Second COVID-19 Vaccine Shots

Posted on by Thor

Once again Pam and I got up a 5AM to drive to the Valencia College campus FEMA site to get our second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Since this was our second dose we were directed to a line that went straight inside the tents essentially bypassing several registration tents that e waited in the first time around.

We gave our drivers licenses and vaccination cards to a worker and she entered the information into her phone which was hooked up to a tiny printer. She printed out a sticky label that I was to wear though the remaining process. As we went to the next tent another helper checked my label against the drivers license and I was told that my last name had been misspelled. I had to go back to get the information changed.

Ultimately we ended up in a holding tent with multiple switchbacks waiting to enter the tent here shots were administered. The site was officially to open at 7AM and there were only minutes before we would be let inside. I decided there wasn’t enough time to sketch all the people waiting. But the minutes dragged on and 7AM became 7:15 and onward.

A woman walked her way backwards in the line and kept asking “Are you Janet?” Who was Janet, and was she the cause for the hold up? Dammit Janet. It turned out she wasn’t looking for Janet, she was asking if people were Spanish. No one who spoke only Spanish would likely respond to someone asking asking questions in English. Regardless several others walked back through the line asking the same question. Then someone started shouting the question loudly from the sidelines. Finally a National Guardsman shouted the question in Spanish and several hands went up. This was unsettling. Something was up. Then everyone was given pens. The computer system had gone down and we had to fill out a Vaccine Screening and Consent form.

I immediately filled out my form incorrectly by putting my first name in the last name field. Then came a series of questions which required me to check NO…

Are you experiencing fever, chills, cough, soreness of breath, difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle of body aches, headache, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea? Well I always have a headache, and allergies have been really bad this year so I have had a cough and runny nose. I checked NO.

Have you tested positive for COVID-19? NO

Have you had a serious reaction to a previous dose of vaccine. Well I got a headache and aches. NO

Have you had any vaccinations in the last 14 days. How long ago was the first dose I got? I don’t know. NO

Have you had any COVID-19 antibody therapy in the last 90 days? NO

Have you received a previous dose of the COVID-19 vaccine? NO. Oh wait, YES! Hell I already checked the box wrong! OK cross it out and put a big circle in the YES column. But everything else had been filled out with check marks. Would the one circle on the page cause some alarm?

The line started to move as I was still filling out the form. I was directed to seat number 8 and I took off my jacket and sweat shirt. Pam sat diagonally across from me. The sweatshirt got stuck on my baseball cap and mask. I couldn’t just remove the cap since the mask was tied over it. I struggled with my head wedged in the hoodie for what seemed an eternity and finally pulled the sweatshirt over my big head ripping off both my cap and mask. Mortified, I quickly re-masked. I don’t think anyone noticed. I made sure my sticker was on top of my pile of folded clothes. It was chilly outside. The National Guard officer scanned my sticker and had me roll up my sleeve. Before I had time to wince, the shot was in and I was getting my sweatshirt back on. No one ever took my form. I guess the computer system was back online.

After Pam and I both got our shots, we were directed to a tent where we had to wait for 30 minutes to be sure there were no severe reactions. This is when I finally got my sketchbook out and sketched the guy in front of us as he waited for the moment he could return to life as normal. I got the VAX!!! The next day I have a headache and feel achy but that means the vaccine is working. Soon life can return to a new normal though I will still wear my mask, social distance and wash hands often until research proves I can not infect others.

FEMA Vaccine Site at Valencia College

Posted on by Thor

Now that teachers are allowed to get vaccinated, Pam and I went to the Valencia College, FEMA Vaccination site. White tents were set up in the college parking lot and National Guard troops handled much of the logistics.

This sketch was done in the first of a series of switchbacks. The site officially opened at 7am and we were there about an hour early. We didn’t actually wait an hour since the line started pressing forward before I finished this sketch.

In each of the seven tents we had to provide a drivers license and proof of school employment. We had to answer questions about foreign travel, and if we had any COVID-19  symptoms. Temperature checks happened several times. It was nice to be in a place where everyone wore a mask. Pubic health took priority over politics. White Tape marks on the pavement kept people six feet apart in line.

We had a choice to take the Johnson and Johnson vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine. We chose Pfizer. The shot itself was quick and painless. Now I am waiting to see if I get any side effects. Honestly I feel good. This is the first time I have felt some hope for humanity. The birds are chirping, and the weather is gorgeous. Perhaps life is beginning to return to normal. In April we will return to this site for our second dose of the vaccine.

Pfizer said its Covid-19 vaccine blocked 94% of asymptomatic infections in an Israeli study. The study also found the vaccine was at least 97% effective against symptomatic Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the company said.

Police Find 17 Bodies in a Small Retirement Home Morgue

Posted on by Thor

Nursing homes are being hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of deaths in long term care health facilities has doubled since last week. Nation wide so far 35,000 seniors and staff have tested positive for Civid-19 and 5700 have died. Nursing homes have been closed to visitors for over a month now because of the pandemic.

