The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 156 (656)

Yesterday, I questioned whether the availability of rapid at-home covid tests was making the daily case counts superfluous or even too wrong to be of use. Using counts is called case-based surveillance, and it does work when all the results are reported accurately. The alternative is sentinel surveillance, the method by which influenza is counted. Sentinel surveillance relies on a network of health care centers or personnel to track cases. The overall case numbers are extrapolated from the number of cases tracked. The data missing due to at-home tests also negatively affects percent positivity figures. At-home testing is very much a double-edged sword. It allows people to isolate when necessary but leaves public health figures in the dark. I'm interested in seeing how the public health folks resolve this. 

Between December 14 and 20, 2020, 3,561 people were surveyed about how hopeful or fearful they felt. The study was repeated between December 14 and 16, 2021 with a survey of 2,602 people. In 2020, 58 percent of Republicans reported feeling fearful compared with 36 percent of Democrats. In 2021, 69 percent of Republicans reported feeling fearful compared with 45 percent of Democrats. Overall, 36 percent of respondents felt fearful in 2020 compared with 54 percent in 2021. In 2020, 63 percent of all respondents felt hopeful, a percentage that dropped to 44 percent in 2021. Respondents were also asked what issues mattered the most to them. Topping the list in 2021 were jobs/economy, democracy, and health care. Finally, two words that 2021 respondents wanted to hear less often were "covid" and "Trump." The one word most people wanted to hear more of? Travel.

As New Year's Eve draws nearer--The Professor and I do not expect to be awake to welcome 2022--I am fine tuning my resolutions for the coming year. Reading through the resolutions I made for 2002 through 2012 and 2018 through 2020, has offered perspective on how best to phrase the new ones. I will say here that the resolutions I made for 2021, stated as five things I would do each month, were for the most part successful. I did make at least 12 pies and used my Instant Pot at least 12 times. I fell short on  starting, working on , or finishing a creative something each month, and if I donated or tossed 12 banker's boxes full of "stuff," it was in the first several months. I did meet my fitness goals for the year, several of which were set by the programming behind my Apple watch. I failed totally at ending this blog when I became fully vaccinated. Given how fully vaccinated is evolving, that was likely a very good thing. 

Finally, 2021 slapped us in the face one more (I almost typed "last" but didn't want to jinx us all) time with the death of Betty White a mere three weeks before her 100th birthday. She was an icon, someone to look up to no matter who was doing the looking, a lady well worth her while. Godspeed, Betty, to your new year as we creep to ours.