The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 21 (521)

Just learned we're under a tornado watch for the next five hours. Only once in the 30-plus years we've lived here has the sky gotten so angry that we took the animals and headed for the basement storeroom, the safest, most secure place in the house. If anything comes to pass to interrupt my writing, I'll let you now when I post. 

First, some gory details. Over the past week, the US has been averaging139,800 new cases each day, up 52 percent from two weeks ago. Deaths are up 87 percent to an average of 696 each day. These are nowhere near as high as they've been, but they're high enough for me to worry. Over a fourth of the ICU beds in use nationwide is occupied by a covid patient. The Delta variant now accounts for 99 percent of new cases, with only 50.9 percent of the population fully vaccinated. Cases in children are also rising just as schools reopen. There were over 121,000 new pediatric cases last week. This probably won't end well. (My expert opinion, not that of an expert.)

Remember the Texas governor who is prohibiting mask and vaccine mandates? He tested positive yesterday with a breakthrough infection. He can't be counted as a breakthrough infection, though, because here in the US we only count breakthrough infections if they result in hospitalization or death. Right now, the governor is still alive and asymptomatic in the governor's residence. On Monday night, he spoke to a packed room of hundreds of people, most of whom were not masked nor were they keeping any distance from other people. The governor is getting monoclonal antibodies. Usually these are given only to patients who are at risk of getting very sick. Maybe there's something about the gov that we don't know. 

As for breakthrough infections, preliminary data from seven states hint that the Delta variant is changing the breakthrough picture. Breakthrough infections accounted for at least one in five newly diagnosed cases in six of the states and higher percentages of hospitalizations and deaths than had previously been observed in all seven. The seven states--California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia--were chosen because they've been keeping the most detailed data. The chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco noted, "Remember when the early vaccine studies came out, it was like nobody gets hospitalized, nobody dies. That clearly is not true." It's not just happening here either. Almost 60 percent of hospitalized covid patients in Israel are fully vaccinated despite "fully vaccinated" describing 78 percent of everyone over the age of 12.

I found an interesting discussion on three myths about vaccine mandates. First is the idea that such mandates are unprecedented. Not! There was a vaccination mandate issued in the late 1800s in reaction to smallpox. Health care workers, kids going to school, and members of the military have all been under some sort of vaccine mandate for years. The second myth is that vaccine mandates are illegal or unconstitutional. Again, not! The Supreme Court has ruled that local authorities have the right to issue vaccine and other health mandates. The Court has rejected all challenges to mandates based on constitutional arguments. Finally is that people will be required to be vaccinated in order to do anything ever again. This is not true, though there is some question of who should pay for the testing of people who voluntarily decline to be vaccinated and how long the testing should continue. Requirements vary by locality. 

The WHO director was not pleased to hear the news that Americans will be encouraged to get a booster shot eight months after their final dose of vaccine. "Vaccine injustice is a shame on all humanity, and if we don't tackle it together, we will prolong the acute stage of this pandemic for years when it could be over in a matter of months." I have to question that statement. I do not think the virus can be brought under control in a matter of months. Not gonna happen. The ONE campaign dedicated to ending extreme poverty and preventable disease agrees with the WHO director, saying that booster shorts threaten "to widen the gap between the haves and the have nots."

Japan is extending and expanding its states of emergency after seeing almost 20,000 new cases and 47 deaths on Tuesday. The entire Paralympic Games will now be held under the state of emergency surrounding Tokyo. Pope Francis put his two cents in on vaccination calling getting vaccinated "an act of love." New Zealand's one covid case has grown to ten. Genomic sequencing links those cases to the Delta outbreak that began in Sydney. The situation in New South Wales has not improved. They just set a new daily case record of 633 new cases and three deaths. Of those new cases, 63 were in children ages nine and under. The age range from 10 to 19 was represented by 104 cases, while 107 cases were in people in their 20s. Each person infected in New South Wales right now is passing the virus to 1.3 other people. 

The sun is shining, and what clouds there are are white, not grey. That's 35 minutes down, and 4 hours, 25 minutes to go. I'm not getting worried ... yet.