The View from the Hermitage, Day 440

Remember the Idaho lieutenant governor who banned mask mandates while the governor was at a conference? As I expected, the governor returned and repealed the ban, calling it “an irresponsible, self-serving political stunt.” The governor noted that he opposes mask mandates because he thinks government should not tell people what to do, but he does not want to undermine separately elected officials. In case you were wondering how the two officials, both Republicans, could be in such disagreement, candidates for the two positions do not run as a ticket as in the presidential election. 

I think I mentioned a couple of days ago that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was looking into whether employers could require employees to be vaccinated and offer them rewards for getting vaccinated. The answers are affirmative in both cases. Employers can require employees to be vaccinated and can also offer incentives, including cash, to help persuade them to get that way.

When my mom got her covid vaccination, she said that pretty much all the residents at her assisted living facility were getting vaccinated, but only about a third of the staff were. About the same time, March, nearly half of frontline health care workers had not been vaccinated despite being in the first groups eligible for the vaccine. The problem persists. At a nursing home in Kentucky, an unvaccinated worker contracted covid and set off an outbreak that rose to 22 cases among residents and staff who had been fully vaccinated. One of the 22 died.

In Mexico, many doctors, dentists, and medical workers in private medicine would like to be vaccinated but can’t be. Even though more health workers have died in Mexico than any other Western hemisphere country, health workers are not high on the vaccine priority list. Teachers from both public and private schools are higher priority than private-sector physicians. “Teachers” includes bureaucrats in public education and support staff at universities. Even reporters and editors at school media outlets get vaccinated before doctors. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Mexico’s death toll exceeds 600,000, nearly triple the official figure, and the country has spent less than one percent of their Gross Domestic Product on their response to covid.

Melbourne is experiencing another outbreak; cases currently total 35. Four of those cases were linked to a food distribution driver. Midway through a four-day lockdown, they performed 56,624 test on Saturday and 47, 462 on Friday. Right now, there are over 15,000 primary and secondary contacts self-isolating. In the same hemisphere, Vietnam has warned of a new variant that spreads very quickly by air and is a combination of the India and UK variants. They’ve seen over 6,700 cases including 47 deaths, most of which have occurred since April.

Totally apart from the coronavirus, have you heard that Unidentified Flying Objects are now Unidentified Aerial Phenomena? Since UFO in QuiltLand stands for UnFinished Object, I’m open to suggestions on what UAP should stand for there.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 391

Yesterday, I mentioned that some cities here in the US were working to increase tourism by offering gift cards or money that could be spent locally. Extend that idea to countries, and you have what Malta is considering doing for foreign tourists. Those who stay at least three nights in a 5-star hotel would get 200 Euros. Half that amount would come from the Tourism Authority, and the other half, from the hotel. Staying at least three nights in a 4-star hotel would be rewarded with 150 Euros. You probably see where I'm going with this, but at least three nights in a 3-star hotel woould be rewarded with 100 Euros. If you're  concerned about safety, Malta has the highest vaccination rate in the EU: At least 42 percent of adults have had at least one vaccine dose. 

The European Medicines Agency, having looked into the possibility of a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare form of blood clotting, is now looking into a possible link between the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and blood clotting. I do not know whether the specifics of the clotting problems are the same for the two vaccines. Reports are that there have been four serious cases in the US, one of which was fatal. Three of the cases occurred during vaccine rollout, and one occurred during the clinical trial. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is not currently in use in Europe, though it has been approved for use there.

Michigan is now home to nine of the 10 metro areas with the country's highest recent case rates. The governor shut things down during previous surges, but has now asked people to take a two-week break from activities such as indoor dining, in-person high school, and youth sports. The change reflects the "shifting politics" of the pandemic. The public grows impatient with any answers that are not vaccines. Cases are rising even with one in three residents having gotten at least one vaccine dose. One in five is fully vaccinated. 

Not that it might have any impact on national defense (yeah, right), but nearly 40 percent of Marines have declined to get vaccinated. Whether this is personal preference or a distrust growing out of previous military vaccination campaigns isn't clear. Vaccines cannot be deemed mandatory until they have full authorization from the FDA. Right now, they have only emergency use authorizations. 

