The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 213 (713)

The new mask guidance from the CDC uses three factors to assess risk. First, how many new covid hospitalizations were there over the past week? Second, what percent of hospital beds are occupied by covid patients? Finally, how many new covid cases per 100,000 people have there been over the previous week? Under these guidelines, the county in which I live remains at high risk meaning people should wear masks in public indoor spaces. Should I feel special that fewer then 30 percent of Americans live in high-risk areas? 

The CDC also offered guidance on school mask mandates, saying that they were needed only in high-risk areas. School mandates are, at the state level, expressly banned in South Carolina and still exist in only Washington, Oregon, California, New York Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Maryland just gave school districts control over masks, ending a state mandate. I don't know if the parental control over masking going into effect in Virginia Tuesday is equivalent to a state ban; if so, South Carolina won't be lonely any longer. 

From school mask mandates to vaccination data, the New York City Department of Education has released school-level vaccination data. Over half of the city's public school students are fully vaccinated; 59 percent have gotten at least one dose. Those rates vary greatly depending on what part of the city one lives. In District 2, which covers some of the wealthiest parts of Manhattan, at least 80 percent of students have gotten at least one dose. In District 23, one of the poorest districts in the city,only 38 percent of students have gotten at least one dose. The disparity offers a real challenge in rolling back any mask mandate. Nationally, 26 percent of children ages five through 11 are fully vaccinated, as are 57 percent of students ages 12 through 17. 

And that's it on the covid front. The ongoing Russian invasion of Kuwait dominates new coverage, as well it should. The Ukranians remind me of the Viet Cong. People defending their homeland are not easily  defeated. Sort of like covid, eh?

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 206 (706)

I'll be heading out to look at sewing machines (not for me) this afternoon, so I'll just hurry around the world here.

WHO says that countries with surging caseloads may shorten the recommended quarantine time of 14 days. Are we just well ahead of the curve in the CDC's recommendation (highlights mine): 

If you test positive, you should isolate for at least 5 days from the date of your positive test (if you do not have symptoms). If you do develop COVID-19 symptoms, isolate for at least 5 days from the date your symptoms began (the date the symptoms started is day 0).

Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia will get the technology needed to make their own mRNA vaccines. The technology is one thing; a place to install it is another. I know nothing about how much space it takes to manufacture those vaccines, but if a new building is needed, it may take a while to get started.

Germany is resisting calls to speed up relaxation of restrictions citing a relatively high number of unvaccinated people over the age of 60.

Hong Kong is postponing an election to deal with covid. The government is introducing a plan under which the entire population of 7.5 million people would be tested. The current wave is the worst yet. The previous seven-day peak was 124 cases; the new peak is over 700.

Some 73 percent of Americans are estimated to have some level of immunity to Omicron, a percentage that could rise to 80 by mid-March. The White House coronavirus team says that the US is moving to a point where covid is no longer a "constant crisis."

The CDC says that the US has had over one million excess deaths during the pandemic. These would be mainly from covid but also from overwhelmed health systems and delayed medical care for conditions such as heart disease. hypertension, and Alzheimer's.

New York will not enforce the booster mandate for health care workers; too many are refusing to get the booster. If the mandate were enforced, too many workers would be gone from an already over-stressed system. There is a lot of variance between categories of health care workers, though. Overall, 75% of health care workers have gotten a booster dose. Ninety-five percent of hospice workers have gotten a booster dose, but only 51 percent of nursing home workers have,

Finally, Maine and some other states are showing huge spikes in the number of cases. This is not happening in real time. The spikes are resulting from processing a large number of as-yet-unprocessed test kits. Maine has started doing processing by machine, speeding up the analysis. The head of Maine's CDC notes, "The trends are encouraging, and the trends are favorable. In short, the bullet train that is Omicron is slowing down, and that's a good thing. But we don't let off the brakes while the train is still moving."

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 204 (704)

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when it comes to BA.2. I read things such as the one I shared yesterday and the one right here 

BA2: looks likely to get its own Greek letter as it's so different from BA1: has been found to be better at causing disease, more infectious, and better at evading immunity than BA1.  

