Eye of Ian

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The 24 hour leading up to Hurricane Ian making landfall were stressful for all on the south west coast.Early projections showed the storm would hit up near Tampa, Florida. I have a sister who lives in Port Charlotte and she lived through Hurricane Charley back in August of 2004. In that hurricane she hunkered down in a bathtub and the winds ripped off the roof of her home. Charlie was also supposed to head up to Tampa but it hooked off at the last minute and tore right through Port Charlotte.

There was a mandatory evacuation for the zone she lived in with Hurricane Ian. I asked her to come to our guest bedroom in Orlando but she really can’t travel that far. She therefor moved to a neighbors house which was larger and had a generator. The home was maybe a mile from where she lived at the end of a canal. Early reports are that her home suffered only minor damage and a tarp has already been put on the roof. Storm surge waters had water coming right up to her front and back doorways but it stopped short of going inside her home. A fence was blown down and there are trees down in the neighborhood. Ironically her umbrella style clothes line went unscathed. Power has been down.

The local sports complex is offering ice and large container of water as well as several BBQ dinners. That was the first hot meal since Wednesday. The primary concerns seem to be no hot water and no gas for the grill. Everything had to be emptied from the fridge since it started to smell.

Here in Orlando we were nervous because there is a large dead tree in the back yard. A neighbor told us it might have been hit by lightning but a contractor said that beetles had killed it. There are vines growing all over the branches and we thought until about a week ago that it was alive. So our concern was that the whole tree could fall.

We lucked out in that only very large branches crashed to the ground during the storm. One fell while our dog was in the yard relieving himself. It missed him. We have been taking clean up slow. Each evening I burn tree limbs in the fire pit rather than waste all that fuel. We lost power for 24 hours and I had to cancel several virtual classes. Our refrigerator contents were moved to a building with a generator and promptly returned once power came back on.

Pam has had of deal with endless repair work because of water leaks in the History museum and the off site storage facility. I experienced a horrible irregular heart beat in the mad rush to clean the yard prior to the storm. I suddenly realize I am not as spry as I used to be. I have been taking the clean up of dead branches slow and steady in the mean time. My mini bon fires make it a more relaxing project.

On Your Feet

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Pam, her niece and I went to a final dress rehearsal for On Your Feet at the Garden Theater in Winter Garden, Florida. This exuberant show is about Gloria Estefan‘s rise to stardom from her humble beginnings in Cuba.When Gloria met Emilio Estefan her life changed forever. He saw her raw talent and his tireless salesmanship built the Miami Sound Machine group into an international sensation. Gloria had other career goals, but her Mima and Emilio convinced her that she was born to be a singer. He Mima said it best, “This is what you’re meant to do. You just don’t know it yet. Why write all these beautiful songs if no one gets a chance to hear them?”

I had no expectations going in to the show and I was blown away. There were some stellar singing voices in the cast and by the end the cast literally had the audience of volunteers who attended, dancing in the aisles.

I didn’t know much about Gloria Estefan’s life prior to the show, but the basic theme of her life and career is that you can always choose to rise up despite what others might tell you. Never accept the limitations other impose in “your best interest.” A career as a creative involves endless faith that someday people will recognize the value in what is created.

I welled up at several points in the show as Gloria sang about the loving support of her Mema, and when fans wrote in loving support of Gloria though troubled times. These moods could quickly swing to joyful song and dance that had me dancing in my seat as I sketched.

All theater staff were masked but very few in the audience were masked. I am fascinated with peoples half hearted masking attempts. The guy in front of me had his mask off as he spoke to others in the audience and then he put his mask back on to watch the show. Needless to say, Pam, her niece and I had our KN-95 masks on for the whole show.

On Your Feet runs through July 31, 2022. Tickets range from $17 to $32. The program is online should you like to learn more about the cast and crew. Trust me, this is an amazing night of theater. The July 20 and 21, 2022 performances are canceled due to a positive CIVID-19 test among the cast or crew.

Eola Slumber

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I went to Lake Eola in Orlando Florida to conduct an advanced Urban Sketching workshop with a student. As I was walking around the lake to meet her near the swam boats, would be the only one in the park wearing a face mask. I was wrong. I saw someone on a park bench fast asleep using a face mask to cover their eyes, to keep out the bright Florida sun. I didn’t have time to sketch this person, so I committed it to memory.

