Monday, June 20, 2022

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 326 (826)

I debated whether to number this as day 326, omitting the 325 that yesterday's post would have been or making today 325 as if yesterday didn't exist. The former won since yesterday did, in fact, exist and was not a bad day at all. Lots of fresh air going on walks, takeout from a Turkish restaurant for dinner, catching up with the kids. Yeah, it was a good day.

So, finding coronavirus news today was so difficult I worried the pandemic had ended yesterday while I was vacationing from the blog. You'll see what I mean when you see just how little I have to report today.

Children as young as six months can be vaccinated against covid as soon as tomorrow here in the US. Only 18 percent of parents surveyed said they would get their children vaccinated as soon as a vaccine was available. It's going to be interesting to see how accurate that prediction is. I can imagine more parents wanting their children vaccinated as the school year looms. We shall see.

Macao is said to be something of the gambling center of the world, and the casinos are, for now, remaining open as other businesses close due to a covid outbreak. Macao is part of China, so zero-covid rules. There were 31 cases identified Sunday after eight months with no cases. All 600,000 residents are being tested. Schools, tourist attractions, cultural venues, and non-essential businesses are closing. Restaurants are limited to takeout. Casinos remain open but are not expected to see as much business as usual. The only visitors allowed into the country are those from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or mainland China. Most of these visitors must quarantine for 10 days upon arrival. As for why the casinos are permitted to stay open, over 80 percent of Macao's national income comes from gambling. 

And that, believe it or not, was the news I found. There were a couple of human interest feature stories about topics such as children who lost a parent to covid, but that was about it. I expect that as we move away from the weekend, pandemic news will return, much as we might like it just to disappear. 

1 comment:

Caroline M said...

No pandemic here, instead we have a rail strike and very expensive petrol, gas and electricity. The covid dashboard is moving to weekly updates from July, "this approach reflects the move from an emergency pandemic response to living with COVID-19". It brings it in line with the weekly reporting for everything else but it's definitely a winding down.