'Risk of BA.2  for global health is potentially higher than that of BA.1' massive study says

and then read a story that comments (not for the first time) that even if BA.2 is more transmissible that the original Omicron, BA.1, it is not more lethal nor is it resistant to vaccine or natural immunity. I'd be more comfortable if states and other entities would hold off on relaxing things such as mask mandates until we know for sure whether BA.2 is worth worrying about. Re-starting such mandates will not be easy.

From the White House coronavirus response coordinator: "As a result of all this progress and the tools we now have, we are moving to a time where covid isn't a crisis but is something we can protect against and treat." This, as the CDC director hints at upcoming changes to their mask guidance, saying it will be based on measures of community transmission. hospitalization rates or other measures of severity, and available bed space in hospitals. And as the government is planning to make high-quality masks available for children as part of their plan to distribute 400 million free N95 masks. It's looking as if someone thinks we're about there.

Thirty percent of children between the ages of five and 11 have received at least one dose of vaccine. Many parents of children under five have been calling for off-label use of the vaccines because of the delay in getting federal approval. When a physician or office is given permission to vaccinate those who are eligible to be vaccinated, they agree not to use it off-label. In addition, doctors who give off-label shots can be held liable for any adverse reactions suffered by the recipients. 

A new study suggests that having covid can increase one's risk of developing mental health problems including depression, stress and adjustment disorders, cognitive problems such as brain fog, and confusion and forgetfulness. They are also 34 percent more likely to develop opioid use disorders and 20 percent more likely to develop non-opioid disorders such as alcoholism. Finally, people hospitalized for covid are more apt to have such problems than people who suffer from mild covid. Both covid groups are more apt to have such problems that people who have not been infected. 

Quickies: No covid cases were detected within the Olympics closed loop on Wednesday, the first time that has happened. Here's hoping it's not the last. Many experts caution that a drop in covid testing may be coloring global case numbers. Finally, the attorney general of Texas has sued the federal government to strike down federal mask mandates for air travelers, people at airports and passengers on commuter bus and rail systems.  

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 169 (669)

The New York Times is offering more explanation now about the numbers it's providing. They published that the over 140,000 people hospitalized with covid last week included people whose cases were discovered incidentally after they had been admitted for another reason. To get a bit more specific, four states have less than 10 percent remaining capacity in ICUs, and five other states are approaching 10 percent. Military medical teams are being dispatched to provide support to hospitals in Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island. 

Wonderful. (NOT) I just saw a headline that the Supreme Court has ruled against letting the government require that employees at large companies be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. I can't say that this surprises me; it definitely disappoints me. As might be expected the three most liberal justices dissented. I was pleased, though, that the Court is allowing a vaccine mandate for health care workers to remain in effect. I cannot see how they could have killed that mandate. If there is any single group of people who should be vaccinated, it is health care workers. Beyond getting covid themselves, they could spread it to family, friends, neighbors, and so on. What is that part of the oath doctors take? First, do no harm?

In terms of employee vaccine mandates, United Airlines reports that some 3,000 employees recently tested positive, but no vaccinated employees have been hospitalized. Before the company required employees be vaccinated, more than one employee per week was dying of covid. That sounds to me like pretty good evidence in favor of company mandates, at least for companies that want to keep an intact work force.

Knock me over with a feather, but our former president has endorsed booster shots and said that politicians who refuse to say if they have gotten one are "gutless." Before we read too much into that, it is likely that the comment was directed at Florida's governor who has refused to disclose his booster status and who is looking like a possible contender against the former president to run in 2024.

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on education at all levels. At the higher education level, total undergraduate enrollment dropped 3.1 percent from fall 2020 to fall 2021. Going back a year, the total decline since fall 2019 is 6.6 percent, or 1,205,600 students. Public two-year colleges often known as community colleges have been hit the hardest. Enrollment there is down 13.2 percent or about 706,000 students since fall 2019. The number of students seeking associate degrees at four-year schools also fell as did the number of students aged 24 and older. One bright spot is that while enrollment of first-year students is 9.2 percent lower in fall 2021 than fall 2019, the difference between fall 2020 and fall 2021 was actually in the positive direction, up about 0.4 percent or about 8,000 students. 

