Day #337 ...TGIF...although the days blur
Feb. 19th, 2021 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSnowstorm continued today with little to no accumulation but was rather pretty.
I'm tired, didn't sleep well last night and had heart burn today. Also a bit congested from allergies.
I miss the days in which I was just worried about allergies. Although I did read that strict measures to keep COVID at bay also managed to do away with the flu season.
Crazy Company and the COVID Vaccine.
So Crazy Company has been given doses of the vaccine to set up its own vaccine sites. (It also has its own medical staff assigned to it.) The President's office was tasked with scheduling appointments. I received emails from it and our Procurement Manager. I responded to both, and the President's office set me up with an appointment. Only one problem, they had conflicting addresses.
Me: Is it 180 Livingston Street or 130 Livingston Plaza?
F: Apologies - it is 130 Livingston Plaza.
[I google. There is no Plaza, Street yes, Plaza no.]
Me: There is no Plaza.
F: Oh yeah, sorry it looks like a Plaza to me so I say its a Plaza. But it is a street.
Me: Thanks. I googled and it came out as Street, there are no plazas, hence the question.
F: No worries. Thanks for telling me. I'll remember to tell everyone when setting up appointments - last we need is more confusion.
Also, according to yet another email, this one from Gabe in response to Chidi's question yesterday...
"You get two hours of standard pay for the first dose, and two hours standard pay for taking the second dose - once it is in the system. Four total."
ME: So, now Crazy Company is paying me to get a vaccine that millions are struggling to get?
Mother: Don't question it - just go with it.
ME: Yeah, yeah... I'm not But still.
Mother: They are most likely trying to get the slackers and folks who don't want to - to take it. Money talks louder than fear sna stupidity.
She's not wrong. Although very grateful to be with Crazy Company at the moment. I'll get the vaccine because of them - and get paid for it.
New York vs. the Corona Virus or rathe The Governor vs. the idiotic Reporters
Watched the Governor's live briefing today - where he and his staff address the nursing home debacle or the Reporters inability to understand the nursing home situation and so they turned it into a debacle. Sigh. I don't know why the Reporters didn't get it. He basically reiterated what I already knew. And they've been stating it for months now - but various politicians and enemies of the governor keep putting political and marketing spin on it - along with the private nursing homes (who are culpable.)
What happened? Dr. Zucker calmly and patiently explained it. Apparently they ran out of hospital beds so they sent people who had recovered from COVID home to the nursing homes. Also in some cases the nursing homes kept people that couldn't go to the hospitals.
As mother stated, where she is, the nursing homes would quarantine or sequester the COVID patients from the rest of the inhabitants. That's the protocol. It's not to remove the COVID patients from the nursing homes. Or for that matter leave people in the hospitals until it's clear they don't have it.
Dr. Zucker explained if they left the people in the hospital - people would be upset that they hadn't freed up the beds.
Cuomo of course attacked the media (social and otherwise) - stating he doesn't read Twitter. (I rarely do, I kind of flirt with it. Why? Oh it is basically a gossip line. There's so much misinformation on it - it's not even funny, and the evil marketing folks hang out on it. It's also very fast. Reminds me chat.] And that from now on, he was going to be more aggressive and fight back. Also, he was going to write up a new law that forced the private nursing homes to put more money towards patient's health, and to sequester them.
I don't think the private nursing homes are going to get out of this one well. They were a bit dumb. They whined to the meda - stating more died than was counted and they were forced to handle COVID cases - and now, they are finding out that they were wrong, that they weren't forced to do anything, and they should have had measures in place - others do.
The other problem is the supply of the vaccine.
Reporters: The Mayor thinks that the vaccine is being delayed by the State.
Governor: We're guessing the Mayor is probably confused. [Pause] No, that's most likely a fair and truthful assessment. The Mayor is definitely confused. The State doesn't provide the City with doses, the Federal Government does. And there's a delay at the moment due to the storm. But their supply comes from the Federal Government.
