Schools reopen in England this week; colleges and universities open later. Covid infections are now 26 times the levels they were this time last year. I'm not sure that makes the recent reopening of most things much of a success. At least here, once things are reopened or restricted less, it's hard public-opinion-wise to go back to the earlier, sterner restrictions. I bet there are Australians, though, who would love to be in England. Australia just had 1,323 new cases with the overwhelming majority, 1,218, in New South Wales. There were also 813 hospitalizations. Lockdowns continue, though I don't think there are any new ones. The New South Wales premier has committed to reopening once 70 percent of people ages 16 and older are fully vaccinated. India is by no means back to the dire state it once was, but there were still 45,083 new cases Sunday.
Things are no better here at home. Oregon is bringing in refrigerated trucks to hold bodies for which the morgues have no room. A yet-to-be-vaccinated teacher in California went to work with symptoms for two days and read aloud to her class without a mask. Half of her class got infected, with infections corresponding to the seating chart. The closer to the front where the teacher was reading, the more likely a child was to be infected, everyone in the first row for example. The children in the class were too young to be vaccinated, making what the teacher did so much worse for me. It is one thing for an adult to choose not to be vaccinated. Kids under 12, though, right now have no choice in the matter.
Interestingly, at least to me given the current attitude toward masks, Florida very early on encouraged vaccination by opening mass vaccination sites and sending vaccination teams to retirement communities and nursing homes. Then summer and a move to the air conditioning found inside has led to peaks in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. As of Friday, Florida had an average 242 virus deaths per day, nearly as many as California and Texas combined. Other states with comparable vaccination rates have had a small fraction of Florida's hospitalization rate; experts say that Florida's initial vaccination rate may have appeared high but was not high enough given the demographics of the state's population. Add in that people are still partying as if it's going out of style (maybe it should, at least for a while) and that the governor opposes any mask mandates.
Firefighters in Corpus Christi, Texas will come to homes to give vaccinations. The city of 327,000 has seen about 1,000 deaths so far, and the ICUs are full. About half the locals over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated, a rate lower than the state as a whole. Two weeks into the school year, over 1,000 cases have been connected with the school district, most among students. The city is doing everything it can to encourage vaccinations. Walk-in vaccination centers are open in shopping malls, and the firefighters will come to a home any time of day.
Some projections show the US as seeing 100,000 more covid deaths between now and December 1. The director of the University of Texas Covid-19 Modeling Consortium explains, "Behavior is really going to determine if, when and how sustainably the current wave subsides. We cannot stop delta in its tracks, but we can change our behavior overnight." A scientist at the University of Washington says that wearing masks could save 50,000 lives.
"Vaccine mandate" can be a matter of interpretation. In New York City, proof of vaccination is needed to go to a gym or restaurant, though it is not required to get on a bus or the subway. In Pasadena, California, Basilico's Pasta E. Vino requires proof of being unvaccinated in order to be served. Which makes me wonder how a person proves that they have not been vaccinated. The CDC did not give everyone a vaccination card that only got filled out when a person got vaccinated meaning that a blank card documents the lack of a vaccination.
Hurricane Ida recently came ashore in Louisiana and is weakening very, very slowly. It is still a Category 4 hurricane which means the sustained winds are the equivalent of an EF2 tornado. Just as some people choose not to be vaccinated against covid, some people who could have evacuated chose not to, sometimes with reasons related to covid. One couple said they were afraid about taking their unvaccinated children to a crowded shelter. A man said he had tested positive for covid and was afraid no shelter or hotel would take him. With over 400,000 people already without power, I hope the hospitals unable to move patients elsewhere have good generators.
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We spent most of the first year wishing we were in Australia where they were back to living a normal life. Now I'd rather be here, especially because of the spiders and snakes. Today is your equivalent of Labor Day, the last public holiday of the summer. Holidays are over, the schools go back and the next holiday is Christmas.
We went out for breakfast at the weekend and they apologised but there was no buffet breakfast, not that there's been a buffet breakfast since 2019, you point and a server fills your plate. Times are changing, the workmen were busy taking the screens down. The cafe in the village that closed in March 2019 and never reopened is "opening soon" - they'd be open now but their staff have all moved on. The craft club at the church never reopened because they couldn't face the on/off/on cycle of last summer, they open for the first time next week. There is a feeling of permanency now, being able to plan for the future. With our ever changing lockdown rules we've not had that for a long time. This does not extend to overseas travel where it's a gamble whether the rules change while you are away and your holiday could have an unexpected and expensive hotel quarentine at the end of it.
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