The Australian Open tennis tournament is responding to Omicron by capping spectators at 50 percent capacity for any match that has yet to sell 50 percent of the seats. Novak Djokovic, the top seed, was included in the draw of matches but could still be deported. It's going to be an interesting weekend leading up to the tournament's start on Monday.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 84 (584)

I am or should be embarrassed to report that yesterday's Chromebook (still unnamed) mouse problems were because the mouse had been set to be used by a southpaw. The only real times I have used my left hand instead of my right have been when my right arm or hand has been out of action. Think right rotator cuff repair, or right trigger finger repair. My fingers and toes are crossed that I don't have to add right thumb repair to that list. 

On the Eastern European front, things are not improving in Russia. They set a new record with 1,028 new cases in 24 hours. The overall death toll is now at 226,353. The Russian cabinet has suggested a non-working week, and Moscow city is urging businesses to let at least a third of their workers work remotely. A steep rise continues in Poland with over 5,000 new daily cases for the first time since May. Most were in an eastern province with one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. New cases in the Czech Republic went above 3,000 for the first time since April. Ukraine has the lowest vaccination rate in Europe; only 15 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. 

There is good news and bad news on the variant front. The good news is that it so far is not classified as a variant of concern. The bad news is that the Delta variant has mutated. The Professor has proposed calling this new variant Delta-Squared, but I don't expect the global health powers will even learn of his idea let alone implement it. I'm going to call it that here, though, so there is a clear distinction between the original Delta variant and its own variant. Delta-Squared is estimated to have caused six percent of cases in Britain in the week of September 27. It could be slightly more transmissible than Delta, but that's not at all clear yet. Delta-Squared remains rare outside of Britain but has been seen in small numbers in Denmark and the US. There has also been a case in Israel, an 11-year-old boy trying to enter the country at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.

The UK has had the highest rate of daily covid cases and deaths per million people in Western Europe. There were 223 deaths on Tuesday, the highest daily figure since March. Governmental talking heads and health experts have been debating what action or actions should be taken in response. Across the globe, it is likely that vaccinations will become compulsory for most Western Australia workers by the end of this year. 

Some US schools are trying a test-to-stay approach in which students who may have been exposed to covid may continue to attend school as long as they test negative daily. The CDC calls it a "promising practice" and is working on evaluating the strategy's effectiveness. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children's Hospital Association have declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health due to prolonged isolation, uncertainty, and grief. During the pandemic, emergency room visits for young people with mental health emergencies rose by 24 percent for ages five through 11 and by 31 percent for ages 12 through 17. The emergency room visits identified as potentially the result of a suicide attempt were up over 50 percent in early 2021 compared to the same time in 2019 among young women ages 11 through 17. The president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says, "We are caring for young people with soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness, and suicidality that will have lasting impacts on them, their families, their communities, and all our futures. We cannot sit idly by."

In Chicago, 21 police officers have been placed on leave without pay for failing to follow the city's vaccine mandate. The Washington State Patrol reports that 127 officers, some six percent of the total workforce, have left, 74 commissioned officers and 53 civilian workers. At least 150 members of the State Police Association of Massachusetts have resigned or intend to. More than a little related to law enforcement, the Homeland Security Secretary has tested positive for covid. He was fully vaccinated and so far has only mild congestion. He was "near" POTUS at an outdoor event Saturday. The depressed pessimist in my thinks that XPot (the eX-Potus) got through his case of covid but what if POTUS were to get covid and not get through. Can you imagine the mileage XPot would try to get out of such a situation? I don't want to.