(It is admittedly confusing -I didn't realize that NYC is kind of its own entity until I worked for Crazy Company. It's funded separately, it has separate regs and rules, and procedures.There's the State Regs and Funding, The City Regs and Funding, and the Federal Government Regs and Funding. The City, for example, has to pay for the majority of its public transportation system, infrastructure and roads. The State will pay a portion, but the City has to pay the bulk.)
The State does have a shortage, as does the city, but not a critical one, and it is getting more. Also it has now divided up the vaccination effort. The state agencies have now been taxed with vaccinating their members separately from the public. Prior they were all doing it at Jacobs Javits, but now they are opening up company specific sites - which permits more people to get it.
Also they have opened sites in public health clinics and pharmacies, such as Empire Units on Staten Island. This ensures more folks get vaccinated.
But until we have herd immunity and because we're not 100% sure the vaccine protects everyone - they are ramping up the testing, rapid testing, and doing the masks, social distancing. If they can ramp up the testing - they can re-open the economy. We're at a 3.98 % in NY now, and 4.94% in my area (which has been true for months now).
The Governor keeps reminding everyone that this will not be our only pandemic. We did have SARS after all. (We've had more than one. Just nothing like this - but we also didn't have an incompetent Federal Government previously. So there's that.)
I've learned something this year. People don't listen or read carefully. I remember years ago, a friend of mine critiquing someone on a fanboard about not writing carefully - and I thought at the time, it's more than that. They aren't listening or reading carefully.
The Reporters aren't listening to the Governor. And it's partly the Governor's fault for getting defensive and ranting and yelling at them. They shut down and stop listening. I see that online as well.
The situation in Texas is dire. I posted the photo above because its the photo youngest Aunt liked on FB. She lives in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And is okay. They've had rolling power outages, but were able to stay warm and their pipes didn't break. Cousin P - did end up with frozen pipes, and a few kind neighbors helped him out - one helped him find a plumber and figure out how to fix the pipes, the other allowed him to siphon off water. Also cousins J and P didn't have any major issues except for the power outages.
But their infrastructure is collapsing, primarily because they relied too heavily on fossil fuels while other states pushed towards solar and wind. Also they didn't want to rely at all on the federal grid or feds, so set up their own utilities dirt cheap. Now it's failing on them.
Anyhow, hope you are warm and safe wherever you may be tonight.
I'm tired, didn't sleep well last night and had heart burn today. Also a bit congested from allergies.
I miss the days in which I was just worried about allergies. Although I did read that strict measures to keep COVID at bay also managed to do away with the flu season.
Crazy Company and the COVID Vaccine.
So Crazy Company has been given doses of the vaccine to set up its own vaccine sites. (It also has its own medical staff assigned to it.) The President's office was tasked with scheduling appointments. I received emails from it and our Procurement Manager. I responded to both, and the President's office set me up with an appointment. Only one problem, they had conflicting addresses.
Me: Is it 180 Livingston Street or 130 Livingston Plaza?
F: Apologies - it is 130 Livingston Plaza.
[I google. There is no Plaza, Street yes, Plaza no.]
Me: There is no Plaza.
F: Oh yeah, sorry it looks like a Plaza to me so I say its a Plaza. But it is a street.
Me: Thanks. I googled and it came out as Street, there are no plazas, hence the question.
F: No worries. Thanks for telling me. I'll remember to tell everyone when setting up appointments - last we need is more confusion.
Also, according to yet another email, this one from Gabe in response to Chidi's question yesterday...
"You get two hours of standard pay for the first dose, and two hours standard pay for taking the second dose - once it is in the system. Four total."
ME: So, now Crazy Company is paying me to get a vaccine that millions are struggling to get?
Mother: Don't question it - just go with it.
ME: Yeah, yeah... I'm not But still.
