No Jabby Jabby

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A conservative activist from Arlington, Texas, who peddled COVID-19 vaccine misinformation died of complications caused by the virus, just a few weeks after attending a “symposium” against the shots. Her death was caused by “COVID-related pneumonia.”

The anit-Vaxer announced on Facebook in November of 2021 that her employer granted her a religious exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine. “No jabby-jabby for me! Praise GOD!” she wrote at the time. She was an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pandemic-related restrictions. In one of her final Facebook posts, she shared several links to speeches she attended at a “COVID Symposium” in Burleson, Texas devoted to dissuading people from getting the COVID-19 vaccines that are currently available. The event was organized by God Save Our Children, which bills itself as “a conservative group that is fighting against the use of experimental vaccines on our children.”

She developed an acute abdominal issue, was given pain medications and put on the ventilator. She died peacefully after gasping her last breath and is now resting in the arms of her savior Jesus Christ. Her misinformation guaranteed she isn’t going to the lord alone.

Freedom of Speech

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The Guardian reported, School board meetings have become the front line in the culture war battle over wearing masks to keep children safe. These meeting have the energy of a Trump rally or January 6th insurrection. The few are by far the loudest.

I spend the day as I painted watching videos of school board meeting about the issue of children wearing masks in school. The level of anger and disrespect shown by many parents who do not want their children wearing masks was amazing. Some meetings devolved into out of control shouting matches.

Many meetings have been disrupted or even cancelled. In Bend, Oregon, proceedings had to be put on hold twice in two weeks, as angry parents shouted at school board members and heckled a Spanish-language translator. “School boards are a uniquely vulnerable spot in the culture war landscape, because they’re open to everyone and they’re not really prepared for it,” said Adam Laats, a Binghamton University professor who studies the history of education in the US.

In Texas, one parent assaulted a teacher by tearing a mask off her face, Eanes Independent School District Superintendent Tom Leonard said in a statement August 24, 2021. “A parent physically assaulted a teacher by ripping a mask off her face, others yelling at a teacher to take off her mask because they could not understand what the teacher was saying while her face was covered,” he said.

A California teacher was hospitalized after a parent physically assaulted her when a discussion about the use of face masks heated up. The teacher suffered “lacerations on his face, some bruising on his a face and a pretty good knot on the back of his head,” KCRA reported.

In a parking lot after a school board meeting in Franklin, Tennessee, parents harassed medical professionals who had spoken in favor of masks in schools. “We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you.”

Democrat Tourist Superspreaders

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Fifty Texas state representatives abandoned the state to avoid voting on a piece of legislation that would restrict voting rights. Photos appeared online of the democrats in a bus and airplane with no masks or social distancing, despite the spread of the highly infections Delta variant.

This became a super spreader event after six of these fully vaccinated Democrats tested positive for COVID-19 once they arrived in Washington DC. Two Washington staffers associated with the group also tested positive for COVID-19. Texas Governor Abbott said he will arrest these representatives once they get back into the state.

Vice President Kamala Harris met with members of the delegation a few days before the positive cases were announced, but her office said that she is fully vaccinated and didn’t have close enough contact with the legislators to require going into isolation. It is unlikely that the legislators will be permitted to meet with President Joe Biden. A fully vaccinated senior spokesperson in the Speaker’s Press Office tested positive for COVID after contact with members of the Texas state legislature last week. The press secretary had no contact with Pelosi since much of her staff was working remotely the day the Texas Democrats visited.  A vaccinated White House staffer tested positive for the virus after interacting with the Pelosi aide, according to a White House official. The infected person has not been in close contact with Biden.

Breakthrough cases like these are usually mild and can show no symptoms. State Representative Donna Howard confirmed Tuesday that she tested positive for COVID-19. She said in a statement that she is fully vaccinated and “basically asymptomatic,” but that she is isolating to limit the spread of the virus. Unvaccinated individuals however can face hospitalization and death.

Cold Storage

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650 bodies remain in a disaster morgue in refrigerated trailers on the Brooklyn waterfront. In April 800 people were dying a day in NYC from COVID-19. Many of these bodies have been in cold storage since that time. This disaster morgue was set up for people whose families can’t be located or can’t afford a proper burial, officials said. Some of those families can’t be located because they died form COVID-19 as well.

