Tag: covid19

• Rancho Las Positas Elementary School known cases on site: 9
• Livermore cases: 6,476; eligible vaccination rate: 81.6%
• Alameda County cases: 114,592; deaths: 1,397; eligible vaccination rate: 84.6%
• U.S. cases: 46,268,000+; deaths: 749,000+; eligible vaccination rate: 68.2%

Still over 1,000 people a day dying from COVID in the U.S. This has been ongoing since mid-August after a lovely lull that started about April and reached a nadir in early July. It's currently trending downward; hopefully it stays that way. Last year at this time we were climbing our way back up to a new high. I'm not optimistic about the winter. Still too many irresponsible people who refuse to be vaccinated, refuse to wear masks, and refuse to modify their behavior in any way to reduce spreading the virus. Multiple safe, effective, freely-available vaccines have been readily available nationwide for at least 5 months, and the nationwide vaccination rate of eligible persons hasn't even topped 70%. What an unnecessary loss of life.

Pfizer's vaccine received Emergency Use Authorization for children 5-11 this week. The above "eligible" rates are still for age 12+ as the reporting websites haven't added a 5+ category yet. We should see the overall eligible vaccination rate take a hit now that millions more have become eligible, but haven't had time to be vaccinated yet.

Our girls have an appointment for Nov 11 to get their first dose. They'll receive their second dose Dec 2 and be considered fully vaccinated Dec 16. Hooray! There are still stupid people saying things like, "kids don't need to be vaccinated, COVID hardly even affects them." Yet, the CDC has recorded 620 deaths of children 0-17 from COVID-19. I would prefer my children not be added to that list of the unlucky few--or the 4,325 kids hospitalized or the unknown amount of kids with lingering long-term effects. Especially when a safe and highly-effective vaccine is freely and readily available.

Updated guidance made me eligible for a booster shot due to lower efficacy of the Janssen vaccine compared to the mRNA vaccines. I got a Pfizer booster shot on Nov 3. Other than mild fatigue I didn't have any side effects (unlike my Janssen shot).

The Lab, following Federal requirements, has moved from vaccination-or-testing to vaccination required (or medical/religious exemption which will likely require regularly testing). The original deadline was to be fully vaccinated by Dec 8, but it looks like that deadline got pushed to Jan 4.

• Livermore cases: 5,814; eligible vaccination rate: 69.1%
• Alameda County cases: 106,262; deaths: 1,264; eligible vaccination rate: 75.6%
• U.S. cases: 40,085,000+; deaths: 647,000+; eligible vaccination rate: 62.3%

The main update for today is all the states that have medical systems that are collapsing. The first entry is Idaho (from the Associated Press): "Idaho public health leaders announced Tuesday that they activated 'crisis standards of care' allowing health care rationing for the state’s northern hospitals because there are more coronavirus patients than the institutions can handle." Meaning, patients will be scored for survivability and that will drive who receives what care.

Patients are being treated in conference rooms or education rooms using whatever resources are available. The National Guard has been mobilized to assist in managing the crisis. The director of the Department of Health and Welfare recommends avoiding needing emergency care until the crisis passes [sigh].

From the same article, Hawaii is sheltering its hospitals/employees from liability if they begin rationing care.

NPR has additional coverage here: "A COVID Surge Is Overwhelming U.S. Hospitals, Raising Fears Of Rationed Care." Which includes, "According to the model, ICU capacity will be under 'extreme stress' in states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Hawaii, Georgia, Delaware and Wisconsin."

The latest messaging on the vaccines receiving emergency authorization for kids 6+ is that it won't happen until winter. 🙁

The girls' school (the whole district, but broken down by school) is maintaining a daily report of positive cases on site. So far their school has only had 2 known cases on site since school started. So that's encouraging. The district overall has had 49 cases, with 13 of those being a cluster at one of the high schools (Granada), with 4 of those being recorded today. The other high school (Livermore) is at 3 for the year, so hopefully Granada can get their cluster under control.