Mother: They are most likely trying to get the slackers and folks who don't want to - to take it. Money talks louder than fear sna stupidity.
She's not wrong. Although very grateful to be with Crazy Company at the moment. I'll get the vaccine because of them - and get paid for it.
New York vs. the Corona Virus or rathe The Governor vs. the idiotic Reporters
Watched the Governor's live briefing today - where he and his staff address the nursing home debacle or the Reporters inability to understand the nursing home situation and so they turned it into a debacle. Sigh. I don't know why the Reporters didn't get it. He basically reiterated what I already knew. And they've been stating it for months now - but various politicians and enemies of the governor keep putting political and marketing spin on it - along with the private nursing homes (who are culpable.)
What happened? Dr. Zucker calmly and patiently explained it. Apparently they ran out of hospital beds so they sent people who had recovered from COVID home to the nursing homes. Also in some cases the nursing homes kept people that couldn't go to the hospitals.
As mother stated, where she is, the nursing homes would quarantine or sequester the COVID patients from the rest of the inhabitants. That's the protocol. It's not to remove the COVID patients from the nursing homes. Or for that matter leave people in the hospitals until it's clear they don't have it.
Dr. Zucker explained if they left the people in the hospital - people would be upset that they hadn't freed up the beds.
Cuomo of course attacked the media (social and otherwise) - stating he doesn't read Twitter. (I rarely do, I kind of flirt with it. Why? Oh it is basically a gossip line. There's so much misinformation on it - it's not even funny, and the evil marketing folks hang out on it. It's also very fast. Reminds me chat.] And that from now on, he was going to be more aggressive and fight back. Also, he was going to write up a new law that forced the private nursing homes to put more money towards patient's health, and to sequester them.
I don't think the private nursing homes are going to get out of this one well. They were a bit dumb. They whined to the meda - stating more died than was counted and they were forced to handle COVID cases - and now, they are finding out that they were wrong, that they weren't forced to do anything, and they should have had measures in place - others do.
The other problem is the supply of the vaccine.
Reporters: The Mayor thinks that the vaccine is being delayed by the State.
Governor: We're guessing the Mayor is probably confused. [Pause] No, that's most likely a fair and truthful assessment. The Mayor is definitely confused. The State doesn't provide the City with doses, the Federal Government does. And there's a delay at the moment due to the storm. But their supply comes from the Federal Government.
(It is admittedly confusing -I didn't realize that NYC is kind of its own entity until I worked for Crazy Company. It's funded separately, it has separate regs and rules, and procedures.There's the State Regs and Funding, The City Regs and Funding, and the Federal Government Regs and Funding. The City, for example, has to pay for the majority of its public transportation system, infrastructure and roads. The State will pay a portion, but the City has to pay the bulk.)
The State does have a shortage, as does the city, but not a critical one, and it is getting more. Also it has now divided up the vaccination effort. The state agencies have now been taxed with vaccinating their members separately from the public. Prior they were all doing it at Jacobs Javits, but now they are opening up company specific sites - which permits more people to get it.
Also they have opened sites in public health clinics and pharmacies, such as Empire Units on Staten Island. This ensures more folks get vaccinated.
But until we have herd immunity and because we're not 100% sure the vaccine protects everyone - they are ramping up the testing, rapid testing, and doing the masks, social distancing. If they can ramp up the testing - they can re-open the economy. We're at a 3.98 % in NY now, and 4.94% in my area (which has been true for months now).
The Governor keeps reminding everyone that this will not be our only pandemic. We did have SARS after all. (We've had more than one. Just nothing like this - but we also didn't have an incompetent Federal Government previously. So there's that.)
I've learned something this year. People don't listen or read carefully. I remember years ago, a friend of mine critiquing someone on a fanboard about not writing carefully - and I thought at the time, it's more than that. They aren't listening or reading carefully.
