Back to School

Posted on by Thor

School children all across Florida have returned to school. Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis issued an royal decree saying parents can elect to not mask their children if they do not want them masked. 815 physicians signed an open letter asking him to repeal his anti-mask laws. Florida currently leads the nation in the number of children hospitalized for COVID-19. A child younger than 5 has died of COVID-19 at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.

Three Broward County teachers and a teachers aid died on August 12, 2021 all in the span of 24 hours from COVID-19. The Broward County school board voted 8 to 1 to mandate that students must wear masks in school. DeathSantis later said the Florida Board of Education could withhold the paychecks of school board members and superintendents who enforce mask mandates. He later had to back down from his threat to withhold school officials’ salaries if they resist his anti-mask rule since school board officials are not on the state payroll. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended all K-12 students wear masks for in-person learning. All across the state, only 4% of students tried to find excuses not to mask up.

Hospitals in Central Florida are full and as of August 9, 2021 nearly 14,000 people were hospitalized with COVID in the state, according to federal data. 440 students in Palm Beach County have been asked to quarantine just two days into the school year, after 51 students and faculty had confirmed cases on COVID-19. Mike Burke, Palm Beach County superintendent of schools blamed the opt-out rule as the reason for the spike in cases, calling on DeathSantis to make changes to protect students from infection.

In recent weeks there has been a surge in COVID hospitalizations among children in the United States. Nearly 94,000 new child COVID-19 cases were reported last week which is a substantial increase in cases. In Florida, the state with the highest number of confirmed pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations in the country, 179 children are receiving care, according to federal data. 29 kids are hospitalized in the Orlando area including 6 in the ICU. While severe illness due to COVID-19 remains “uncommon” among children, experts say the increased trend is concerning.

On August 12, 2021 Florida shattered another record with 24,869 cases of COVID-19 with 357 more deaths.

Freedom to Drown

Posted on by Thor

They say it is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Only when they are gasping for their last breaths do people lament not getting vaccinated when they had the chance.

Doctors and nurses are shocked that they must deal with sick unvaccinated patients who do not believe the virus is real. The vaccine life boat is there but they refuse to get on.

Right wing politics have made simple heath measures like wearing masks a flash point of contention. Ignorance is more contagious than the virus itself.

With the vaccination roll out coming to an absolute crawl, more than 100,000 Americans are refusing to take the vaccine which could vastly reduce the possibility of hospitalization and death from the virus. With most of the world wishing they could get a hold of the vaccine Americana are simply choosing to risk death to “own the liberals.”

As death rates soar, Facebook groups, Instagram accounts and Telegram channels dedicated to downplaying the pandemic attracted thousands of followers. Many Facebook accounts are run by suburban moms, who post memes about children being traumatized by masks. Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis is playing into that fear. Less than half of Floridians are fully vaccinated. The apocalyptic cults continue to flourish, believing they know more that the scientists and media who report what is happening around the world. Their world view seems limited by their anger and fear. Disinformation will keep this virus well fed far into the future.

The 1918 Spanish Flu lasted for three years. We are now into the second year of this pandemic. 675,000 Americans died due to the 1918 Spanish Flu. To date, 617,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. It looks like COVID will likely surpass the 1918 death toll. You might think that science and reason had developed in the last 100 years but the opposites seems to be true. The internet information age seems to have accelerated ignorance and fear. Over 3000 Americans died the week of August 8. 2021. It did not have to get this bad.

Casa Feliz

Posted on by Thor

On May 13, 2021 the CDC had announced that fully vaccinated people can participate in many of the activities that they did before the pandemic.

I still refused to hold Crealde School of Art classes indoors choosing instead to take my students to outdoor sites to sketch. On this weekend we went to Casa Feliz in Winter Park.

My first lesson was to make sure you are always in the shade because the Florida sun can be hellish. Most of my students scattered to shady shops under trees but this student decided to sit on the stone wall around the back patio. Within 15 minuted she was baking in the sun.

No one wore masks outside but I wore my mask any time I approached a student. I approached this student and suggested she back up into the shade since the basic outlines of her sketch were established. Adding color to a sketch needn’t always be done in the exact spot where the sketch was started.

I had to do this sketch super fast since I spent most of my time visiting each student and offering feedback and suggestions. The backs of most of my sketches in this sketchbook have the rough sketches I did for each student to advise them on how to set up compositions.