After an anonymous tip by a staff member, reporting that a body had been stored in a shed, police found 17 bodies in the morgue for New Jersey’s largest nursing home,  Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation I and II Long-term Care Facility. The small morgue was meant to handle four bodies at a time. I probably depicted the morgue too large imagining it able to handle 3 autopsies.  68 people from the nursing home as well as 2 staff members have died in recent weeks. 26 tested positive for Covid-19. This is a 700 bed facility and privately owned. Owners of the private facility were not answering calls.

Local Mayor Michael Lensak said on April 16, 2020, “According to the county there were only 10 dead in the home, but that was updated to 22 deaths in the morning, and now reports are of 68. It is very disconcerting to not have the proper information coming out of a facility.” Families who lost loved ones say they received form letters telling them
their loved ones were sick, and in at least one case, the letter
arrived after the patient died. The outbreak, and problems with how bodies are handled, prompted the New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to order an investigation.

More than 180 other residents and staff are showing respiratory or flu-like symptoms. Andover Subacute has only a one-star rating on Medicare.gov – or “much below average” – with deficiencies found in health inspections and staff assessments.

There have been rumors that FEMA and the National Guard might be called in to lend medical assistance. Arrangements are being made to try and get personal protective equipment to staff. Officials arranged for a refrigerated truck to be brought to the nursing facility to be used as an overflow morgue. It is a fluid hanging situation that is a hint at what is happening across the country.

New Jersey now has more than 75,000 Covid-19 cases with 3518 total deaths and on April 16, 2020 362 new deaths were reported; of that number, 54
people had been living in long-term care facilities.

The Horder

Posted on by Thor

 States lacking essential equipment like ventilators and masks need
relief quickly. Donald Trump has been fighting with state
governors blaming
them for the shortage of ventilators. The Trump administration wants
states to take care of themselves before bugging the federal government
for life saving equipment. The Strategic National Stockpile, a relatively obscure office in the
federal government that manages the country’s emergency medical
supplies, exists to respond to a crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the president and his son in law, prompted controversy
when he made a rare public appearance at the April 2 Covid-19 task
force briefing and commented on the federal stockpile. When asked about
states’ needs for supplies, Kushner said the stockpile was “supposed to
be OUR stockpile.”
He added, “It’s not supposed
to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”  The next day the
stockpile website was altered stating that the federal stockpile was “a short-term stopgap buffer.” More than once, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that
the federal stockpile of emergency medicine and supplies he inherited
from his predecessor was an “empty shelf.” He has sought to blame former President Barack Obama’s administration for the current state of the stockpile.

The
National stockpile  of ventilators and medical equipment is likely running
low. The medical supplies are stored in six warehouses located in
strategic, undisclosed locations across the country, where they are
maintained by a staff of about 200. The stockpile has maintained a large
supply of personal protective
equipment, including N95 masks, face shields, and surgical gowns, as
well as medical equipment like the ventilators that hospitals so
urgently need now to treat Covid-19 patients.

On April
3, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) said the federal government has just 9,800
ventilators available. There are 9,054 remaining in the Strategic
National Stockpile, and the Department of Defense had 900.  The
department of Defense has wanted to distribute the ventilators they
have, but the administration has not helped them in fining where they
should be sent.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
said that just his state, which is currently at the epicenter of the
pandemic, will need as many as 37,000 ventilators at the peak of the
outbreak. After waiting for relief from the Trump administration, Cuomo
ultimately enlisted the National Guard to sieve and relocate ventilators
from upstate facilities to New York City. Cuomo  reportedly only had
2,200 in the state stockpile. But
instead of using all the tools at his disposal to help, Trump has
indicated that he doesn’t believe Cuomo actually needs that many. New
York Sate is not crucial to his reelection hopes.Trump further said,
“The states should have been building their stockpiles … we’re a
backup. We’re not an ordering clerk.” China donated 1000 ventilators,
and Oregon donated 140 ventilators to New York State to try and make up
for the federal disregard for the states plight. Cuomo pledged that New
York would follow suit and help other states at the pandemic sweeps
across the country.

Experts and lawmakers are concerned that the Trump administration’s
uneven distribution of supplies is driven by political goals. In early March, Washington State requested 233,000 N95 respirators
and 200,000 surgical masks, the Strategic National Stockpile sent them less than half that amount. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maine also said they received fractions of what they requested. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
however asked for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, and
other equipment. The full order arrived three days later. One anonymous
official told the Washington Post, “The president knows Florida is so
important for his reelection … He pays close attention to what Florida
wants.” 

The House Oversight Committee revealed that President Donald Trump’s administration failed to allot masks and equipment from the federal stockpile based on states’ needs. Trump has also been reportedly seizing shipments from private
companies to distribute to his political allies.