Possibly due to skies lacking much of the light pollution that is usually out there and more people home during the evenings, UFO reports have surged during the pandemic. Sightings doubled in New York to about 300 in 2020. Sightings rose by about 1,000 nationwide to over 7,200. There is evidently lots of UFO footage on TikTok, a claim I am not going to try to verify. I expect that there is more detail available from NUFORC, the National UFO Reporting Center. The article I read reported that one woman who had been "taken" by aliens says that she was not "abducted" but went willingly. As Dave Barry may still write, I am not making this up.

My trip down Memory Lane continues. Next to be scanned are slides from my summer study in Spain and travel in Europe in 1975. Franco was still in power in Spain then; he did not die until November 1975. I remember sitting in a garden with two other students, one of whom was Cuban-American and postulating what we would do should he die while we were still there. I'll consider it fortunate that we did not have to find out. One of the first nights I was there, I went for an evening stroll, alone, and was not prepared to see someone in uniform patrolling while carrying what appeared to be an uzi.

As I have scanned slides, I have marveled at the different places I had somewhat forgotten I have been. Last evening and this morning, I scanned slides  ranging from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Bay of Fundy, from the mountains of Montana to the farmland of Nebraska. Besides Spain and Europe in general, tomorrow, I shall scan slides taken in Hong Kong.  I am reminded just how fortunate I have been in terms of the paths on which my parents started me and then prepared me to continue on my own, and in the traveling companions I have met along the way.

 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 305

It appears that Virginia is following the national guidance to move people 65-74 or with risk factors up in terms of when they might get vaccinated against covid-19. This puts me in Virginia Group 1B rather than 1C. Given that the local county is still handling Group 1A, it will likely be a while. Still, it's nice to know I might get vaccinated sooner than expected.

In my skimming of news sites this morning, I actually had to scroll way further down to get to any coronavirus news. Between impeachment and inauguration, there wasn't much room for covid. For some impeachment humor, The Lame Duck has now been impeached more times than he has been elected to office, and the same number of times as he has lost the popular vote in a presidential election. I gather he is not laughing about any of this, which is as it should be. It had been announced that Rudy Giuliani and Alan Dershowitz would defend him in any impeachment trial, but it appears that Rudy is not in The Duck's good graces at the moment. The Duck has stopped repayment of the expenses Rudy incurred traveling around the country challenging election results. Ouch!

It appears that a couple of House of Representatives Republicans may have taken organizers of the Capitol demonstration/protest/insurrection on private tours of the Capitol the day before the shit went down. If that can be proven, it's a big thing, a very big thing. I would hope that the House would at least censure them if not impeach them. Or perhaps Justice can lay some federal charges on them.

The fact that 10 House Republicans voted for impeachment is seen positively by a lot of people. However, 93 percent of the House Republicans voted against impeachment. And two-thirds of  House Republicans voted against certifying Uncle Joe's election even after the Capitol insurrection. (I think I like the sound of that better than "riot.") And in other, wider polling, 64 percent of Republicans say that they support The Lame Duck's recent behavior. Did I put enough stress on "recent"? And 57 percent think he should be the Republican candidate for President in 2024. Only 17 percent think that he should be removed from office.

As long as we're on polling results, people were asked if they would agree that America is falling apart. I was actually a bit surprised that more Republicans agreed than Democrats, 83 percent to 78 percent. Seventy-nine percent of Independents agreed. 

Info is coming out about the events of Inauguration Day. I was particularly interested in Lady Gaga's singing the National Anthem. I really hope she doesn't glam it up as some artists do. I think it's safe to say that she won't do the Roseanne crotch grab.

As I said, it was actually difficult to wade through the politics to get to the pandemic. As evidence that it takes a while for a vaccine to be effective and/or two doses might be critical, the Representatives who got covid from hiding with unmasked colleagues had gotten their first of two vaccine doses in the two days before the insurrection. With needing a second dose comes remembering which vaccine you got. The second dose of the Pfizer vaccine should be given 21 days after the first, while for the Moderna vaccine, it's 28 days from first to second. 

