The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 266 (766)

The gremlins decided to release their control of my Chromebook when The Professor attempted to get it working last night. He did nothing that I had not already tried but since it got me my Chromebook back, I'm not going to complain.

Remember the "if we stop testing, we'll have fewer cases" days? China must; they're doing something similar with the number of deaths. Shanghai has had over 400,000 cases (the population is 25 or 26 million after all) and, wait for it, 17 deaths. Yes, 17, or about four per 100,000 cases. They count cases very narrowly in China. If someone who has a chronic medical condition becomes infected with covid and then dies, the person did not die of covid. They died of the underlying chronic condition. In other words, if there's another remotely possible cause of death, that is the cause of death.

The federal government says that it will appeal the court ruling ending the public transportation mask mandate if the CDC advises that masks are a public health necessity. Because any mandate has now become the responsibility of a business or civic entity, a patchwork of rules is emerging (I cannot take credit for the "patchwork" reference; it was how a traveler quoted in one article described it). For example, a person will not be required to wear a mask on an Amtrak train going into Chicago or New York City, but will need one to board the public commuter rail service in Chicago or the subway in New York City. I wonder how many of the people who dropped their masks into garbage bags held by flight attendants deplaned only to discover they needed that mask for the next leg of their journey. I always carry a couple extras in my purse, but then I would not have removed my mask on the airplane in the first place.

The White House is still recommending masking on transit, but based on what has happened in other countries, going from "compulsory" to "recommended" is heard by most people as "don't bother."

People who have yet to get their children between the ages of five and 11 vaccinated might be interested to know that unvaccinated children in that age range were hospitalized at twice the rate of vaccinated children during the winter Omicron surge. Three fourths of the children hospitalized were admitted primarily for covid. Omicron was on the mild side, though, so children were far less likely to become seriously ill than was the case with earlier variants.   

I learned last night that one of the regular readers of this blog passed away recently. She was a fellow quilter in the group I call my internet quilt guild. I never met her, but she still sent me Martha, the ceramic goose that sits outside my front door with clothes for every month of the year. I forget what remark I made about such geese in a conversation not at all about quilting, but soon thereafter, Martha flew in courtesy of the US Postal Service. Glenda never commented on the blog but told me in email how much she looked forward to it. I'm gonna miss you, Glenda!