As tidbits, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer rejected a request from health care workers in Maine who wanted the court to block the state's vaccine mandate based on their religious objections. And an In-N-Out (it's a burger joint) in San Francisco was temporarily shut down on October 14 because they were not checking patrons for proof of vaccination. The In-N-Out has since reopened but only for takeout. In-N-Out's corporate headquarters has said that they should not be acting as vaccine police for the city. 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 45 (545)

September 11, 2021 ... 20 years out from September 11, 2001. Many people have been posting where they were and/or what they were doing when they heard or saw the news of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. At the time I did some freelance writing, editing, and data analyzing for the county school system. I had just walked into the office of the person for whom I worked when the superintendent stuck her head in and said that the decision had been made to keep schools in session, not to close early. I asked what was going on given there were no weather alerts. They seemed surprised that I had not yet heard. Hey, I'd been taking Son #2 to school for his second period class since he spent first period at home doing distance learning. I hadn't had the television on and in the car listened to CDs not the radio. I ended up standing in line at the local Red Cross for six or seven hours to donate blood it turned out was not needed, at least not for Pentagon victims. 

There weren't many degrees of separation between here and there that day. Someone at church was a flight attendant with American Airlines; she knew several of the flight attendants who lost their lives. The sister of a teacher at Son #2's middle school was in a meeting on an upper floor of one of the towers that day; she did not make it out. There was a feeling of unity that day and in the immediate aftermath that seems light years away from today's divisions. I remember well members of Congress from both parties standing on the steps of the Capitol singing "God Bless America."If only we could view the coronavirus as the common enemy we had then.

Here in the present, Republicans are promising legal challenges to the vaccine mandates proposed by POTUS. Those mandates are based on a 51-year-old Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule that grants the government the power to protect employees from "grave dangers" at the workplace. In an email, POTUS's chief of staff referred to it as a "work-around." Ted Cruz and other Republicans say that this proves POTUS knows that the mandates are illegal. I don't want to disparage all Republicans, though, when there are Republicans such as the governor of Vermont, who had this to say: "I appreciate the president's continued prioritization of vaccination and the country's recovery as we move forward. As Vermont's experience shows, vaccines work and save lives. They are the best and fastest way to move past this pandemic." 

France's former health minister has been charged with "endangering the lives of others" for comments she made minimizing the pandemic. In January 2020, she said there was "practically no risk" and that the "risk of a spread of the coronavirus among the population is very small." I have to ask whether that's not what a lot of people in a lot of fields including some scientific ones were thinking at that time. XPot certainly made similarly dismissive statements even after it was clear that there was a real issue. I don't think we have a similar law with which to charge him, though.

Denmark is lifting all coronavirus restrictions as the vaccination rate for those ages 12 and older tops 80 percent. Covid is no longer considered a "socially critical" disease but is instead "an ordinary dangerous illness." They have had some level of restriction in place for 548 days, just a couple of day longer than I've been doing this blog. Are they loosening restrictions too soon? A virology professor at Aarhus University says, "I wouldn't say it is too early. We have opened the door but we have also said that we can close it if needed."

So will POTUS's proposed vaccine mandates help slow the pandemic? Public health experts say yes, but not in the short term. It takes at least six weeks for a two-dose vaccine to be fully effective. The dean of the Brown University School of Public Health says it will: "It's going to fundamentally shift the arc of the current surge.It's exactly what's needed at this moment." Two federal departments that already mandate vaccinations, the Department of Defense and the Veterans' Administration, say that their mandates are working, that people have been willing to get vaccinated. As for the time it will take for the mandates to have a real effect, Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard advises, "It's a lot quicker to put on a mask that it is to get a bunch of people vaccinated." Now if only the governors of Florida and Texas would listen.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 44 (544)

POTUS spoke yesterday and, while putting forth some badly needed mandates, did widen the political divide a wee bit. Top Republicans, not named in my source, are calling for a public uprising to protest the new vaccine mandates POTUS has proposed or imposed. We're already set for what I hope is not another January 6 next Saturday. I really don't want to see a second civil war added to history textbooks. The vaccine mandates proposed by POTUS would affect as many as 100 million Americans. All employers with over 100 workers would be required to have employees vaccinated. They would have to compensate employees for time taken off work to get the vaccination. Non-compliance would result in thousands of dollars in fines. Workers at medical facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid payments must be fully vaccinated. Finally, all employees of the executive branch as well as contractors who do business with the federal government must be vaccinated. Will this work or is it, as some health experts said, too little, too late? POTUS also wants to double the federal fines for no wearing masks on planes or on federal property. He'd also like to see entertainment venues and arenas require vaccinations or proof of a negative test.