At first mass burials were held at Hart Island for those who were not claimed by family. However Manhattan Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged that mass burials in temporary graves wouldn’t take place after footage of the mass burials taken by a drone were shown on social media.

NYC is slowly reducing the number of bodies in storage, with the number declining from 698 to 650 since mid-September, according to Dina Maniotis, the chief medical examiner’s office’s executive deputy commissioner.

In Texas, inmates are paid $2 an hour to move bodies to mobile morgues in freezer trucks. The sheriff’s office said the use of the inmates began on November 9 , 2020 on a volunteer basis. While prison labor is a common practice across the U.S., the reliance on inmates to handle the task of moving the corpses of COVID-19 victims is raising questions about the ethics of such work. El Paso County in Texas has about 34,000 active COVID-19 cases, with more than 1,100 people in hospitals, according to local health data. Since the pandemic began spreading widely in March, the county has recorded 769 deaths due to COVID-19. El Paso now has 10 mobile morgues. The National Guard was was then called in to to help move bodies.

With the present surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitals in the Midwest are reaching capacity and they are short on staff. More than 68,500 are hospitalized with Covid-19 across the country, more than at any other point during the pandemic, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, which is run by journalists at The Atlantic. 19 percent of American hospitals are faced a staffing shortage. We should expect many more hospitalizations, and even worse staffing shortages, to come as the virus burns across the country largely unchecked.

Experts are advising people to stay at home for the Thanksgiving holiday to help slow the spread, but millions of Americans are ignoring the advice of public health experts and traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. More than 1.04 million people went through airport security checkpoints Sunday November 22, 2020, the most since mid-March.

Waiting Room

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People are dying still thinking the COVID-19 virus is a hoax. When it is clear a COVID-19 patient will not survive, hospital staff can only stop the drips, turn off the ventilator and wait. I started this sketch after hearing that doctors had to use Halloween masks since they had run out of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). Doctors and nurses resorted to using plastic page protectors as face shields as well as ski goggles, plastic garbage bags and duck tape.

If our first responders were sent to war they would be given  the necessary equipment like guns,  helmets and grenades but doctors and nurses had to make do with what they could find or cobble together. They had to rely on sewing circles to create cloth masks. It is a sad reminder of our countries priorities. The stock market seems more important than human life. Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla sold company shares worth $5.56 million,  the same day the drug maker reported positive data on its experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

I began too wonder if vintage plague masks could be retrofitted to act as PPE. The beak-like masks were once filled with aromatic items like herbs, straw, and spices which were intended to protect the wearer from putrid air.

With hospitals across the county reaching a “tipping point,” where some patients have to wait for someone to die before they can be treated. Texas has the most COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the U.S., according to the COVID Tracking Project.  In Star County Texas, a committee was formed which would decide which COVID-19 patients are likely to die and those patients would be sent home to die with family. Most people die alone unable to be visited by family.

As of November 9, 2020, hospitalizations are rising in 47 states, according to data collected by The COVID Tracking Project, and 22 states are seeing their highest numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations since the pandemic began. Research found that a 1% increase of COVID-19 patients in a state’s ICU beds will lead to about 2.8 additional deaths in the next seven days. Hospitals in Northwest Wisconsin were full to capacity, as of November 12, 2020 with 100% of its beds filled in the region. Approximately 300 hospital staff in the area are on work restrictions due to exposure to Covid-19. The worst is yet to come.

85 Babies Infected in Texas

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85 Babies have tested positive for COVID-19 in Nueces County in Texas. This number is a reflection of when testing started in mid-March, according to a county news release. The news of the 85 infected babies follows a report from earlier this week regarding scientists’ uncertainty on the impact of COVID-19 in children.

Evidence behind what role children play in the COVID-19 pandemic and how it affects them is inconclusive. Several studies suggest but don’t prove that children are less likely to become infected and more likely to have only mild symptoms. Many kids have no symptoms, and it’s unclear how easily they can spread the virus to others.

There is some evidence that kids are less likely to catch the virus and less likely to spread it, but it’s not clear exactly how strong that evidence is. For months most families and their children have been isolated at home, limiting their chances of catching or spreading the virus. In reality, it may take reopening schools and returning children to a closer-to-normal life for the picture to come into clearer focus.

