The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 245 (745)

So the expensive covid tests I mentioned in an earlier post are PCR tests, not the rapid at-home type. But even those may not seem cheap once you use up the eight (so far) free ones from the federal government. The four I just got for free from the feds would be about $9.00 each from our friends at Amazon. If you want to test the whole family before going to visit someone, things can add up rapidly.

Fifty-five percent of new covid cases in the US last week were the BA.2 (sub)variant. This means that it is now the dominant variant both here and around the world. Who knows what's coming next. Some scientists on the northern edge of the US are looking into that in a somewhat nerve-wracking way. They're crawling into the dens of hibernating bears--with someone holding their feet for quick extraction assistance--and taking nasal swabs. They're also  getting samples from moose, deer, and wolves, all in the name of looking into human-to-animal-to-human transmission of the coronavirus. 

The CDC has given its permissive recommendation to second booster shots. POTUS got one this afternoon. It's far from clear how necessary they might be. I'm going to do a bit of research, I think, before deciding one way or the other. Were I to decide to get one, there is a new government tool to help me find where I could get one. The website https://www.covid.gov/ went live this morning. It's billed as "Find COVID-19 guidance for your community" and begins with the ability to check the covid level in your county. Next up is "Your COVID-19 Toolkit" with information on masks, vaccines, treatment, and testing. Since many testing and vaccines sites operated by government agencies are closing, it's nice to have a place to go for alternatives. 

With testing and vaccine sites becoming scarcer, is it ant wonder that Americans are taking fewer precautions? Now, 44 percent say they usually wear a mask outside their home; this is down from two-thirds.Two months ago, about half said that they avoided others as much as possible; that's down to one-third now. Only 40 percent, down from 60 percent in January, say that they still avoid nonessential travel. People aged 60 and older are the most likely to be still taking those precautions. Skipping precautions is partly due to pandemic fatigue and partly due to the CDC's lessening the importance of those precautions. 

Hong Kong is running low on coffins, and daily cremations have more than doubled. How bad things are is illustrated by the fact that over 90 percent of the covid cases since the pandemic began have been in the past 30 days. So much for zero-covid at least in the days of Omicron and friends.