While the above might well be too little, too late, current numbers say we have to do something and do it  strongly and soon. (I wish "soonly" were a word.) Compared to the same time last year, new cases per day are up 300 percent along with 2.5 times more hospitalizations and twice the number of deaths. Looking back 20 years, we're seeing covid deliver the death toll of 9/11/2001 every two days.Every. Two. Days. The Washington Post and The New York Times must use different sources for their daily numbers, but both are bad. The Post says there were 162,020 new cases yesterday and 3,300 deaths. The Times reports 170,460 cases and 3,231 deaths. Dr. Fauci is reminding us that to tame the pandemic, those case numbers need to get below 10,00 per day on a consistent basis. I read the following in the coronavirus checker email I get each morning from The New York Times and started to list all the people I know who have had covid (no one I know has died of it ... yet): "Since January of last year, at least 1 in 8 people who live in the United States have been infected, and at least 1 in 505 people have died."

Onto something other than numbers, I don't think The Professor would do well if he taught at the University of Delaware. There, if a student tells a professor that they had a positive covid test, the professor is not allowed to tell the rest of the class that they may have been exposed. Instead, they should tell students that "given the current incidence of Covid-19 on campus, we should assume that we may have contact with individuals who are shedding Covid-19, perhaps unknowingly." Also, the university will not tell professors if a student in one of their classes has tested positive. Professors must rely on students to tell them the student was positive with covid. That's certainly not how I'd want The Professor to be treated. Ignorance is so not bliss in this respect.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 22 (522)

Covid hospitalizations in the US are hitting record highs for all age groups under 50. The most affected groups are people ages 30-39 and people under 18. Both of these groups are more than 30 percent over their previous peaks. Overall hospitalization numbers are rising but still below the highest numbers, those from January. If the numbers keep increasing at the same rate, though, there could be a new all-time record number of hospitalizations in just a month. Florida, Arkansas, Oregon, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Mississippi have all set pandemic records for hospitalizations in recent weeks. Alabama has no more ICU beds. Wednesday night, there were "negative 29" ICU beds available. People are waiting in emergency room hallways until there is an opening. Arkansas is getting close to their capacity. 

All teachers and school personnel including volunteers at all schools--public, private, and charter--in Washington State will need to be vaccinated as a condition of employment. This is the strictest state-level mandate set so far. There is a deadline of October 18 after which those not complying will face possible dismissal. There is no regular testing alternative. Exceptions will only be made for legitimate medical reasons and "sincerely held religious beliefs." So, how are "sincerely held religious beliefs" verified? Regular attendance at some house of worship belonging to a denomination not amenable to medical care? A letter from your pastor? Would Pastafarians qualify?

The White House is fighting back on the bans of mask mandates in schools. The Secretary of Education says that he will deploy the Education Department's civil rights enforcement arm to investigate states that block universal masking. Letters have been sent to the governors of Florida, Texas, Arizona, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah admonishing their efforts to ban mask mandates. Perhaps more frightening than a ban on mask mandates is Florida's governor saying that the decision to quarantine children should be left up to the parents. It was one thing when he said that passing someone in the hall should not count as exposure, but when he mentioned that parents could opt out of quarantining their kids because of exposure within a classroom, it's a good thing he was not in the room with me. 

