The View from the Hermitage, Day 454

Vaccination rates for Blacks and Latinos in the US continue to lag. Fewer than half the states have vaccinated a third of their Black populations, while over 40 have done that with white and Asian people. Vaccine hesitancy among Blacks has gone down in recent months; interest remains high for Latinos. White Republicans are more likely to definitively refuse a vaccination. Interestingly, Black and white Americans have similar rate of vaccine hesitancy, but whites are more likely to get vaccinated. Several issues are at work here. Missing work to get vaccinated may mean missing money. There may be no child care for children who can't be taken along to the vaccination site. In cities, "pharmacy deserts" exist making getting to a vaccination site even harder.

I haven't really written about the issue of waiving intellectual property rights to allow developing countries to produce their own vaccines. I read this morning, though, that if pharmaceutical companies are willing to waive those rights, the bill for vaccinating developing countries would be in the neighborhood of $6.5 billion. Without the patent waiver the cost could reach $80 billion. This is one item on the agenda of the G7 currently meeting in Cornwall, England. In terms of getting vaccines to countries, 92 of the world's poorest countries are supported through Covax. Middle-income countries, however, are not; this includes countries such as South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia. Another international concern is the children orphaned by covid. Nowhere is this more apparent than India. Keeping in mind that any numbers relative to India are under-counts, possibly huge ones, at least 1,742 children have lost both parents while 7,464 have lost one. I cannot shake one image from the article in which I found the above numbers, that of six-year-old twins found laying on each side of their mother; they did not know she was dead. I'm going to be living with that one for a while.

As business picks up steam here in the US, staff shortages are many. The biggest issue is where work will happen. Most companies want at least a partial return to the traditional office, while 64 percent of workers would pick permanent work from home over a $30,000 raise according to a survey of employees at 45 of the largest US companies. The biggest reason for wanting to continue working from home? Commuting. People hate it. Kate Duchene, CEO and president of the global human capital (I think this is what we used to know as "human resources") company RGP notes, "It used to be that you fit life into work. Now it's the opposite: How do you fit work into life?"

Other changes brought about by the pandemic include continuing uncertainty, the feeling that things could change on a moment's notice. We will likely be living with this until the pandemic is no longer "pan" and the coronavirus becomes flu-like in terms of dealing with it. Cities are changing. Larger cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago are losing people to mid-size cities such as Charlotte, Portland, or Reno. The way we or at least our children learn is changing. There will likely continue to be an online component at all levels, even elementary. With the move out of large cities, transportation is changing. Car sales are up as are the prices for services such as Uber or Lyft. They're having trouble finding enough drivers. Finally, what we do for fun is changing. Virtual concerts may not completely replace traditional ones, but may exist for quite a while. Some artists or groups are putting big bucks into making a virtual concert as appealing as a public one.

England's June 21 lifting of all lock-down restrictions is likely to be delayed for up to a month due to the new dominance of the Delta variant according to government sources. Daily infections are rising three to six percent, a growth rate not seen since cases started to soar at the end of 2020. And in one of those "oh, shit!" instances, a third of all Delta variant patients who needed emergency care had received at least one dose of vaccine. Possibly scarier, of the 42 deaths recorded in England within 28 days of a positive test for the Delta variant, 23 were of unvaccinated people, seven were of people who had received one vaccine dose, and 12 were of fully vaccinated people. That last number may not scare you, but it does scare me and is one reason I won't be going mask-less even as masks technically become illegal again here in the Old Dominion. 

The Professor has taken The Sons to Northern Virginia to run a 50-mile overnight race. They'll be starting in about 90 minutes to run through the night or at least much of it. Normally they run together, but in this one Son #1 may send Son #2 off on his own. Being awake in the wee hours is normal for Son #2, meaning the night element of the race will be easier for him than Son #1. They will be carrying GPS trackers, so I can see how far they've gone when I go to bed and whether they've finished by when I get up. I do love those knuckleheads!