The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 168 (668)

Researchers have, not surprisingly, considered the changes the pandemic may have brought to our lifestyles. To get a handle on this, they're looking at Google searches. Since the pandemic started, there have been more searches for hair, nail, and skin care products; lounge wear; massages; office products; toys and games; and (you knew it was coming, right?) alcohol. Some items had search histories that peaked then fell back to normal; two examples are bleach and paper towels. Finally, searches for daily items such as eggs or pet food have remained at pre-pandemic levels. 

Remember the WHO official who said that half of Europeans would get covid in the next month or two? Dr. Fauci said that Omicron is likely to "find just about everybody," but people who have been vaccinated and boosted with do "reasonably well." As for the unvaccinated, the current CDC estimate is that one in five Americans has not been vaccinated. That's about 65 million people.

Our new order of N95 masks arrived today. My supply of KN95 masks was dwindling. I'd agree with what one writer noted which is that any mask is better than no mask, but you should wear the best mask available that you can afford. The cloth masks I got or made early on are certainly cute, but I haven't worn one of them probably in about a year. The other mask advice I happened on is that if your glasses fog, your mask is not tight enough. That's the first thing I check any time I put a mask on. 

Various sectors of our daily lives are reflecting the people-drain that is Omicron. Schools or classes going virtual due to too many teachers being out side. Flights being cancelled because too many crew members are out sick. Hours are cut at retail establishments including even pharmacies because of staff shortages. The Red Cross has declared a national blood crisis for the first time ever. It's not that health care is using up more blood but that people just aren't donating now. POTUS says he wants to keep schools and businesses open, but it's not clear how easy that will be.

North of the border, Quebec is imposing a "health contribution" tax on unvaccinated residents, about 10 percent of the provincial population. Quebec did see a surge in vaccination bookings when the announcement was made that customers in cannabis shops and liquor stores would need to show proof of vaccination. Says an infectious disease specialist at McGill University, "I'm not going to mince words: things are bad right now when it comes to hospitalizations. Every time there's a ceiling, in terms of hospital capacity, the hospitalization rate breaks through that ceiling."

Influenza, coronavirus, common cold, allergies. (There's a certain rhythm there.) Telling one from another may be difficult, particularly influenza versus coronavirus. The symptoms are so similar and spread in similar fashion. Both can spread before symptoms develop. Flu symptoms usually arise one to four days after being infected. Covid symptoms usually arise after about five days but could start from two to 14 days. Loss of smell or taste means covid, not flu. Common cold symptoms tend to be mild; in particular, there usually won't be aches or fever. If one's eyes, nose, or ears itch, the cause could be allergies. Usually, the flu starts to increase in October and peaks between December and February. It is possible to have two viruses at the same time. One article referred to "flurona," and now I can't get "My Sharona" out of my head. 

Following up on my broken nose and septum, it's all good. That means I try not to hit it again before things finish doing whatever healing they need to do. I got the stitches out, but it will still be a while before I can wear my glasses as high on my nose as I did before the fall.

And did you miss the case, hospitalization, and death counts? The numbers surrounding the coronavirus were recently called a "data disaster." I've mentioned some of that here in recent posts. I'm going to try to not use numbers in any specific way as we move forward. We'll never know the true extent of the novel coronavirus, so we might as well just concentrate on coping the best we can.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 162 (662)

Living in the country means water from a well which means there is a pump dependent upon electricity to remain functional. Once the power goes out, the number of toilet flushes possible plummets as does the supply of drinking water not to mention water that can be heated to make coffee. We were lucky this time around. Son #1 never lost power in town and was able to bring hot coffee in the morning and large containers of water for flushing toilets beginning to smell like porta-a-potties. Power went out about 10:00 Monday morning and returned Wednesday afternoon about 3:00. How the power grids are laid out here is not at all predictable. We have friends living just a bit more than a mile away who have been told they will not have power until Monday. We've also been told there will be more snow falling tonight. Fingers crossed that it is not the wet heavy kind of snow that on Monday took down all the trees that took down all the power cables. 