The clear plastic barriers in stores, restaurants, and other potentially crowded places actually do little to stop the spread of the virus. They do not allow exhaled particles to disperse. They change the airflow in the room, disrupt normal ventilation, and create "dead zones" where particles can build up and become highly concentrated. If we use partitions again at the polls in November, maybe I should exhale to the side.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 20 (520)

It looks as if they'll be recommending booster shots eight months after the second Pfizer or Moderna shots or the only Johnson & Johnson shot. It seems that the vaccines will need full approval for this to happen. Assuming it does, my booster would be in mid-December. All I want for Christmas is my covid booster? I'll try not to think of how little those boosters will lessen Re.

The Delta variant continues to be most troublesome. One in five US ICUs is full to 95 percent capacity. This means there better not be a bad vehicular accident, purposeful or accidental shooting, or anything else that might require intensive care. There may not be a bed at the inn, er, in intensive care. Even regular-care beds are filling up. One Miami hospital that had 70 covid patients around the first of July now has over 300. Texas has asked the federal government to send five mortuary trucks. Covid cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all still rising. Texas officials say that the trucks have been requested as a "precaution" to which I say, "Yeah, right." In Mississippi, a 30- to 50-bed field hospital is being set up in a parking garage. Health officials say that a "failure of the hospital system in Mississippi" is imminent.

A former assistant secretary for health under XPot (if you're new here, XPot is the ex-POTUS), a pediatrician, says that the US could soon reach a true number of about 500,000 new cases daily, which would mean 50 to 100 thousand Americans will get long covid. Child cases have increased steadily since the beginning of July. During the August 5 to 12 week, there were 121,427 child cases.

New Zealand has discovered its first locally transmitted covid case since February, resulting in a three-day nationwide lockdown. Auckland and an area the infected person recently visited will be locked down for seven days. There is a definite plus side to being an island nation, especially a relatively small one.

On the mandate front, 69 percent of adults polled support school mask mandates. Breaking that down by political preference, 92 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents, and 44 percent of Republicans support the mandates. In terms of state prohibition of local mask mandates, 57 percent of Republicans support the bans while 16 percent of Democrats don't.

The mandate situation is proving to be a hot issue for higher education as well as K-12. While over 500 universities nationwide have vaccine mandates, many more do not. The Penn State faculty senate passed a resolution expressing "no confidence" in the university's plan to bring students back without a vaccine mandate. According to the university president, the decision was based or blamed on "political realities." Of the 71 percent of students who responded to a recent survey, 83 percent said they'd been vaccinated. You can do the math on that one.

At least Penn State has a mask mandate which is better than Clemson University in South Carolina. Yes, South Carolina, a state prohibiting both mask and vaccine mandates. Some Clemson faculty say that the university administration should push back and tell the state that as a university, Clemson needs to "follow the science." Clemson faculty will protest on the first day of classes calling for at least a mask mandate. Last spring's mask mandate was not carried over to this fall. It seems that Clemson has asked students to protect themselves from Delta by wearing masks, but few masks were to be seen at freshman convocation. For the transfer student convocation, masks were placed on every seat, and most were worn. 

Mississippi State faculty are concerned that only 52 percent of the student body there reports having been vaccinated. Some professors have requested remote learning until at least the Delta variant is brought under control. The Professor has not reported hearing of concerns from fellow faculty members at the local university. Said university does have a vaccine mandate, and close to 95 percent of students report having been vaccinated along with 93 percent of the faculty and staff. The mask mandate will be re-evaluated on September 6 and dropped or renewed as the situation requires. 

It seems that in many cases, we're still making it all up as we go along. Or maybe it's that the Road keeps turning unexpectedly as it goes on and on. I wonder how many people would claim to have been bored by the past year and a half.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 9 (509)

Vaccine and mask mandate stories abound. United Air will require all 67,000 US employees to get vaccinated. The governor of New Jersey will announce a mask mandate for public K-12 schools; the governor of Illinois has already said that all school districts must impose mask mandates. Four large school districts in Florida say that they will defy their governor's ban on mask mandates. A similar situation is unfolding in Arizona. And the president of the US's most powerful teachers' union has signaled her openness to vaccine mandates for teachers. 

