snow on Friday.

The CDC's new mask guidelines rely on an honor system. The local university has a very famous one that often does not work as intended. The mayor of Kansas City, Missouri says that the honor system isn't working there either. Localities can, however, keep local mask mandates even in the wake of a state's stopping theirs. Maryland has ended its statewide mask mandate, but Baltimore City is keeping their local one in place until at least 65 percent of the adult residents have gotten at least one shot of vaccine. As Dr. Fauci clarifies it, the guidance is "not a mandate to take masks off."

POTUS is taking a bit of heat over whether the donation of 80 million doses of vaccine to developing countries is enough. Some 11 billion doses will be needed to vaccinate 70 percent of the global population, but so far only 1.7 billion have been produced. If booster shots are needed, 11 billion won't be enough. Covax will soon finish delivering 65 million doses but should have delivered at least 170 million by now. The fact that the US has a glut of vaccine along with the problem of convincing vaccine-hesitant or -resistant people to get it is not seen in our favor. There are some who argue that along with donating doses of vaccine, the US needs to work on a plan to scale up production world-wide. The US cannot produce those 11 billion doses on its own. 

Storing some of that vaccine got a boost easier. The Pfizer vaccine has been through to require a storage temperature between -70 and -80C until a "few days" before use. For those few days, it can be stored in a standard medical refrigerator. The European Medicines Agency now says that the Pfizer vaccine can be stored in a standard medical refrigerator for five days to one month, at a temperature of 2 to 8C. This makes it much more practical to use is a wider variety of settings. 

The local paper used to have a sports columnist who would often start a section of his column with "Scatter-shooting around the ACC..." Well, scatter-shooting around the world, India just set a new record for deaths in one day, 4,329. Germany has put the residents of two tower blocks in Western Germany in quarantine after discovery of the Indian variant there. In the first week of April, Nepal was counting fewer than 200 covid-19 cases daily. The daily averages for the past week are 183 deaths and 8,600 new cases. European countries are continuing to reopen at various paces, but the growing presence of the Indian variant in the UK could throw a monkey wrench into those plans. Finally, Japanese opposition to the Olympics is now at 83 percent. A top medical group, the Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association, also wants the Games cancelled.

I may have to start adding a political thread or two. I almost miss the absurdity of the XPot days. The news is certainly not as entertaining as it was in the fall. I don't think I want to get back to discussing the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Discussing the Party of XPot's treatment of Liz Cheney might double my blood pressure medicine, though I am seeing my doc for a physical next week. Matt Gaetz? That does get pretty bizarre, and the mainstream media so far has stayed away from the possibility that the young Cuban-American man living with Gaetz might be his son from a relationship with an underage young woman. I think I'll give that topic some thought.