I followed a bit of pandemic news on my phone, but did not want to run the phone's battery too far down since that was my line to the world outside not to mention the assisted living facility in which my mom lives. I also did not want to type anything lengthy using the phone's keyboard. The more things changed in three days, the more they stayed the same. 

Particularly noticeable this morning was an article about the growing numbers of pediatric covid cases. In the week ending December 23, there were over 325,000 new pediatric cases, a 64 percent increase over the previous week and double the week before that. With the increase in cases, more children are being admitted to hospitals. As of January 2, an average of 672 children were being hospitalized every day, double the average of a week earlier. Keep in mind that children under the age of five are unvaccinated and not by choice. 

A doctor at a children's medical center in Indiana reported that over half the children they have hospitalized have had to spend time in intensive care with at least 40 percent of those needing to have been put on ventilators. Comments, descriptions, and quotes from doctors or officials in other states include New York, kid rates have quadrupled; Washington, DC, kid rates have doubled; Texas, "staggering;" Alabama, "like a rocket ship;" Louisiana, "we've never seen anything like it;" and Ohio, "we're on fire." There was a similar surge in pediatric cases in South Africa, far surpassing those in earlier waves. 

On January 5, there were 716,824 new cases, a 94.8 percent increase over seven days. There were 119,548 people in hospitals and 21,210 people in ICUs. The hospitalization figure is on its way to surpass the figure from early January 2021 when there were no readily available vaccines. The numbers from cases per 100,000 people don't look very good either. Only Maine was showing a decline; cases there were down 16 percent from the previous week. New Jersey showed an increase of 239 percent. Other states with per capita cases increasing over 150 percent were New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, Florida, and Louisiana. 

Nothing but numbers! In other coronavirus news, the CDC has approved booster vaccinations for chilren between the ages of 12 and 17 at least five months after their second dose of Pfizer or Moderna or two months after their dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Vaccination rates among children continue to lag, though. Only nine percent of children ages five to 11 have been vaccinated, along with 51 percent of those ages 12 to 15. Tennis player Novak Djokovic thought he had a medical exemption from tennis officials and the state of Victoria to compete in the Australian Open starting in a bit more than a week. The federal government canceled his visa when he arrived, saying that the medical exemption he had been granted was not official. He is currently spending time in a quarantine hotel room while his representatives contest his possible deportation. 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 102 (602)

A federal court has temporarily blocked POTUS's vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees. This might raise a Constitutional issue. Who has the authority in this case? A Labor Department official claims that OSHA's authority trumps that of the states, but is that correct? Reading about the court action immediately brought the tenth amendment to the US Constitution to mind:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So, is the right to issue such a mandate one that would be delegated by the Constitution, because unless it is, it sounds as if each state can do as they please. There is the phrase "nor prohibited by it to the States" in there. If the Constitution does not grant this particular power to the federal government, does it say that the states can't do it? 

Today seems to be a Number Day, or perhaps there just wasn't any new news. On Saturday, there were 411,296 cases and 6,306 deaths worldwide. The most deaths were recorded in Russia (1,179), India (506), and Ukraine (449). Over the course of the pandemic, cases and deaths break down as follows:

                                                        Cases                           Deaths

United States                               46,461,779                    754,279

Brazil                                           21,874,324                    609,388

India                                             34,355,536                    460,791

Mexico                                          3,825,404                     289,674

Russia                                            8,795,095                     246,814

Peru leads the world in deaths per capita with 608 deaths per 100,000 people. Following Peru are Bulgaria with 359, Bosnia Herzegovina with 357, the Republic of North Macedonia with 346, Montenegro with 342, and Hungary with 323. After Peru, it's all eastern European countries that are lagging behind other European countries in terms of vaccinations.

How are deaths and cases spread over continents or regions of the world? The developed areas really are being hit harder than the developing countries.

