Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Yeah that was more aimed that the doc who believed we are spawn of lizard creatures and those two dingbats from Bakersfield who tried to tell us this was overblown. More fallacy by perceived authority.

 

In my senior year, we had three separate instances of students dying in car crashes. Two were seniors, but they weren't that popular, and I got along with them OK, but we weren't exactly buddies. The school announced there would be counseling available; a few of their friends were upset, but mostly everyone went about their day as fairly normal. The friends who were upset were also angry at some kids for being sad when those kids barely would talk to the deceased when they were alive. The next year, when 90210 did the episode where Scott the Cowboy Kid accidentally kills himself and David got angry at all the kids who had become upset actually hit home a little more for me.

The third kid to die in a crash was a junior, and he was one of the more popular kids. But when that kid died, the school essentially shut down for that day. I think only one class, we were able to do any schoolwork, and that was because the teacher was basically, "yeah, I know we're all sad here, but we have work to do, so let's get to it." A few of the classes were just kids crying and talking about their friend. I didn't really know him at all, as I wasn't in the in-crowd, so for me, it was more like being a neutral observer to everything going on.

The school did plant three trees on the school grounds with a plaque to commemorate their deaths. I've driven by it, and those trees are still growing, 30 years later.

 

When I was a sophomore in HS, I had a paper route. Early early one Saturday morning I actually did get out at 5:30 to start the route (usually I dicked around and didn't start until 6:30).

It was a cold dark and snowy day. Thick slushy snow from the night before. I did a dozen or so houses and worked my way back to my home base. Ahead in the darkness I saw a small figure walking along, slowly and haltingly, with a hood pulled over his head.
It was my next door neighbor Dave, a kid just about my age and in my grade at school. We were pretty good, although not best, friends.

I said something witty like, "hell of a morning to be out at 6 am." He kept on walking with his head down. I made some further attempt at inane small talk, like, "you doing anything later today?"

He was silent another minute or two, then he said, "No. Amy was killed last night."
Amy was his one-year younger sister. She had been riding over to the school the night before to watch Dave in his JV wrestling match.

The Vega their dad was driving got broadsided by a drunk driver a quarter mile from the school. Amy was killed instantly, their dad broke an arm and a leg, and their little brother Danny, 3, had multiple pelvic fractures and both legs were broken. The drunk driver of course staggered away from the wreck.

Although the accident was close to the school, nobody notified anybody at the wrestling match. Dave's mother and other sister were at a dance recital and had rushed straight to the hospital.

Back at the school at the end of the wrestling match, nobody came to pick Dave up. Eventually the school emptied out and Dave decided to run/jog two miles home through the snow and sleet. (HS wrestlers do that kind of stuff.)

He got home about midnight to find the house empty.

An hour or so later some frantic neighbor had called to find out if "the horrible rumors were true." Dave didn't know what the hell they were talking about. He called an uncle who had gotten the news.

That was 47 years ago and Dave hasn't really been right since. His dad and his brother recovered ok, but Dave has never really gotten over it. Even now at 60+ he has a haunted air around him.

This all happened on the Friday night heading into Christmas break, so there really weren't any organized counseling or grieving programs at the high school. When we got back in school in January, life went on as normal.

 

Now this will be a super spreader event.

UFC welcoming full crowd for stacked 261 card

Over/under on percentage of fans wearing any sort of protective gear: 3. I’ll bet the house on the under.

 

It's not a liberal culture.

 

The "doctors" cited in this point were the Trumpists who gathered near SCOTUS over the summer to encourage medically implausible "cures."

 

Maybe you should wash your hands, then?

Ohhhhh, that kind of sterile.

Congrats.

 

Vaccine appointments in the books. I thought I'd be waiting until mid-summer at least, but yesterday Hong Kong opened up vaccinations to people aged 30-59 (plus students studying overseas, domestic helpers, and a few other groups). I expected a huge queue this morning but got in and out in less than 10 minutes. Hopefully that's because of the system's remarkable efficiency and not lingering vaccine hesitancy.

I had the option of Sinovac or BioNTech-Fosun and went with the latter because they had those at a vaccination center 10 minutes from my apartment. Not sure if doing so put my chances of getting my work visa renewed at risk, but better to deal with the immediate threat than the one a year down the road. China asks visa applicants to get inoculated with Chinese-made vaccines.

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Also, mazel tov, Woody.

 

Congratulations, Woody!

It's up to us to make a better place for your little one!

 

Thanks, everyone! This will be our second. We have a little guy who's almost four. It's early yet, and we had a miscarriage a few months ago, which was tough to bear. But we're hopeful.

 

One of the high schools I covered at my first gig had four student deaths in less than a year:

- Single-car crash
- Drowning (a football player with Power 5 offers)
- Shooting
- Another single-car crash (starter on two-time defending state champion soccer team). Speculation was that it was suicide.

It was a truly surreal thing to be around the school when all this happened.

 

Tempering the optimism a bit. We’re still not out of the woods yet.

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned us again this weekend to pay attention to the unfolding new wave of COVID-19 cases in Europe. It just grew more concerning.

Much of Italy is now in full lockdown through at least Easter. In Paris, hospitals are moving about 100 patientsto another region to open up some intensive care unit beds. Paris hospitals are canceling nonemergency surgeries as a steady stream of new COVID-19 cases come in. Hospitals say they have more cases now than at any time since November. Two-thirds of the new cases are of the COVID-19 variant varieties.​

Italy begins its lockdown as ICU beds fill in France - Poynter