While the Pfizer vaccine may have full FDA approval by September, it is not yet clear when some vaccine will be cleared for kids under the age of 12. Says an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, "You can't control how they interact and touch each other. If there's a virus, kids will take it home." If your kids are grown, remember all the fall colds they would bring home from school? Yeah, that's a coronavirus, too.

A vaccine mandate for the US Armed Forces likely will not fly until at least one vaccine has full FDA approval. Things did not go well some 20 years ago when troops were required to be vaccinated with an anthrax vaccine that had not yet gotten full approval. The rationale behind requiring troops to be vaccinated is that accommodating unvaccinated troops would limit who can be selected for deployment. A former Air Force staff sergeant who is now a radiology tech in an Emergency Room explains, "We have to have healthy people in the military to carry out missions, and if the covid-19 vaccine achieves that, that's a very positive thing." The biggest challenge should vaccines be mandated will be scheduling shots around training.

France will join Germany in administering booster shots to older and more vulnerable people as no consensus exists among scientists on the need for such boosters. The WHO director remains against such shots saying that the world can't "accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it." The German health ministry responds, "We want to provide the vulnerable groups in Germany with a preventive third vaccination and at the same time support the vaccination of as many people in the world as possible." Germany will thus donate at least 30 million doses to countries where vaccination campaigns are lagging. 

The US seven-day average for hospitalizations is up over 40 percent from a week before. Seven states that represent less than a fourth of the US population account for half of new infections and hospitalizations: Florida, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Mississippi had only eight ICU beds available yesterday and over 1,147 people hospitalized with covid. Here's hoping this reverses as more people get vaccinated. There were more shots given in a single day since July3, 864,000 doses. Of these, 585,000 were first shots. Tennessee has seen a 90 percent increase in first shots over the past two weeks. Oklahoma has seen an 82 percent increase, while Georgia has seen an increase of 66 percent. Demand for shots in Louisiana has nearly quadrupled in recent weeks. Slowly but surely, are we getting there? I hope so, but the pandemic has taught me not to count my chickens too early, get my hopes up too high, or otherwise count on something possible while a negative looms off-stage.

Going back to work remains in limbo for many if not most people. There are also parents who would like to go back to work who say that they can't given the uncertainty about children returning safely to school full-time or child care.

I read one article today that described four areas in which our understanding of covid has changed. The first is how covid spreads. In the early days, the main advice was to wash hands and disinfect surfaces that might be touched. Fomite transmission turned out to pale against the aerosol transmission now known to be the principal means of covid spread. Second is, what else, masks. While they were not recommended early on, once the aerosol spread became clear and the medical people had all the masks they needed, masks began to be seen as essential to just us folks. Third is the nature of the disease itself. Early on, covid-19 was seen as a respiratory infection. Now, we have seen its involvement in blood clots, brain inflammation, delirium, stroke, heart abnormalities, and liver and kidney damage. Finally, it was not originally known--or suspected--that there could be so many asymptomatic cases. Now, we accept that one in three covid patients is asymptomatic and can still transmit the disease. This may well be what scares me most about covid--its spread by asymptomatic carriers. How many Typhoid Marys have we had out there?

And to make most of the readers of this blog feel better, thank your lucky stars or the gods and goddesses that you don't live in Grand Prairie, Texas. Someone's pet venomous West African banded cobra got out of its enclosure and has been on the loose since Tuesday. Authorities advise not trying to catch it should you come across it. I can't believe they even think most people would try to catch it, but I know that there are people who would. Me? I might well be on my way out of town until it's located. 

 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 8 (508)

The known total of global covid cases is now over 200 million. Think it's going away anytime soon? The second 100 million cases happened in half the time of the first 100 million. The global total for deaths is now at 4.2 million. Note that both of these figures are surely undercounts. More of the deaths have been in the US than any other country, some 614,000. Give Brazil credit for 550,000 and India, for 425,000. Mexico with 240,000 and Peru with 200,000 fill out the top five. Britain, Colombia, France, Italy, and Russia have each had over 100,000 deaths.

