Year 2 - Day 147

[shadowkat]

Another hot one. Was going to do laundry - but decided against it after the Mayor requested everyone use as little electricity as possible. Also, it's going to be hot in the laundry room. My linens can wait another week. I did clothes last week, so fine there.

It'll be cooler next week.

It's 108 today, heat index, actually 97. They have a heat advisory. So I'm robot vacuuming instead.

Just looked through church's upcoming order of service - and noticed they were doing Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now again. I don't know what it is about my church and that song. They've played it to date over thirty times, in thirty different sermons. I used to love the song, it was a favorite - but it's kind of hit that point that Broken Hallelujah did a few years back - way over played. There's such as thing as "overplayed".

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Trying to live in the present moment at the moment. Neither past nor future. Not yesterday or tomorrow, or five minutes before or five after.
So sleepy. Did some exercises, and had a CBD which made me sleepy.

People are going on about Keto again on Facebook. I can't do it. I've tried. It makes me ill. I've got to stay off a lot of the fats and chlosterols. Not much cheese, eggs, or dairy permitted. So I'm more on a paeolo style diet, with no carbs outside of oatmeal. Also, I can't do cauliflower - it does not agree with me.

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Covid

In a weird way, NY lucked out - in getting slammed by the virus in March through May 2020 - because that meant New Yorkers took it seriously or most of us did, at any rate. Also our leaders took it seriously. As a result, New York handled the virus better than most states, and now has among the lowest infection rates across the country.

This is not the case with the less densely populated states.

My colleague Edgar Sandoval, who covers South Texas for The Times, recently reported from inside a San Antonio hospital. He told us that the strength of the surge left many in the state flat-footed.

“They were kind of caught off guard this time around,” Edgar said. “People in South Texas, like the rest of the country, thought that the virus was behind them. And even the experts believed that, even if they were going to have surges from the Delta variant, they were going to be able to manage it. But in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen an explosion of cases. Medical officials in Texas are — as we speak — still trying to figure out how to handle this coming surge.”

More than 10,000 Texans have been hospitalized this week and at least 53 hospitals were at maximum capacity in their intensive care units. Hospitals are being taxed across the South in places like Huntsville, Ala., Jackson, Miss., New Orleans and Miami. As with previous waves this summer in Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas, the vast majority of patients who are hospitalized in Texas are not vaccinated.

The surge also comes as the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, refuses to enact any statewide mandates requiring masks while prohibiting local officials from doing so. To help manage the surge, Abbott has instead asked health care workers outside the state to travel to Texas and help the overloaded hospitals.

Some health officials have blamed the state for not putting enough government effort toward increasing vaccination rates, which Abbott has framed as an issue of individual rights.


I find it interesting that people put their right to not wear a mask and not get vaccinated above just about everything else. Shame we can't deport them to Mars. Then they can do whatever they want - up there.

To give an idea of how vast the different policies are - New York put in place a plan, Texas did not. We can thank our disgraced Governor for that - while he may be a bully and a sexual predator, he did handle the pandemic better than most. He listened to the health care experts and worked to put a plan in place. Then let us know the facts regarding said plan. Shame Texas and Florida can't impeach their Governors for incompetence and genocide. They may not be sexual predators (as far as we know), but they are committing murder on a daily basis by enabling the virus. The virus' best buddy is the GOP.

The CDC changed its guidance again - to mandating that everyone wear masks indoors and NYC has put in place a rule that everyone must be vaccinated or test negative to go to restaurants, plays, movies, entertainment, gyms, bars, etc. Also workplaces. I'm thinking schools may be next.

And the I was advised that Monday's email is the last one I will receive in this format. It's not clear if they will send them after that or not. Curious to see what the new governor does - I'm more affected than most by changes in Governor's since the Governor is the head of my agency, they appoint the leaders of it, several seats on the board, and impose the priorities. They also lead negotiations with the unions. Pre-Cuomo, the Governors were more hands-off.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Monday, August 16, will be the final edition of this newsletter in its current format. I thank you deeply for being readers, for staying informed, and for your individual actions that helped the State as a whole respond to COVID and get millions of New Yorkers vaccinated. Thank you.

Here's what's happening per the email:


1. COVID hospitalizations are at 1,448. Of the 153,925 tests reported yesterday, 4,701, or 3.05 percent, were positive. The 7-day positivity average was 3.05 percent. There were 289 patients in ICU yesterday, up one from the previous day. Of them, 118 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 16 New Yorkers to the virus.

2. As of 11am this morning, 77.0 of adult New Yorkers have completed at least one vaccine dose, per the CDC. Over the past 24 hours, 53,818 total doses have been administered. To date, New York has administered 22,756,366 total doses with 69.5 percent of adult New Yorkers completing their vaccine series. See additional data on the State's Vaccine Tracker.

3. To date, New York has conducted over 62 million tests. Getting tested for COVID regularly is a great way to ensure your health and the health of those around you. If you are experiencing symptoms of COVID or believe you may have been exposed to the virus, get tested. Find a testing site near you. You can also call 1-888-364-3065 to make a free appointment at a New York State-run testing location.