Work rolled out their mandatory attestation process this week which comes from a federal requirement. All employees must attest to their vaccination status which will determine whether they operate under protocol A or protocol B. Protocol A is to continue as we have been and will allow for reduced controls as conditions permit. Protocol B will require weekly testing and will not be eligible for reduced controls. Rather dishearteningly, there are apparently a bunch of anti-vaccination people working at the Lab, so this is going to be a mess. Refusal to comply will result in currently-unspecified disciplinary action (at least one other national lab has stated that employees will be placed on unpaid leave until they comply).

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In other news, we decided to get a cat. We picked one out at the county shelter over the weekend and we'll bring her home next week after she's been spayed and received her next round of vaccinations. The girls are ecstatic.

• Livermore cases: 5,360; eligible vaccination rate: 59.8%*
  • * I'm noticing that the Livermore number in the past 2 posts must have been the "at least one shot" number; this number is the "fully vaccinated" number. The county and national numbers has been the "fully vaccinated" numbers.
• Alameda County cases: 100,343; deaths: 1,257; eligible vaccination rate: 73.7%
• U.S. cases: 37,583,000+; deaths: 625,000+; eligible vaccination rate: 60.1%

The past week or so has been filled with reports of how overwhelmed the medical facilities in several Southern states have become.

Parts of Florida are diverting oxygen supplies from their water-treatment facilities to hospitals and are asking residents to conserve water so they don't run out. Meanwhile, also in Florida, the governor is threatening to reduce funding to school districts that have enacted mask requirements in violation of his orders. Also in Florida, treatment facilities are being run out of parks and libraries, so obviously things are going very well there.

In Texas, schools are skirting around their governor's orders that prohibit mask requirements by adding face coverings to their standard dress code policies.

These two governors in particular seem hellbent on watching kids die for some reason.

Mississippi's State Health Officer issued an order requiring 10-days of isolation for anyone with COVID-19 and threatens a $500 fine or 6-months in prison for failure to comply. I doubt even a single person will be subjected to those punishments, but I guess we'll see. Things aren't any better in Mississippi than their neighboring states.

On Wednesday, Alabama was reporting a 29-person waiting list to get an ICU bed across the entire state. Hospitals throughout the country are transferring patients up to several hundred miles away to find a facility with room to take them.

In California, and other states, school employees are being required to prove vaccination or be tested weekly.

Booster shots will be available to people starting 8-months after their second shot (if they received one of the mRNA vaccines). It's expected that a booster shot will be authorized for those, like me, who received the viral vector vaccine soon.

And people continue to get caught either using or selling fake vaccination records.

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In other news, the U.S. finally pulled our military out of Afghanistan and the Afghan government promptly collapsed and was taken over by the Taliban within ~48 hours; massive fires are burning throughout the west (including California); a hurricane is hitting New England this weekend, and the first ever water-shortage declaration was made for the Colorado River.

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Finally, school starts on Tuesday. As mentioned above, our schools have mask requirements for students & staff and vaccination or testing requirements for staff. They'll be operating at normal capacity and with a normal schedule whereas at the end of last year used a hybrid schedule that kept capacity to about half and no food was eaten while on campus. Lunch is supposed to be done as distanced as possible, but that will be a challenge. They're planning on eating outside whenever possible, but the air is smokey right now and it does get hot or rain, so there will need to be fully indoor options as well. We bought new, snugger fitting, better filtering masks for the girls to wear instead of the plain cloth masks they've been wearing. Rumor has it that emergency authorization to give the vaccine to kids 6+ is coming within the next month or so.

• Livermore cases: 4,901; eligible vaccination rate: 65.9%
• Alameda County cases: 95,120; deaths: 1,242; eligible vaccination rate: 72.3%
• U.S. cases: 35,665,000+; deaths: 614,000+; eligible vaccination rate: 58.6%

The situation continues to deteriorate across the country, but public health departments have finally started responding. Alameda County now has a mask requirement for all persons in public buildings. California has issued a requirement that all healthcare workers be fully vaccinated by mid-October (receive their final shot by Sep 30). Several large employers of various types around the country are announcing vaccination requirements for employees.

