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 View from the Hermitage, Day 288

How to avoid not writing until 7:00 in the evening? Write at 1:30 in the afternoon. Last night, I tempted readers with mention of an exploding coffee carafe. When Son #1's company closed their local office, Son #1, one of two local staff members, had to empty the office of  everything. Son #1 ended up with two coffee makers. We thought there might be a problem with our coffee maker, so Son #1 brought the two extra ones out. The Mr. Coffee was missing its carafe, and the handle on the thermal Krup carafe was broken. The Professor never gets rid of anything he thinks he might be able to fix and decided to try to repair the handle using epoxy. He got everything glued and taped into place and set the carafe aside. A while later, there was a rather loud explosion. Even with a hearing aid for one ear, I cannot localize sound, but I thought the explosion came from the kitchen. So did The Professor who was at the kitchen sink washing some dishes. My first thought was the microwave, but we hadn't been using it. No explosion there, nor was there one apparent anywhere. There were a number of gunshots outside, probably hunters breaking in their new guns, but the explosion seemed too loud to be from outside. Oh well. 

The next morning, while  Son #1 and I were out with The Family Dog, The Professor decided to check the repair on the handle of the carafe. When he unscrewed the lid to which the handle was attached, a mist of glass crystals followed the rising lid. The glass lining of the carafe had exploded. My theory is that the repair may have locked the lid tighter than it should have been, letting pressure build up, and boom! Do not try this at home, but it was an explosion worth hearing. 

In The Guardian this morning, the UK's leading psychiatrist called the novel coronavirus the "greatest  threat to mental health since the second world was." Its impact will be felt for years, and will include the time it takes to readjust once the virus is under control. The virus has also changed the social support networks of many people; those, too, will require time in which to readjust. The Washington Post this morning ran "Dreading and dreaming of returning to the office." More readjustment, especially for those who have embraced working from home. Having worked at home for most of what passed for my career, I can say that one does get a lot more work done without the coworker who stops by your desk to pass some time on her way to the ladies'.

The Guardian also contained an article on the "Trump era in 32 words and phrases." I agree with some of them more than others, and they left out two I would have included: covfefe and rino (Republican in name only). Some of the ones they got dead-on: alternative facts, American carnage, America first. bigly, Never Trumper, witch-hunt. And how dare I fail to include Javanka?

On a very different note, if you liked Spam, how would you feel about meat-free Spam? It's getting to be thing in Asia. I think I bought Spam once to show The Sons what I'd meant when I described my mom's serving Spam pizza. I don't think we artit once I'd opened the can, but I might be repressing the fact that we did.

And on another different note, scientists have discovered a new species of snake. Where did they find it? In the University of Kansas' Biodiversity Institute's collection of preserved specimens. One has never been photographed alive. In case you were worried, scientists say it is unlikely to be venomous. 

If you have the interest and time, I highly recommend an upcoming issue of The New Yorker on "The Plague Years." It lays out three moments that the US missed in the early days of the novel coronavirus, one in January, one in February, and one in March. Had any one of them not been missed, we could be in a much better place today than we are. Hindsight is always 20-20. Parts may raise your blood pressure, and you may not want to read it all in one sitting, but it is worth reading.

This morning I cancelled a medical appointment I had scheduled for next Monday. It was to check the abutment screwed into my skull and into which my hearing aid fits. The appointment was supposed to be in October but got moved to January due to the doc's schedule. I figured I could move it due to mine. I told them I would call to schedule something after I'd been vaccinated. Forty-one weeks into being a hermit, I am not going to risk even one brief exposure. That's why I'm not getting my hair cut so that it will no longer fall to cover my eyes. I give it about six more weeks until it's long enough to stay behind my ears. 

Will New Year's Eve and Day feel any different given that we're bidding adieu to a year like no other and hoping against hope that the coming one is less surprising or surprising in a positive way? As I typed that, I did think that any year is like no other. We carry each passing year with us as we felt it--the highs, the lows, the lost opportunities, and the found treasures. We each have different years of our own making. As for the coming year, it will be what it will  be.