4. Follow VaccinateNY's Instagram for trusted information and content about the COVID-19 vaccines. To help New Yorkers stay informed about the COVID vaccines and help kids get ready to go back to school safely, the State and the NYS Department of Health launched a new Instagram account to encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated.



Well, we're doing better than just about everyone else in the US, although I think the northeastern cluster- those five to six states around NY and the Lakes region are doing okay, as is California in regards to the virus - mainly because we got hit the worst in 2020, and are doing the best job with the vaccines. The conservative South is basically killing itself.

Results from the Census are in now - and well, various states lost congressional seats, and some gained them. We're all worried about the GOP districts gaining. I don't know what to think about it.

The problem with the Census though or rather its accuracy - is it was done during 2020, I have a feeling there's going to be less people in 2022 than there were in 2020.

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This Article from the NY Times really does a great job of explaining the difference the Delta has on vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.


20% vaccinated 95% vaccinated
Imagine two groups of people. The groups are demographically identical, but they have very different vaccination rates.
In both groups, every person is exposed to enough of the virus to make an unvaccinated person sick.
In one group, just 20 percent of people are fully vaccinated. Some of the least vaccinated U.S. counties have similar rates.
In the other group, most of those exposed are fully vaccinated. There is a lower risk in general of virus exposure in a highly vaccinated community, but for illustration purposes, all are exposed in this scenario.
In the highly immunized group, the vaccine protects most of the vaccinated against becoming infected with the Delta variant. But some breakthrough infections would be expected, most of them mild or asymptomatic.
Most of the unvaccinated would also become infected with the virus, with the exception of some — but not all — who previously had Covid-19.
But infections among the vaccinated would outnumber those among the unvaccinated simply because there were many more vaccinated people to start with. In the recent Provincetown, Mass., outbreak, most of those infected were vaccinated — because the group had a high overall immunization rate.
In the group in which few are vaccinated but all are exposed to the virus, most of the unvaccinated would become infected, and most of the vaccinated would not.
But in this scenario, outcomes are far worse. More people overall have the virus, and more of them are visibly ill.
Because few have had the vaccine, which would protect them from serious disease, some are hospitalized with severe illness.
By contrast, in the highly vaccinated group, it’s likely just one vaccinated person (and perhaps one of the few unvaccinated people) would be hospitalized in a group of this size. Studies show that while Delta may cause some breakthrough infections, the vaccines are still strongly protective against hospitalization.
On a larger scale, more severely ill people mean a more overburdened hospital system, and one or more people in the group with the low vaccination rate might die.

In either scenario, the infected group is just the start. The Delta variant is the most transmissible version of the virus yet. Those infected are likely to spread the virus to others at an even higher rate than older versions of the virus would have spread.

With a higher number of people infected in the group with the low vaccination rate, many more people in their larger community are also likely to become infected with the virus, especially if the vaccination rate is similarly low elsewhere in that community.

This is true even among people who have been infected with Covid-19 before: Those who have previously had the virus are more than twice as likely to become reinfected by the Delta variant if they are unvaccinated.

Conversely, there is a lower risk in general of virus

exposure in a highly vaccinated community. But experts say outbreaks that have occurred in heavily vaccinated groups, like the July 4 cluster in Provincetown, Mass., or those in two San Francisco hospitals, have shown the power of the vaccines: Remarkably few people faced severe illness, contrasted with how a similar outbreak may have played out in a community with a low vaccination rate.

Of at least 965 positive cases that were traced to heavily vaccinated Provincetown, where around 60,000 people had gathered for the holiday weekend, not a single death was reported and just seven people were hospitalized.

While a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report suggested it’s possible that fully immunized people may also transmit the virus to others as easily, another recent study has shown that those who are fully vaccinated may carry the virus, and therefore be contagious, for fewer days than their unvaccinated counterparts. That suggests an even bigger overall difference in transmission between places with high and low vaccination rates.


It basically explains why the Northeast has a much lower infection rate than say Texas, and also why our hospitals aren't overrun any longer, while Texas and Florida's are.
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It's hot here, but not as bad as elsewhere. Everything is relative.

I've been watching The Morning Show on Apple TV, which appears to be loosely based on the events that occurred on The Today Show. It's not according to various articles. If anything it's just based on the cutthroat ratings war between GMA and Today Show back then, but even that's loose. I don't know - I'm enjoying it. Has a similar writing style to Aaron Sorkin - rapid fire dialogue, and long speeches. It's a touch preachy, but not to the point that I want to flip channels - so a touch less preachy than Sorkin's become in latter years.

It does however do a good job of examining the effects of the Me#Too Movement and the firing of someone based on sexual harassment allegations.
Watching it - gave me insight into Cuomo. Martin Short has a cameo as a disparaged Director of Films, and Steve Carrol plays the fired Mitch Kessler, who got fired from the show based on these allegations. His character is an amalgamation of various others.

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Time to make dinner and lunch, and pick up the poor tired robot vaccume.

I'm posting pictures of lovely spots, I was once upon a time at the moment. Since it's too hot to walk.

Comments

[wendelah1]

Beautiful photo.

I read that article in the Times. It was well done. Thank you.