The federal government announced that federal employees must attest to their vaccination status. Those not attesting to being vaccinated will be required to wear masks, physically distance from others, be subject weekly or twice weekly testing, and have travel restrictions. It was indicated this requirement would be extended to contract organizations at some point, which would mean the Lab would need to comply. Hopefully they go one step further and require proof rather than attestation or have steep penalties attached to lying about it.

The Lab announced that they're getting a round of Pfizer vaccines to administer next week.

Jess was experiencing abdominal pain on Wednesday evening and we ended up going to the ER. Well she did. Only patients were allowed in because they were swamped with COVID patients. I sat outside for awhile and eventually went home and picked her up later. She got cycled back to the general waiting room in between seeing the doctor and having tests done since they didn't have enough space to just stay in the treatment area.

The hospital was straight out of a disaster movie. Entrances were barricaded and taped off, temporary tents and construction lighting were all over the outside, all the personnel were wearing multiple layers of PPE (e.g., masks + face shields), and signs everywhere about restricted access. They had a separate entrance near the ER set up to take people through some tents to an imaging area without passing through the waiting room. I took a couple of pictures, but didn't want to be an annoyance to anyone, so I didn't take pictures where anyone was hanging out.

Jess was there for about 4 hours; thankfully they got her test results rapidly. They gave her a prescription for some pain killers for a presumed kidney stone (it didn't show up on the CT) and she came home.

It's not clear why it's such a difficult message to get across: too many people needing medical care at the same time will overwhelm the medical system causing lower quality outcomes for all patients. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, physically distance. It's not a hard concept. But I guess until the medical system for a region truly does fail under the load many people just won't pay any attention.

The U.S. is back well above 100,000 new cases per day now after getting down below 10,000 in mid-June.

School is starting all around the country over the next few weeks. Over the past several months, some states passed absolutely bonkers laws that prohibit schools from requiring masks for their students. Thankfully California, on the other hand, has mandated that all students, teachers, faculty, etc. in K-12 are required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status per the guidance issued by the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

There hasn't been a single day since early March 2020 for which fewer than 100 deaths due to COVID-19 were reported in the country, thankfully we're not at the 4,000+ per day we saw in January, but we are at ~600 per day and trending up. 600 completely preventable deaths a day. It's sad and frustrating that there is so much disinformation and derision for something with such obvious and devastating impact.

• Livermore cases: 4,648; eligible vaccination rate: 65.4%
• Alameda County cases: 91,889; deaths: 1,232; eligible vaccination rate: 71.7%
• U.S. cases: 34,926,000+; deaths: 610,000+; eligible vaccination rate: 58.1%

Things have been trending poorly in several parts of the country. Nationwide we are back to the case rates we saw in early February, except in early February we were trending strongly downward and currently we're trending strongly upward--so more like what we saw in early November.

The latest data suggests that the delta variant has an r0 between 5 and 10; compared to the original strain at ~3. It's just spreading like crazy. It's also showing to be significantly more spreadable by vaccinated persons than either the original strain or alpha variant were. So while the original strain could have been effectively controlled with a vaccination rate of ~65%, the delta variant will need a vaccination rate of ~85%. Which it looks like we're just never going to get to.

It's pretty depressing that we're going to watch tens of thousands more people die for no reason other than weaponized ignorance and selfishness. Get vaccinated, wear a mask while community infection rates are high, and this could be effectively over.

California, and Alameda County, haven't re-introduced any mandatory mitigation measures despite that if we were still using the rules in place as of 2 months ago pretty much the entire state would be "purple" and there would be mask mandates and business restrictions.

It would be easy to wash one's hands and say, "those refusing a free vaccination have only themselves to blame," but children under 12 are still not eligible to be vaccinated. High community infection rates means there's a continuing risk that a vaccinated person will catch the virus and then infect unvaccinated children even if those kids are being kept out of high risk situations. While the vaccinated person is significantly protected we'll still end up killing thousands of children for no reason.

At work, the Lab was going to relax their on-site mask requirement, but canceled due to the much higher spread rate of the delta variant and the disappointingly low self-reported vaccination rate among employees. We still haven't begun working on site as a regular thing, so I continue working from my closet just about every day.