It seemed to me a perfect analogy to where we are as a country right now. Most Americans are “done” with the pandemic and have decided to put on blinders to go about life as normal in the midst of the pandemic. We are in a momentary lull. But lulls don’t last in a pandemic. It ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

The White House may decide to back off on the COVID National Emergency status. The public health emergency (PHE) was initially declared by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in late January 2020, pursuant to Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act. A PHE lasts for 90 days and must be renewed to continue; the PHE for COVID-19 has been renewed several times, most recently in April 2022, and is currently scheduled to expire in mid-July 2022. Possibly allowing the PHE to expire isn’t being based on experts or any science but rather on the fact that there are mid term elections coming up and it would be impossible to get re-elected while the country was in the midst of a national emergency. The only solution is to put on the blinders.

DeathSantis Hoards a Million COVID Tests

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Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried accused Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis of stockpiling COVID-19 rapid tests while residents across the state are waiting for multiple hours for the opportunity to get tested in the Omicron Surge.

Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie confessed the state did have a warehouse full of one million COVID-19 rapid test kits that have since expired. Guthrie said the tests expired between Dec. 26 and Dec. 30 after being granted a three-month extension.

Guthrie’s remarks confirm what Fried, the lone Democrat in the Florida Cabinet who is challenging DeathSantis for governor, has alleged since Christmastime.

“It’s bad enough that Governor DeSantis has de-prioritized testing with Omicron exploding across Florida, but it’s an absolute disgrace for the governor and his communications team to have lied and covered up the massive failure of a million unused tests while Floridians wait in hours-long lines for local tests that are running out,” Fried said January 6, 2022 in a statement shared on her social media pages. “Now the governor has to beg President (Joe) Biden for another waiver to even use these expired tests — should they still be safe and effective. The governor’s executive failure during this pandemic continues to hurt Floridians. This is why I speak up.”

“Worst off, during this time period, they lied about it, they tried to cover it, they said that my accusations were unfounded, called me a liar, and the reality is this governor is not fit to serve,” Fried said. “He should have known that this stockpile of tests could have been distributed all throughout the state. This is not only a derelict of responsibility, but this is a complete failure of this governor.”

Fried said new leadership is needed and questioned why DeSantis didn’t contact local health departments, hospitals, nursing homes and pharmacies about a possible exchange program.

Welcome Back

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Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis has vowed that schools will remain open through the Omicron blizzard. Mask mandates for students are a thing of the past since DeathSantis created a law making mask mandates illegal to protect students.

The Governor has been at war with local school districts that wanted to mask mandates to protect students during surges of COVID. The  administration’s policy was to deny school boards, the right to choose whether their children attend school masked or unmasked.

The State Board of Education docked pay from school boards that issued mask mandates in defiance of the governor’s policy. The Federal Government stepped in to cover School Board salaries. However, it is now illegal to protect the lives of students. The Governor wants students to get infected in the  hope that it will foster herd immunity with what he considers an acceptable amount of death. COVID is not benign in in kids and it is not inconsequential.

So students are returning to classrooms mask free if they like, to spread this highly transmissible virus at will. Governor DeathSantis said, while speaking in Fort Lauderdale, children “do not need to be doing any crazy mitigation” such as testing or wearing masks, unless their parents want them to. He is also making moved to cut back testing just as the demand for more testing has grown in this wave of the pandemic. Tests  will only be for “High Value” individuals, whatever that means. An example given was of an elderly grandmother given more testing consideration over an 8-year-old third grader. Clearly he feels that allowing children to get sick will held his re-election plans

According to The New York Times, “Large city school systems in Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and Newark have joined a growing list of public schools across the country that have postponed reopening after the holiday break, switched to remote instruction, or have taken both steps because of COVID-19 outbreaks and staffing shortages.”

Florida reported 85,000 new COVID-19 cases on January 4th 2022. 61 people died that same day. Hospitalizations have spiked suddenly high above the peak of the Delta wave. It will get worse before it gets better. As of 6Pm on January 3, 2022 over 3,000 schools nationwide had closed for the week, according to Burbio, which tracks school calendars. Many schools are pivoting to virtual learning.  School districts in and around  Detroit, Atlanta, Newark, New Jersey, and Milwaukee, as well as individual schools elsewhere, have reverted to virtual learning for days or weeks, mostly because of staff shortages resulting from illness or quarantine.