At a
White House press briefing on March 13, Trump told states to order their
own medical supplies, kicking off a process that has led to governors
entering bidding wars
with each other, the federal government and other countries over
essential
goods like ventilators and N95 masks. “It’s like being on eBay with 50
other states, bidding on a ventilator,” Cuomo said in a daily press
briefing.

The Trump administration has been getting
worse at dealing with the Covid-19 crisis. After spending the first two
months of the year denying the severity of the Covid-19 outbreak,
it’s now clear that the Trump administration has settled on deflecting
blame. Trump seeks scapegoats not solutions and accountability.

At
FEMA, the agency tasked with coordinating the federal response to the
outbreak, about 9,000 additional ventilators are still on hold as
officials seek to determine where they are needed most urgently. A
unified National response is needed to address the crisis but there is
no leadership to oversee the desperate need.

The number
of deaths has spiked to 1,255 in one day which is the largest death rate
of any country in the world. By Tuesday April 6, 2020, 5,489 New
Yorkers had lost their lives to COVID-19, up from 4,758 a day earlier.
Refrigeration trucks are acting as temporary morgues since the city’s
morgues are full. Between 200 and 250 people are dying each day and so
plans are being made for mass burials on Hart Island in Long Island
Sound off of the Bronx and other public lands. 

Hurricane damage in Greenwood Cemetery.

Posted on by Thor

I drive by Greenwood Cemetery almost daily and after Hurricane Irma I was amazed at the amount of tree damage there was in the cemetery. I decided to return to document some of the trees that had snapped like twigs. The first stop was to the four headstones for victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre. This area of the cemetery had been largely spared. As a matter of fact one stone had rainbow balloons, rainbow flowers, a pin wheel and a rainbow colored teddy bear. All the memorial items were pristine. The day before had been Leroy Valentín Fernández‘ birthday. Clearly the family had come out and colorfully decorated his headstone to mark the occasion. All of the Pulse victim headstones now had color photos that were laminated in plastic and cut into the headstones. The photo of Cory Connell was had outstretched arms as if he were ready to wrestle the world. All memorial items had been removed form his stone, probably in preparation for Hurricane Irma. All 4 stone sat quietly in the shade of a large tree that had weathered the storm fine.

Pam Schwartz and I searched the cemetery for the tree I had seen while driving by the cemetery. Blanche Crews headstone
was knocked over by a fallen tree limb. It was wedged back up with
fallen branches making it look like the fallen angels had crutches.  Dozens of trees had snapped and branches littered the entire cemetery making it appear wild and overgrown. I settled into a spot near the headstone of Edgar Earl Hitchcock. I of course wondered if he was related to the film maker. Pam quickly did research and found out that Edgar was an important figure in Orlando’s medical history. He founded the Pediatric Associates of Orlando in 1939. He was shown in a photo giving the very first polio vaccine shot in Central Florida to a young boy. His wife Ruth died many years after him but her headstone was not in her family plot or perhaps there is just no headstone.

Across the lane from where I was sketching, a family arrived in several cars. Blue and white helium balloons bounced up out of the car behind them. They were visiting the headstone of Richard Marcano Trinidad who had died on August 19, 2016. He had died at the tender age of 36. His stone noted that he was a Stealers fan and the epitaph read…”For the best daddy in the world. We will never forget you…from your kids.” An Orlando Sentinel article reported that police had been dispatched to a home near UCF, where they found Trinidad critically injured. His 36 year old girlfriend was on the scene. I could not find any further reports about how or why Richard had died. The family released the dozen or so blue and white balloons and they silently rose into the sky.

Near the fallen tree I was sketching was the headstone for Harry P. Leu (1884-1977) and his wife Mary (1903-1986) of Leu Gardens fame. Their two granite slabs lying side by side, were pristine except for a few leaves. The Harry P. Leu historic home however has suffered damage from a huge tree limb that crashed into the roof, exposing the Leu bedroom to rain and wind damage. The ceilings and floor boards are soaked. Leu Gardens has closed indefinitely. Pam Schwartz, the Orange County Regional History Center curator went to the historic home to offer advice on preservation societies who might be able to help as well as FEMA contacts. 

The History Center off site storage facility had suffered damage when a roof access panel was blown loose and it gouged holes in the roofing as the heavy metal lid was hurled by the high winds, causing leaks over the historic collection. I was with Pam when she found the soaked warehouse and helped in removing soaked ceiling panels and now useless archival cardboard boxes. It look hours of work and in the emergency the sketchbook was ignored. Even though the floor were dried and artifacts were lifted to be  dried out off the floor, it was then discovered that the walls of the warehouse are fulled with mold. Now an effort needs to be made to save the collection form that mold which is inside the walls up to 10 feet high. The History Center is replacing all the inner walls in an effort to  protect and preserve Orlando’s History.