Latin American & Caribbean

    Deaths:        1,525,388

    Cases:        46,084,819

Europe

    Deaths:        1,424,434

    Cases:        76,202,176

Asia

    Deaths:        876,875

    Cases:        56,130,911

US & Canada

    Deaths:        783,411

    Cases:        48,189,463

Africa

    Deaths:        219,336

    Cases:        8,531,449

Mideast

    Deaths:        209,980

    Cases:        14,024,411

Oceania

    Deaths:        2,906

    Cases:        267,951

Australia

    Deaths:        1,597

    Cases:        just over 180,000

Things are looking up in Australia. Sydney is loosening more restrictions. Fully vaccinated people have no limits on house guests or outdoor gatherings. Cases are down in Victoria. The Northern Territory is about to end a snap lockdown it issued to deal with a small outbreak. Some 80 percent of the country is fully vaccinated. Western Australia will re-open with it reaches 90 percent fully vaccinated. 

Now, in the spirit of the approval of vaccinations for children between the ages of five and 11, a tweet from Big Bird:

I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it'll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.

Ms. @EricaRHill even said I've been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!

In the spirit of the times, though, the tweet has already drawn criticism claiming that Sesame Street should not be political. I try not to get discouraged about such comments, but it's easier some days than others. 

Finally, a reader remembered my comments some months ago on picking out new curtains to go with the same furniture we've always had. Just as I tell people that I do not make heirloom quilts, I do not stage my house. Ease and functionality rule here. The grommeted curtains are so easy to open and close, and the blackout backing on the curtains means we do not also need shades for insulation. Here are the dining and living rooms.

There was also a question about the room filled floor to ceiling with furniture. I'll try to remember to take a shot of it tomorrow. The furniture has been replaced by boxes that don't go quite as high as the furniture did. Most of the contents of those boxes belong to The Sons who say they will go through them someday. I I need to warn them that someday I may want the space in that room and will deal with the boxes myself. Someday will come one way or another.

The road goes ever on and on ... Day 18 (518)

I descended from the upstairs this morning and checked my news feed only to see video of helicopters flying between the US embassy in Kabul and the airport and the news that the Taliban had surrounded the city. I can't get Saigon 1975 out of my mind. The helicopter on the roof of the US embassy leaving scores of Vietnamese behind. That news wasn't enough, though. There are schools going virtual after less than two weeks of in-person instruction. There's research coming out of Finland suggesting that fully vaccinated people can get and transmit covid even when fully masked. Finally, the Ivory Coast has confirmed its first Ebola case since 1994.

After the morning dog-walk, it was time to check out the local and the Washington papers. The day got even better (said sarcastically). Here are the headlines from pages 4 and 5 of the local paper:

• Were 20 years in Afghanistan worth it? / Many US lives were lost, but Taliban now poised to regain rule.
• Afghan women fear return to 'dark days'
• Taliban siege continues / Biden deploys 1,000 more troops to Kabul to aid in evacuation
• Death toll climbs to at least 57 / Authorities dispute social media reports of hundreds still missing (flooding in Turkey)
• At least 304 killed as 7.2 magnitude quake hits Haiti
• COVID-19 claiming more young victims
• 50 sent to hospitals in NY bus crash

There were also some short blurbs with no headlines. These concerned:

• Wildfires out west
• Heat wave in Europe
• School shooting in New Mexico
• Flooding in West Texas
• Storms in the Atlantic
• Attack on a wedding in Pakistan 

I wasn't sure I could handle any more bad news until I looked at the Outlook section of this morning's Washington Post. I won't say this article was good news, but it had me happily punching numbers into the calculator on my phone only to be telling The Professor that we really are fucked. I'm something of a numbers nerd, and this gave me something to play with. Remember R0 (arr-naught), the number of  new people one contagious person infects? Meet Re (arr-eee), the number of new people a single person infects accounting for precautions being taken and overall immunity levels. Here's the bad news about the Delta variant: Even with full 100 percent immunity (everyone is fully vaccinated) and using 85 percent effectiveness (what the drug manufacturers say holds against Delta), Re is still greater than one. Booster shots aren't worth it in terms of lowering Re under one. Using the current 50 percent of fully vaccinated people, Re approaches five. As the authors put it, "So with half the population in the United States vaccinated, the delta variant is still more infectious that the original variant was last year."

Have a good rest of the weekend. I plan to try to.