In general coronavirus news, we're still fucked, possibly more than ever. There may be a variant strain of covid in the US, slightly different from the one in England. Pandemic fatigue appears to be growing. People are tired of masks and social distancing. Some will still keep practicing those, but more will toss the mask and get shoulder-to-shoulder or, worse, face-to-face with each other. That there is now a vaccine may be a factor as well. It may not matter to some that a vaccine only works after it's given (in the right dose, on the right schedule), and there's no real treatment other than treating whatever symptoms with which someone presents. 

And to take your mind off politics and pandemics, the CIA says that it has opened all its UFO documents on theblackvault.com. I'm not sure I need to clear my mind that badly ... yet.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 302

Yesterday I said I would have some photos of my infamous (well, to The Professor and Son #1) pandemic quilt. Here's the inspiration:

The Virginia Department of Health updates this chart by 10:00 every morning. It reflect numbers reported by each health district by 5:00 the evening before. I check the numbers every morning. Somewhere along the way I decided that this should be a quilt. There are limits, though, so I decided I would just do the six months between my July 1 birthday and December 31. That's 184 days, so I decided to do four days to one inch. That means the bars will take up 46 inches. The counts range from just over 500 to a ways over 5,000, so I decided to go with 50 cases to one inch. My bars will then range from 5+inches to 50+ inches.

I knew that if I tried to just sew lines, they would not be straight and while I can handle a bit of wonkiness, that would be too much. I found striped fabric with quarter-inch stripes on Etsy and have been playing around with it. Here's the current model: 

I wanted to see just how difficult the lines were going to be. I tried straight machine stitching, hand embroidery, and, finally, fancy machine stitching. The Xs above worked best. I need to go slow and not stop along the way since that bunches two Xs together. I've got a few more lines to do here, after which I'll add the yellow line that represents the seven-day rolling average number of new cases. I'll then add batting and backing and see if my idea of quilting the outline of each bar works. I also want to figure a way to mark select dates such as the first of each month and holidays. 

It may end up looking like crap and not be at all noteworthy, but it will remind me of checking the counts every morning and seeing just how much we were going to be fucked. I'll hope that the quilt names itself without using the f-word. This is unlike anything else I've done, so it will at least be an interesting challenge.

Speaking of the state health department (well, I did up near the beginning), there is now a registration system for covid vaccinations. Both The Professor and I will be in the 1C group; the health department will let us know when that is beginning locally and how to make an appointment. In terms of underlying medical conditions, asthma was listed but with the detail of "moderate to severe." Since mine is not in that range, I went with hypertension or high blood pressure. There was nothing to indicate how I would prove that, but I could always show them the prescription drug I take for it.

In news of The Lame Duck, the PGA has moved its 2022 PGA Championship (one of golf's fouir major tournaments) to somewhere other than New Jersey's Bedminster Golf Course owned by The Lame Duck. The business organization bearing The Lame Duck's surname is, as expected, upset and threatening to sue for damages to cover the work they say they've done to get the course ready. I'm glad the PGA was willing to take the risk of doing this. Once The Lame Duck flies out of office, the less attention he gets, the better.

Two oddities with which to end this post. I'll start with the coronavirus one. The covid relief bill passed in December included a clause that gives US intelligence agencies 180 days to tell Congress what they know about " unidentified aerial phenomena" otherwise known as UFOs. The article in which this gem was included ended with "A spokesperson for the Office of National Intelligence confirmed the news to the fact-checking website Scopes." So, yes, this is real even if the unidentified aerial phenomena might not be.

They found a fossil that suggests baby megalodons (giant prehistoric sharks) were as big as human adults if not bigger. There was also evidence that the species practiced oophagy, in which embryos get stronger by feeding on the unhatched eggs of siblings in the womb. "Oophagy" is pronounced oh-OFF-schwa-jee. I wasn't sure how to use the upside-down-backwards lower case e that is the character for the schwa. Besides megalodons, great white, thresher, and mako sharks practice oophagy. I now pronounce you ready to make small talk at a future social engagement.