Sydney remains locked down until at least August 28. Victoria just entered a new seven-say lockdown after eight new cases were discovered, with five that could not immediately be linked to known cases. Ibiza, known as Spain's party island, is looking for young private detectives ages 30 to 40 to find illegal parties before they start and tip off the police. If you're thinking what a good job this might be, they only want professional detectives, not amateur ones. 

After the WHO director's comments on first-world nations stopping booster shots until third-world ones have had a chance to get 10 percent of their population vaccinated, Dr. Fauci made a distinction between booster shots and additional doses of vaccine. Some groups, such as the immunocompromised, may need larger doses of vaccine for adequate protection, so their third shot would not be a booster as much as simply a third shot.

So far, they've tied about 500 cases of covid to the Milwaukee Bucks' winning the NBA championship. People shouting and cheering inside what looked to be a full arena and at watch parties outside not to mention a victory parade gave covid many, many opportunities to spread. Fifty-two percent of Wisconsin residents are fully vaccinated. The New York Auto Show scheduled for August 20-29 has been canceled. I wonder what other large-scale events might follow.

The New Jersey governor had some sharp words for the unvaccinated: "You've lost your minds. You are the ultimate knuckleheads. And because of what you are saying and standing for, people are losing their life."

More businesses are issuing vaccine mandates or offering bonuses to employees who get vaccinated. Pfizer will require all US workers and contractors to be vaccinated or tested weekly. Vanguard is offering a $1,000 reward to fully vaccinated employees. Tyson Foods says that vaccination is now a condition of employment for all US workers, and is offering $200 to front-line workers who verify that they are fully vaccinated. On the mask mandate front, the United Auto Workers and several auto companies have said that all auto workers will be required to wear masks at unionized plants, offices, and warehouses. This would include fully vaccinated workers.

The description of current covid sufferers is "younger, quicker, sicker." In California, case counts of millenials ages 18 to 34 have climbed faster than any other age bracket. They're 554 percent above the rate for millenials in a comparable two-week period in early June. Over the same period, cases for people ages 35 to 49 rose by 479 percent, while cases for people ages 65 to 79 rose by 222 percent. Some experts say that the high rates for millenials are a result of lower vaccination rates; others couple that with a devil-may-care, it's-not-going-to-hurt-me attitude. 

Here's a fact to drop into a conversation sometime. In 2020, 6,707 Americans renounced their US  citizenship, up 237 percent over 2019. Most people renouncing American citizenship are ultra-wealthy. Evidently, only the US and Eritrea tax people based on citizenship rather than residency. If you're an ultra-wealthy American and don't mind living abroad, your tax bill can be cut. An international tax lawyer based in Poland who specializes in helping people renounce their US citizenship says that there are likely to be another 20,000 or 30,000 people who want to renounce but can't get an appointment to do so. The wait for an appointment at the Canadian embassy is now a year and a half. Bern, Switzerland has a backlog of more than 300 cases.

The governor of Virginia did a covid press conference this afternoon. Early in the pandemic, he did them daily; I don't think they're on any regular schedule now. His big announcement was issuing a vaccine mandate for state employees. They need to verify their vaccination status by September 1 or submit negative test results weekly. I watched the press conference using Facebook, meaning that I had a running stream of comments to the right of the conference screen. More appeared to be negative than positive, but perhaps the positive people were busy working or doing something else, not sitting in front of a computer or television. Some comments were downright scary. One person equated getting a vaccination with being raped. Someone else asked if the vaccines work, then why hasn't covid gone away. Multiple people urged state workers to walk out. Several people also suggested border closures because that's how the virus is getting in. One person went so far as to say that the troublesome border was the one with West Virginia.

The Olympics close on Sunday. I must admit I am surprised at the low numbers of Olympics-related cases being cited. I wonder what might show up a week or two after everyone has gone home, though with the Paralympics coming later this month, there may be a number of people staying. Pandemics sure do keep us guessing.