On July 18, 2021 it was reported, that the latest Covid-19 hospital patients are unvaccinated and increasingly younger. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported 1,008 daily coronavirus cases with just one week to go before the start of the Olympics.

Ghost Light

Posted on by Thor

A ghost light is an electric light that is left on the stage of a theater when the theater is unoccupied and would otherwise be completely dark. A popular theatrical superstition is that every theater has a ghost, and some theaters have traditions to appease ghosts that reach far back into their history. One such superstition states that ghost lights provide opportunities for ghosts to perform onstage, thus appeasing them and preventing them from cursing the theater or sabotaging the set or production.

Many theaters forced to close during the COVID-19 pandemic have renewed the tradition of ghost lights as a way of indicating the theaters will one day re-open. The Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, Canada has burned a ghost light through both the 1918 and 2020 pandemics.

On July 30, 2021 it was announced that Broadway audiences will need masks and proof of vaccination when shows reopen in the fall. Theaters will only reopen to 100 percent capacity. Audiences must wear masks except while eating or drinking in designated locations. The Metropolitan Opera plans to bar children under 12, who are ineligible to be inoculated against coronavirus. All of New York’s 41 Broadway theaters are mandating documentation of full vaccination before allowing indoor entry to patrons, performers, backstage crew and theater staff for all shows.

Exceptions are being made for children under 12 and people with a medical condition or closely held religious belief that prevents vaccination. These guests must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours of the performance start time, or a negative COVID-19 antigen test taken within six hours of the performance start time.

Pass Over raised the curtain on August 4, 2021 at the August Wilson Theatre. Proof of full vaccination was already required to get a seat at Bruce Springsteen’s sold out solo show seating 1,721, which opened on  at the St. James Theatre June 2021. “A uniform policy makes it simple for our audiences and should give even more confidence to our guests about how seriously Broadway is taking audience safety,” League president Charlotte St. Martin said in the statement.

 

Independence Day

Posted on by Thor

On March 12, 2021 President Joe Biden declared July 4 could mark the start of US “independence from this virus.” In a July 4, 2021 speech, he celebrated the “heroic” vaccination campaign on the country’s Independence Day holiday. He hadn’t learned from history that declaring victory too early is often short sighted.

In Barnstable County, Massachusetts people gathered in large groups to celebrate the holiday. It was the Hot Vax Summer Celebration and people wanted to party mask less as they had before the pandemic broke out. Pool parties and shirtless conga lines were in store.

469 COVID-19 cases were identified among people who attended. 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated people. Among five COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated; no deaths were reported.

The bottom line conclusion was that the  SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant is highly transmissible and can be spread between vaccinated individuals. The study implies that the viral load of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 is similar. Because of this study the CDC has recommended on July 27, 2021 that all individuals both vaccinated and unvaccinated should wear masks indoors or when in crowds. The delta variant of the coronavirus is more contagious than previously thought. It is more communicable than Ebola and can spread faster than the chickenpox. While vaccines appear to remain strong against the virus, new evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people with so-called breakthrough infections may be every bit as infectious as those yet to receive their shots, even if their own cases remain relatively mild. As of July 31, 2021 the P-Town outbreak had ballooned to 965 cases.

Provincetown, Massachusetts, has restored its indoor mask mandate after a cluster of Covid-19 cases followed the Fourth of July holiday.

Anti-Mask Grave Diggers

Posted on by Thor

Indonesia is making Anti Maskers dig graves for COVID-19 victims. As a punishment for violating Indonesian mask mandates, eight people who refused to wear face masks to combat the spread of COVID-19 were, in fact, ordered by a local official to dig graves, USA TODAY reported.

Leaders in Cerme, a district located in East Java, had set out stricter policies surrounding the enforcement of social distancing and mask-wearing due to a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases.

Indonesian news site Tribune News reported that Suyono, the leader of Cerme, proposed grave digging as a punishment to those who violated the local mask mandate due to a lack of gravediggers in the area.

“There are only three available gravediggers at the moment, so I thought I might as well put these people to work with them,” Suyono told Tribune News. “Hopefully, this can create a deterrent effect against violations.”

Suyono said two people were assigned to each grave, one to dig the grave and the other to insert wooden boards into the burial holes to support the corpses. However, the violators did not participate in the actual burials and were forbidden from touching the bodies, Australia SBS News reported. The task was left to health officials who were wearing proper protective equipment.

Those in Creme caught not wearing a mask have the option of accepting a fine of 150,000 rupiah, which is equivalent to $10 in the U.S., or accepting a “social punishment,” according to Suyono.

