The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 197 (697)

Someone asked a while back, a long while back I think, how long I intended to keep this doing this daily blog. One of my replies was until WHO declared the pandemic over. We may be getting there sooner than I thought. WHO's regional director for Africa just said, "The pandemic is moving into a different phase. We think that we're moving now, especially with the vaccination expected to increase, into what might become a kind of endemic living with the virus." WHO's regional director for Europe says that continent could soon enter a "long period of tranquility." Mandates and restrictions are dropping almost like flies here in the US, though this hasn't convinced the CDC that they should be. 

Cases are dropping in the US but somewhat unevenly, with an overall 61 percent drop in the per capita case number over the last two weeks. Deaths are still rising, but the rate is slowing. Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia reported their highest number of cases in mid- to late January. Average deaths are high in California, Florida, and Washington. In fact, Washington has reported more deaths in the past week than in any other seven-day period in the pandemic. Washington is also ending its outdoor mask mandate and could set a date to end their indoor mask mandate next week. 

Of course, saying that things are back to normal and mask mandates, no longer needed will make the vaccine-hesitant more vaccine-resistant. If things are back to normal and no one needs a mask, then why should people get vaccinated? In my humble opinion, things are not back to normal. Dr. Fauci has said that the pandemic's being under control would mean 10,000 cases per day in the US. Right now, we're over 200,000 per day. 

The pandemic is seeing more and more college students drop out. Retention is generally measured by how many first-year students return for a second year. At least that is the most common spot for students to drop out. Some 2.6 million students started college in fall 2019. Community colleges saw a 3.5 percent drop from 2019 to 2020. That looks good when the overall rate was 26.1 percent or some 679,000 students.

A couple of quickies. The pandemic has caused a migration of rats from restaurants to houses as they follow the food. There were a record-high 12,638 complaints to the District of Columbia's hot line for reporting insect or rodents problems. Calls are up 130 percent since 2017. Prince Charles is isolating after testing positive. He is fully vaccinated and boosted and also had covid before, in March 2020. He did meet with the queen recently, but so far she is testing negative. In terms of something you may not want to learn, Charles's pet name for Camilla is Mehabooba which means "darling" or "beloved" in Urdu.

The Road goes ever on and on --- Day 196 (696)

The truck protests continue across Canada--Quebec City, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver--and around the world--Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps the US in the near future. The original Canadian one started to protest a requirement that drivers entering Canada be fully vaccinated or face testing and possibly quarantine. It has grown to the point of demanding an end to all health restrictions including mask and vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and capacity limits. The numeric growth of the protest is staggering. The Ottawa police chief offered, " The oath of office that I and my officers swore was never intended to deal with a city under siege, a threat to our democracy, a nationwide insurrection driven by madness. We do not have sufficient resources to adequately and effectively address this situation while adequately, effectively providing policing in this city." Potential hate crimes connected to the protest are under investigation.

Because the demands have widened to include the national response to the pandemic, the prime minister commented, "This pandemic has sucked for all Canadians." Finding this quote made my morning. Can you imagine Uncle Joe getting away with such a line here? The Professor noted that our previous president would never, ever have uttered such a line. It would have been to the effect that this pandemic has sucked for him personally.

The world went over 400 million covid cases Tuesday, probably a drastic undercounting. We only passed 300 million cases a month ago. At the start of the pandemic, it took over a year--from late 2019 to January 2020--to hit 100 million cases. Seven months later, that had doubled to 200 million; six months after that, cases had doubled again, to the current 400 million. 

Some Asian countries are now seeing surges in response to the recent Lunar New Year holiday. South Korea recorded almost 50,000 cases Wednesday, up about 13,000 from the day before. Cases have more than doubled in Singapore and are up more than fivefold in Hong Kong. Cases in Indonesia are up more than elevenfold. 

Massachusetts has joined the states relaxing or removing mask mandates. The Massachusetts school mask mandate has been lifted as of the end of this month. The school mask mandate in New York is set to expire in two weeks; whether it will be extended is open to question. In the meantime, the indoor mask mandate has been dropped, and businesses are no longer required to check for proof of vaccination. 

In addition to the relaxation of mask and capacity mandates, today's news contains more than several references to the pandemic's winding down or becoming endemic. Dr. Fauci says that the US is exiting "the full-blown pandemic phase" and that decisions on restrictions will more and more be made locally. As for the pandemic becoming endemic, it should be noted that "endemic" does not mean "end." There is a very interesting article from The Atlantic on endemicity here. If you choose not to read it, here are some of the highlights. Endemicity says nothing about a total number of infected people in a given time period nor how severe those infections will be. Nor does it define how much death or disability will result. There is no guarantee that life will return to pre-pandemic normalcy. Endemic disease can be innocuous or severe and it can be common or rare. The key characteristic is that there is some predictability in the average number of people who get and transmit infection in a set time period.

You say toe-may-toe, and I say toe-mah-toe. You say en-dem-ick, and I say pan-dem-ick. Are we there yet? I don't think so, though I will concede that we are getting closer. I might be more positive had I not gotten the news that there have been or are a total of ten new covid cases at the assisted living facility where my mom lives. So far, symptoms are none or very mild. Since that outbreak was not anticipated, I'd say we're still working our way to a crystal ball that offers the predictability mentioned above.