COVID-19 Air

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The U.S. lifted restrictions November 8, 2021 on travel from 33 countries, including the U.K., (9,333,891 COVID cases) South Africa, (2,924,072 COVID cases) Brazil, (21,886,077 COVID cases) Mexico, (3,827,596 COVID cases) Canada, (1,735,017 COVID cases) and most of Europe. In Europe there is a surge in COVID-19  infections, alarming health officials and sparking fears that the continent could be engulfed by a new wave of the pandemic this winter.

Travelers must show proof of vaccination and a negative COVID-19 test. I am certain that Florida‘s Governor Ron DeathSantis will take issue with these vaccination passports and will fight these airlines insisting every unvaccinated person in the world should  be allowed into the state. He has already been fighting tooth and nail with the cruise industry. But he lost that lawsuit.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) the U.S. will accept travelers who have been fully vaccinated with any of the vaccines approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, (WHO) not just those in use in the U.S. That means that the AstraZeneca vaccine, widely used in Canada, will be accepted. Though vaccinations are required, there are exemptions for travelers under age 18 and passengers from countries with low vaccination availability. In other words, if the country hasn’t vaccinated many people, then hey, come on in anyway, and don’t bother taking any precautions because this is “Merica.”

Mu Detected in Local Sewage

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The Mu COVID-19 variant (B.1.621) has been detected in Altamonte Springs, Florida sewage. The virus is shed it in stool or urine. Tests are done on the waste water as a predictor for possible transmissions in a community.

The variant has also been found in 49 other states. As of Oct. 29, 2021 the Mu variant accounts for less than 1 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to the GISAID Initiative, which is an organization that promotes the rapid sharing of data from all influenza viruses and COVID-19. It is still the dominant strain of COVID-19 in Colombia, where it was originally found.

People did not consider Delta to be much of a concern when it came to the United States from India back in June. When a virus takes a foothold it grows at an exponential rate. By the time everyone realized it is a problem it is already too late.

Mu has mutations already in Delta ( B. 1.617. 2) but it also has mutations from Alpha (B.1.1.7), which was also known to be highly transmissible. A lab study pre-print suggests, that Mu is the most immune evasive virus we’ve seen in the pandemic. It could be able to evade the immunity provided by vaccines and prior infections. It has been listed as a a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization since August 30, 2021.

“Mu looks potentially good at immune evasion,” Danny Altmann, PhD, an immunologist at Imperial College London, told The Telegraph. “For my taste, it’s a stark reminder that this isn’t by any means over. On a planet of 4.4 million-plus new infections per week, there are new variants popping up all the time, and little reason to feel complacent.”

 

Don’t Get Vaccinated

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A black Wilmore Funeral House truck  had “Don’t Get Vaccinated” emblazoned on it’s side. This messanging was actually Part of a Pro-Vaccine Campaign. The truck that circled outside of the Bank of America Stadium in North Carolina during Sunday’s Carolina Panthers game, CNN reported. Wilmore Funeral House is nonexistent, however — the creation of ad agency BooneOakley. When internet users access the website, the landing page has a message that simply states, “Get vaccinated now. If not, see you soon.” The page also has a link to StarMed, which allows people to register to get vaccinated at health care providers in the area.

Last month in Florida over 9500 people have died from COVID-19. Bringing the total number of deaths from COVID in the Sunshine State to over 54,000. That is about double the number of deaths compared to a country like Canada.

Business is too good for funeral directors. Funeral homes and grave diggers have to struggle to keep up with the demand. In Florida, according to CBS News, employees of funeral homes are absolutely swamped. In July 2021, the CDC reported that one in five new COVID-19 cases in the United States was occurring in Florida. CBS News’ Khristopher J. Brooks explained, “In the last week of August 2021, Florida hospitals averaged 279 deaths per day — up from 52 in July, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The spike in fatalities, is strongly suspected to stem from the ongoing surge in cases caused by the Delta variant.

Canaries in the Coal Mine

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With schools open, children have become the canaries in the coal mine. Pediatric hospitalizations are surging due to COVID-19, pushing hospitals and health care workers to the limits. In Florida, there are more people dying of COVID-19 than ever before. There are also more children being infected than ever before.

Florida is averaging 250 COVID-19 deaths a day. 14 refrigerated mobile morgues have been moved to central Florida hospitals to handle the overflow of bodies. August deaths match the peak fatalities from the last wave of infections in January 2021.