Suyono told CNN that while most people have accepted social punishments, such as push-ups or cleaning, he hopes grave digging would show “firsthand the real and serious effect of COVID-19” and added that none of the gravediggers were present when the bodies were buried.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Indonesia is the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak with the highest death toll in Southeast Asia. Mask-wearing ha been required since April 2021. On July 22, 2021 there were 1449 deaths in Indonesia and that is most certainly under reported. There have been over 3 million cases and over 30,000 deaths to date in the country.

Lollapalooza

Posted on by Thor

Lollapalooza was a four day concert event in Chicago which wrapped up on August 1, 2021. An estimated 100,000 people attended.

Leading up to the festival, Chicago’s COVID-19 daily case rate was quintuple what it was a month ago. It does not take a seasoned epidemiologist to see that this will be a super spreader event. You can be sure that there will be a sharp increase in cases of COVID-19 in Chicago and the surrounding area in two weeks time.

Concert goers had to show proof of vaccination or a COVID test that was negative to attend. Videos posted showed staff barely checking vaccination cards on entry. The Delta variant is proving quite successful at breaking through and infecting fully vaccinated individuals. When a vaccinated person get the virus they may be asymptomatic or just show symptoms of a common cold. Their airways however can carry as much of the virus as an unvaccinated person and they can easily spread the virus to 8 or 9 other people. The ancestral strains of COVID -19 only spread to 2 or 3 other people

A study from Israel shows that the Pfizer vaccine is showing decreasing efficacy over time. The study found that there was only a 41% symptomatic protection against getting infected. The original protection against symptomatic infection when the shots were first given was 90%. Dr. John Campbell from England speculates that the timing between vaccine doses accounts for this reduction in efficacy. Israel had 3 weeks between shots. The UK had 8 weeks or more between shots and the efficacy is over twice as high. In the United States we have 3 weeks between doses just as in Israel. It is fair to assume that vaccinated individuals in the United States have an increasing chance of infection over time but remain safe from severe disease and death.

In May 2021 Lollapalooza festival goers were told they needed to show a negative COVID-19 test taken 24 hours or less before entering, that number was increased to 72 hours, allowing a much longer window to theoretically contract the virus before the festival. Earlier this month, the Verknipt festival in the Netherlands admitted unvaccinated attendees as long as they had a negative test taken within 40 hours of entering. The festival was later linked to 1,000 COVID-19 cases among its 20,000 attendees. So if that math holds up Lollapalooza may result in 5000 or more infections. Now lets say those 5000 people spread the virus to 8 friends and family. That would be 40,000 people infected.

At the Rolling Loud hip-hop festival in Miami two weekends ago. Tens of thousands of people showed up daily to the festival, which did not require masks, vaccinations or negative tests. Last week, the rapper Dess Dior and the actor Alexa Leighton, among others, announced on social media that they had tested positive for COVID-19. Their infections coincided with a larger spike in Florida at large, in which COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have risen dramatically.

Lollapalooza was an outdoor event but the hundreds of thousands of people were packed in like sardines. Delta has also proven effective at spreading better outdoors. It has spread at soccer matches. Basically anyone who went to Lollapalooza who was not vaccinated is at a very high risk of getting infected and having severe symptoms. When I saw photos of the crowds I just could not believe what I was seeing. This was absolute insanity and Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot seemed to think it was a great idea.

Post script: As of September 6, 2021, according to Chicago City officials there are 200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 associated with the Lollapalooza concerts.

What Virus? What Insurrection?

Posted on by Thor

Since the start of the pandemic, science deniers have been saying that this COVID-19 is just like the flu. Politicians like the former president and the GOP have played down its lethality and spread.

Many unvaccinated people are denying the virus even exists right up to their dying breath. The curse the doctors and nurses who give them the news that they may have to go one a ventilator. Some beg for the vaccine but it is too late.

People grasp at conspiracy theories which give them someone to blame These theories are easier to believe that the science. The deniers refuse to wear a face mask or publicly disregard social distancing rules. Some deniers raise their indignation to an unnecessarily dramatic level of outrage. It is their rights, that they feel are most important. They care only about themselves. They fear loosing their grip on the only reality they can grasp. Facts no longer matter to them.