The Reporters aren't listening to the Governor. And it's partly the Governor's fault for getting defensive and ranting and yelling at them. They shut down and stop listening. I see that online as well.
The situation in Texas is dire. I posted the photo above because its the photo youngest Aunt liked on FB. She lives in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And is okay. They've had rolling power outages, but were able to stay warm and their pipes didn't break. Cousin P - did end up with frozen pipes, and a few kind neighbors helped him out - one helped him find a plumber and figure out how to fix the pipes, the other allowed him to siphon off water. Also cousins J and P didn't have any major issues except for the power outages.
But their infrastructure is collapsing, primarily because they relied too heavily on fossil fuels while other states pushed towards solar and wind. Also they didn't want to rely at all on the federal grid or feds, so set up their own utilities dirt cheap. Now it's failing on them.
Anyhow, hope you are warm and safe wherever you may be tonight.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-20 02:17 pm (UTC)Their politicians are scrambling to blame anything they don't like. But the blame should go to generations of Texas politicians who let their electric utilities get by for too long. If they do nothing serious now, this cold weather disaster will surely happen again in the next 30 to 40 years. The Texas grid utilities probably still want to go it alone, and I doubt the Texas grid is equipped to join the rest of country without major upgrades.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-20 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-20 09:36 pm (UTC)It's interesting, because New York had Hurricane Sandy - and it learned from the experience. It moved it's electric stations, changed to solar and wind, checked to see if those worked, built up parkland, and green space around the city and bought up land on Long Island, to build up a kind of protective barrier, and reinforced the power grid. It's also been working to fix the infrastructure around the subway and train system - and now has an emergency plan in place for when a storm hits.
It did the same thing after 9/11 - it put in place security measures and evacuation plans for buildings to ensure it did not happen again.
And now with the pandemic? It has all these companies that now make PPE, and it changed how the hospital system handles intake and outake and distributes patient care.
Texas meanwhile has had multiple hurricanes and done nothing. A Man in Galveston attempted to get them to build up the sea wall, and they just reinforced what they had, but didn't feel the need to do any more than that. Lousiana? Same deal.
I am beginning to think the deep south is kind of dumb?
no subject
Date: 2021-02-20 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-20 09:27 pm (UTC)Cuomo in 2017? It might have been later - was striking a deal with Bestos to put up a huge complex in Queens that would employ a lot of Techies and Engineers or white collar workers, bring a lot more jobs for that sector. AOC (Alexandra Cortez - they've nicknamed her AOC - the progressive congressional rep from Queens) along with quite a few other "Queens Democrates on the local and federal level" fought against it.
Cuomo is a Moderate Democrat who backed Hillary and Biden. The progressives backed Bernie (sigh).
So he's absolutely right this is politically motivated and AOC only does things that promote her and make her look good. (A lot of people I know hate her - she's really turned off the Moderate Democrats.)
The Democrat Party has a similar problem to the Republican, which is they have a far left extremist faction. The difference is the far left doesn't want to overturn the government and kill people. Which is kind of huge. And if they hadn't blinked - Biden wouldn't have won. They are the reason Hillary lost - no doubt in my mind. They drive me crazy. NY has the crazy left and the crazy right. I feel sorry for the moderates caught between.
Where were the nursing home patients supposed to go when New York was in the middle of the surge? It's much more likely that any nursing home patients who got COVID were infected by their caregivers due to community transmission. Personally, I think the news media misses Trump so they're always stirring the pot, trying to turn any little problem they might uncover into something bigger.
Exactly. Thank you. Cuomo and Dr. Zuker, and his staff have been stating what you state here above since basically April.
The news media is bored - they like conspiracies and cover-ups. And the Governor is kind of right - he really should have pushed back hard on these guys earlier.
And the Congressional Reps are using it to bolster their political clout. I think AoC - if she's not careful, is going to find herself on the opposite side of some of her arguments soon. A lot of her yammering on social media is going to back-fire on her. It already has begun to.