Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

We are, I reckon, to use a Boston metaphor, at the top of Heartbreak Hill. And as anyone who's run the Marathon will tell you, it's what comes next that's the part that tries the mind and soul.

 

I'm starting to see articles expressing concern that it is the new variants of Covid that are accounting for an increasing percentage of the new infections. They're afraid of a fourth wave due to some degree of relaxation as things seem to get better and the new strains spread. Hope they're wrong, and I sure hope that the current vaccine provides protection from them.

 

Great question. I would think even though their lives were equally affected, people living alone already have/had coping skills for being alone most of the time, while parents with kids quickly run/ran out of ways to entertain them without a pressure relief valve of normal school/peer group activities.

But that's coming from someone who isn't particularly social to start with. EDIT: And had to find ways to keep his sanity in a 12x20 jail cell with three other people for five weeks.

 

This is so true. I'm getting this sense the more time and effort it is taking to get my elderly mom vaccinated. Although many people she knows have already been vaccinated, she is registered but hasn't heard a word back about when/where to go get it done. There are more places/locations offering vaccinations now, but the supply is so limited that it makes getting an appointment -- and you have to have an appointment, it seems -- difficult, as in still, most likely, at least two or three months away. And the locations that have the vaccine are not making it as easy as possible to arrange to get it done, particularly for the elderly, who may not be tech-savvy, or able to easily get around.

I guess I understand the by-appointment-only requirement, because it's probably in correlation with the vaccine supply. But this is a serious logistics matter now, and we've got to find a way to increase the supply. Otherwise, it's going to take well into 2022 to get everybody immunized. There also seems to be some inequities in the distribution process -- with some counties' residents having it much easier to get shots, more quickly and easily, than others', and I have to wonder why that is.

I'm getting to the point that I'd be in favor of keeping the order of sectors in place, but skip the requirement that you have to have an appointment, and let things be on a first-come, first-served basis at each location. I think that might actually speed things up, despite the on-site waiting that would obviously occur.

 

All you are doing then is moving the bottleneck, then adding to it when some of the people you invariably have to tell “no” hold up the entire line by complaining, screaming obscenities, questioning the right of everyone else who doesn’t own a Lee Greenwood tour jacket to be there, brandishing any firearms they have handy, etc.

 

I mean, I want to get all metaphorical about long journeys and marathons and stuff. But I'm more of a math guy. I don't think of it as "optimism." I'm actively looking for reasons to be pessimistic. I just go where the math takes me.

If something doesn't change *really* soon in our trajectory, the finish line is just there. It won't move further away because it doesn't feel like we did enough to earn it or it doesn't make for a poetic enough story.

Obviously, if something does change, then we can re-run the numbers and see where we are.

 

Maybe so. But it would avoid situations like what I ran into today, when I took my mom to a gigantic Vons store where the vaccine is being offered. She walked up, there was no one waiting, she asked if they had the vaccine, was told yes, but that she couldn't get it because she didn't have an appointment. How do I get an appointment?, she asked. Online, she was told. We go online, see there are no openings for at least the two months that are shown in the queue, etc.

I call a phone number supposedly available for people in the county who have limited access to the internet, trying to get her in via phone, which she would prefer, anyway. The recording puts me on hold, where I stay for an hour, literally, before I hang up -- after having been told in the recording that if we're trying to make an appointment at a store or pharmacy, to hang up and call that location directly. We do that, and are told, via recording again, that because of an expected high number of calls, to go to the store's website, and sign up that way. We do that, and see the apparent two-month blackout, with no instructions for when/how best to check back later, only the suggestion to do that, etc...

The registration/appointment process is a disaster and a time-waster, at least where I live. We registered my mom -- who's 89 and has COPD and heart problems -- more than three weeks ago and haven't heard a word, and have no idea when we will hear anything. Meanwhile, she has an elderly friend who lives in the next county, went to her doctor and asked about it, and was told, "Oh, just go on downstairs (to the pharmacy in the building) and get it." She did so, with no previous plan, no appointment, and no waiting. I don't understand. What was the difference, beyond just the apparent insistence on a prior appointment?

 

There’s a Twitter account for folks in my state that sends alerts whenever an entity opens up appointments. Followed its advice, set up shop like I was trying for Springsteen tickets (multiple computer screens + my phone) secured one and today drove mom 90 miles to get her first shot.

Forever a cynic, I was blown away by how smoothly it went. Mom has trouble getting around, so a soldier met her curbside with a wheelchair. Someone from FEMA brought her to the admission area and a nurse took her to the vaccination area. Essentially, she never had to take a step.

I’d have preferred not driving 90 miles (a trip we’ll repeat in three weeks), but I’ll take it.

 

I’m afraid it is going to take longer for my parents because they want to get it at their doctor’s office and don’t trust non-traditional sites. I’m not their boss but it sure would be a load off my mind if they adopted a “first available” mentality.

 

Outing alert: RickStain works at the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...oesnt-neatly-adhere-lines-political-rhetoric/

 

I couldn't even make it to the Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

Something odd is happening. Acceptance of the vaccine -- the portion of the public that says it will probably or certainly get the vaccine when it is available to them -- has fallen since Jan. 1. The data can be downloaded via this link of a research project at Carnegie Mellon.
Acceptance has fallen almost everywhere. In states that voted for Biden, the rate has gone from 76.6% to 75.15%. In states that voted for the Instigator in Chief, it has gone from 69.5% to 66.4%.
So there's a pretty sizable partisan gap here.
The top 15 states with the highest acceptance rates all voted for Biden. Of the 22 states with the lowest acceptance rates, 21 voted for Trump. The exception in that group was Georgia, which, as we know, was stolen by a conspiracy of Hugo Chavez and elected Republican office-holders.