Around 13% of Americans think that the coronavirus probably or definitely isn’t real, according to a global survey from YouGov. In this alternate universe, GOP lawmakers are arguing that the rioters who used flagpoles as weapons, brutally beat police officers and chanted that they wanted to hang Vice President Mike Pence were somehow acting peacefully in their violent bid to overturn Joe Biden’s election win. COVID deniers and conspiracy theorists need an enemy and Biden fits the bill although the ex president was impeached twice and still under investigation for his criminal acts. One GOP called the terrorists “A mob of misfits” and another refereed to them as “Tourists.” The big lie that the election was stolen is as believable as the idea that the virus does not exist.

So many in Florida have been acting like the virus does not exist or is just a seasonal flu. They are paying the ultimate price but we all have to suffer because of their ignorance and selfishness. Florida just broke a record with over 21,000 cases of COVID in one day. This is the highest surge sine the start of the pandemic. Republican Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis has resisted mandatory mask mandates and vaccine requirements, and he has limited local officials’ ability to impose restrictions meant to stop the spread of COVID-19. His denial ism and ignorance is literally killing his constituants.

 

 

Delta Infects Faster then Smallpox

Posted on by Thor

An internal CDC Powerpoint presentation was leaked that claimed that the Delta variant of COVID -19 is more transmissible than smallpox. From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated Smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated. You have to winder if Smallpox would still be with us if today’s polarized political situation existed back when that vaccine roll out happened.

The war against COVID-19 has changed. Delta is highly contagious. Whereas the original strain of COVID-19 might result in a person spreading the infection to about two other people, the Delta variant can spread to 8 or 9 other people. It likely results in more hospitalizations.

The bombshell in the report is that breakthrough cases can be as transmissible as in unvaccinated cases. Vaccinated individuals are much less likely to be infected. Vaccinated individuals might not even know they are infected so they can circulate in public and spread the virus without knowing. Vaccines prevent about 90% of severe infections but they are less effective against protecting against breakthrough infections.

The CDC therefor reversed its position on masks insisting the vaccinated and unvaccinated people must wear masks indoors. The ancestral strains of covid-19 spread about as fast as the common cold. It is believed that the COVID Delta variant spreads faster that the Spanish Flu and Smallpox. The variant might also be slightly more deadly that the original stains of COVID-19.

The unvaccinated in America are driving the recent surge in COVID cases. Floriduh reported over 21,000 cases in one day (July 30, 2021) which is the highest case count since the pandemic began. In the same breath, the Governor Ron DeathSantis signed an order making it illegal for schools to require students to wear masks. The state reported 409 deaths this week, bringing the total to more than 39,000. Go get the vaccine. It works. If you  have kids heading too school this fall, insist that they wear masks or keep them home. Don’t listen to DeathSantis who continues to treat masks as a political football rather than a temporary health measure.

State of Emergency

Posted on by Thor

Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida and Disney Land in Anaheim California are requiring cast members and guests to mask up indoors on Friday, July 30 2021. The mandate will apply to everyone in the parks two years of age and older, regardless of vaccination status. Masks will remain optional for all guests in outdoor common areas.

Jerry Demings the Mayor or Orange County declared a state of emergency due to the huge spike in cases due to the Delta variant of COVID-19 which is filling hospitals at a never before seen rate.

Video I saw yesterday showed long lines of people in Disney World waiting in lines for rides with no social distancing set up. All the distancing markers had been taken down when the CDC declared about a month ago that anyone who is vaccinated can go mask less. Universal Studios has decided to “Urge” guests to wear masks indoors. All of the Central Florida theme parks have been functioning at full capacity allowing guests to spread the virus all across the country. The numbers of people filling local hospitals far exceeds the numbers seen back in March of 2020 when the parks decided they needed to shut down to stop the spread.  After a solid year COVID isolation Americans want to get away and many are coming to Central Florida. There is money to be made filling the parks.

It has been found that the Delta variant causes breakthrough cases and those infections carry as much viral load as if an unvaccinated person were infected. The symptoms for a vaccinated parson are similar to having a cold so they might unknowingly infect others spreading the virus. 30% of people now testing positive in Orange Couunty are vaccinated. 1,371 people tested positive for COVID-19 on July 27, 2021. Since testing has been dropping the number of cases is likely higher. 95% of people who are hospitalized for COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

The CDC released a document that stated that the Delta variant spreads as easily as Chickenpox. The earlier variants of COVID spread about the same as a common cold infecting one or two other people. However Delta infects 8 or 9 other people and causes more severe infection. Vaccinated individuals who get infected can spread the virus as easily as unvaccinated individuals.