Florida added 151,749 coronavirus cases. Nearly one out of every three infections was suffered by those age 19 and under.

More and more, COVID-19 is afflicting the state’s youngest residents. Ages 19 and under account for 32 percent of infections, or 48,215 cases. More than 9,000 Florida children test positive for coronavirus in two weeks since schools reopened.

Young Floridians also continue to lead all age groups in positivity rates: Ages 12-19 have a 23 percent positivity rate, the highest in the state. Children ages 12 and under have the second highest rate at 19 percent — and those 11 and under cannot be vaccinated.

Florida hospitals had 215 pediatric cases with confirmed COVID-19 as of Friday, the highest number of child hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.

Five children under 16 have died from COVID-19 in Florida in the past four weeks.

Despite all this, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis is still trying to keep local school boards from issuing mask mandates. A judge ruled August 20, 2021 that Florida school districts may impose mask mandates. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper agreed with a group of parents who claimed in a lawsuit that DeathSantis’ order is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. Despite his court loss, the governor has begun withholding the salaries of school district administrators who have refused to comply with his unconstitutional executive order prohibiting them from enforcing mask mandates in schools.

Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), a district in Tampa, Florida, reopened to students for its first day of classes on August 10, 2021. The district had about 208,500 enrolled students as of the third day back at school.

The Orange County, Florida school district mandated masks after 400 COVID cases were reported in one day. The 60-day mask mandate requiring face coverings was institutes as the very contagious Delta variant ravages the state. The Orange County school board approved the mandate at its August 31, 2021 meeting, one day after the district confirmed more than 400 new cases of COVID-19 contracted by students and employees. The mandate goes into effect at the start of next week for all schools from pre-K through 12th grade. 382 students and 37 employees tested positive on August 30, 2021 . On August 31, 2021, the number of those quarantined was updated to 557. Orange County is the ninth Florida county to institute a mask mandate, going against the wishes of Republican Gov. Ron DeathSantis.

The legal battle over school re-openings, which have continued into this week, landed in court August 30, 2021 when Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson sided with the Florida Education Association and granted a temporary injunction against the state’s order that required brick-and-mortar schools to reopen. The mandate, Dodson wrote in his ruling, “arbitrarily disregards safety.” Since Aug. 9, 2021 another child has also died, bringing the total to eight. How many canaries must die in the Governor’s political power play to send kids back to school without CDC advised safety precautions?

Freedom

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Americans are dying in the name of Freedom. They fear the virus will control them or that it is an unproven poison. God rather than science is the only form of salvation from the pandemic in their minds.

Being in the deep south of Florida, I get to see this play out in real time as half of Floridians refuse to get the vaccine and who fight tooth and nail to send students back to school with no masks and no vaccine. Some honestly believe that a piece of cloth over a students mouth and nose is a greater threat than COVID-19.

More than 90% of patients in Central Florida ICU wards are Unvaccinated. Individual freedoms has become more important than personal health. These individual rights and freedoms result in a wide variety of excuses to refuse to get vaccinated. Rare breakthrough cases have resulted in people believing that the vaccine does not work. Unfounded online rumors circulate that the vaccinated are spreading the virus. Some actually believe that the shot is an excuse to inject a micro chip which is magnetized. Politicians actively ban mask mandates and vaccine passports. Political ambitions trump public health.

75 doctors from South Florida hospitals staged a walk out to protest the deluge of unvaccinated patients they must watch die. The walk out was staged to urge people to get the vaccine. One doctor now refuse to treat any patient who has not been vaccinated. Florida is now dealing with the highest number of new COVID-19 infections in the country. On August 23, 2021 Florida reported 21,329 new cases and the state has 17,215 people hospitalized, which is an increase of 24% over the previous 14 days. 228 people died on this day, an 86% increase over the past 14 days. To keep the public in the dark, the state no longer reports the numbers daily, only reporting once a week.

The state of Alabama finds itself overrun with COVID-19 patients.  Patients are left on ambulance stretchers until a bed opens up. 2743 patients have filled every available hospital bed. The University of Alabama predicted that the state may see over 5000 people hospitalized a month from today. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo called that scenario “potentially apocalyptic.”

People still go about everyday life believing they are invincible, going mask less and unvaccinated. Their personal freedom may result unknowingly in someone else’s death. Freedom today is about dying alone gasping for breath in a hospital bed. Those hospital beds however are becoming a scarce commodity.