The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 110 (610)

Thanksgiving is next week, so articles are starting to appear on how to celebrate safely. One author recommends a "vax-giving," a gathering of fully or partially (as in children ages five through 11) vaccinated people. Children ages four and under would be relatively safe if all other people at the gathering were vaccinated. For added security, those attending might all take rapid covid tests the morning of the gathering. This on-the-spot risk assessment is similar to what is practiced for winter driving. You check the relevant info, take the proper precautions, and prepare as much as possible for the conditions you expect to encounter. With covid, stay aware of local conditions such as hospitalizations and vaccination rates, avoid crowds and gatherings for which you have no knowledge of the vaccination status of other attendees, wear masks, use rapid tests as needed, and ensure that anyone sneezing or coughing stays home. A safe Thanksgiving is all about risk management. 

Over 60 percent of Brazilians are now fully vaccinated, slightly above the 59 percent here in the US. In Rio de Janeiro, 70 percent of people are fully vaccinated, higher than in New York City. It has helped that Brazil has a decades-old immunization program with tens of thousands of permanent vaccination posts around the country. Many states in the Amazon have rates under 50 percent, though, something probably not surprising when many cities there can be reached only by boats. 

Japan tops Brazil, with almost 75 percent of residents fully vaccinated. The number of daily covid cases has plummeted, from over 25,000 three months ago to 202 on Saturday. Tokyo recorded 24 new cases Saturday compared with 15,773 on August 15, just after the Summer Olympics ended. This improvement is astounding given that Japan was one of the world's least vaccine-confident countries.

Austria's new lockdown confines unvaccinated people ages 12 and older to their homes for at least 10 days. A person may leave only for essential reasons including grocery shopping and medical appointments. Violators will face fines between $570 and $1,890.  

The Florida state legislature is holding a week-long special session with the aim of thwarting vaccine mandates. Four bills will be considered to impose penalties on businesses and local governments that require vaccination. Keep in mind that even with 58 percent of Floridians fully vaccinated, the state has the third highest death rate in the country, behind only California and Texas. As for vaccine mandates, there are ways around them if you don't mind possibly getting caught. Several dozen New York City sanitation workers have been suspended without pay for using fake covid vaccination cards. 

A Houston hospital has suspended a doctor for spreading "dangerous misinformation" the hospital said is "harmful to the community." The doctor posted several tweets in which she said she was against vaccine mandates; in other tweets, she promoted the use of ivermectin. Her lawyer has said that she is not against vaccines, just vaccine mandates. The doctor said she was resigning and moving her patients to other hospitals. 

Last year, more Americans than usual got flu shots. Likely because of that and anti-covid measures including masks and frequent hand-washing, flu season was considered "tame." So far this year, though, flu shots are down eight percent from the same time last year, and health officials are worried. Since last year was a low flu year, many people may have less lingering immunity from past years. The good news is that there is still time to get a flu shot. Flu season has yet to begin in earnest. 

And now for something totally different and, possibly, unexpected. Armadillos have now spread to places such as western North Carolina, western Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa, and even southern Nebraska. In many of those places they are wreaking "horticultural havoc." Not even rivers can stand in the way of migrating armadillos. They can hold their breath for up to six minutes and just walk across on the riverbed. They can also inflate their intestines and float to the other side. 

Who's with me in wanting to see an armadillo float?