The Associated Press also reported this week on how evidence has been growing that the COVID-19 can spread from a pregnant woman to her fetus. Researchers in Italy studied 31 women with COVID-19 who delivered babies in March and April and found signs of the virus in several samples of umbilical cord blood, the placenta and, in one case, breast milk. Cases of newborns testing positive for the virus have been relatively uncommon but are not unheard of since the pandemic first took hold.

With some respiratory illnesses, like influenza, young children play an amplifying role. They don’t carry the antibodies that adults have amassed. As a result, they are more susceptible to many of the bugs that cause colds and flu, which circulate more actively as the cold weather sets in. This is why teachers are often sick with a cold each season. However COVID-19 isn’t the sniffles, it can cause death. The World Health Organization does not currently see clear answers in the data that have been collected to date.

Two weeks after Israel fully reopened schools, a COVID-19 outbreak swept through classrooms, including at least 130 cases at a single school, that led officials to close dozens of schools where students and staff were infected. At least 42 kindergartens and schools were shuttered indefinitely. More than 6,800 students and teachers were ordered home for quarantine by government order.

Florida’s largest teacher union is suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to overturn an emergency order that requires schools to physically open five days a week in August, despite the incredible surge in cases in the state, saying the policy bypasses local leaders and defies national public health guidelines. DeSantis is followed the lead of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy Devos, who are pressuring states to fill classrooms with students in the fall. “Governor DeSantis needs a reality check, and we are attempting to provide one,” FEA President Fedrick Ingram said in a statement.

In Tallahassee, a 19-year-old elementary school custodian died after a battle with Covid-19, and at least three people at his Leon County school, including the principal, have contracted the virus, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. About 1/3 of children tested in Florida have tested positive for the virus. To date, 16,797 children in Florida have the disease out of 54,022 tested. The data shows that 908 people under the age of 18 have tested positive for COVID-19 in Orange County, which equates to about 24% of the tests conducted on children in the county. Word of children testing positive gets around at summer camps which face pressure to act promptly.

No Facemasks Allowed

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster Due to COVID-19 on March 13, 2020 and the Texas Department of State Health Services declared a public health disaster six days later for the first time since 1901. Counties, cities, and other local jurisdictions began implementing stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders as the virus spread throughout March. The state remained locked down for two months. Abbott and his administration began directing a “reopening” of the state’s economy in April, 2020.

In May of 2020 Liberty Tree Tavern in Texas had a sign up that read, “No Face Masks Allowed“. Neighbors in Elgin, Texas were still wearing masks outside, even after it was no longer mandated by the county. The tavern owner did not think such a response was necessary, he said, and he wanted to push back. Many stores and restaurants across the country took the opposite approach asking patrons to wear masks, even kicking out those who fail to comply.

In the emergent political war over masks, a handful of businesses are fashioning themselves as fortresses for the resistance. If the bar is only allowed to be at 25 percent capacity, then he didn’t want those 25% to be sheep,”  “Being scared all the time isn’t good for your health. It suppresses your immune system.” he said. Bartenders need to see their customers’ faces to check IDs and make sure no one gets served too many drinks, he argued. Anyone with the virus, including those who are asymptomatic, should not be coming out to begin with. Besides, he asked: How are you supposed to down a beer with a bandanna stretched across your lips? One customer’s son, who has intellectual disabilities, was allowed to keep his mask on.

Bars create a risky combination of tight quarters, young adults unbowed by the fear of illness and, in some instances, proprietors who don’t enforce crowd limits and social distancing rules. Texas alcohol licensing board suspended the liquor licenses of 17 bars after undercover agents observed crowds disregarding emergency rules that required patrons to keep a safe distance from one another and limit tavern occupancy. Bars are tailor-made for the spread of the virus, with loud music and a cacophony of conversations that require raised voices. The alcohol can impede judgment about following rules meant to prevent contagion.

June 26, 2020 Texas Governor Greg Abbott had to order all bars closed for a second time because of a huge spike in COVID-19 cases. “At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars,” Abbott said in a news release. “The actions in this executive order are essential to our mission to swiftly contain this virus and protect public health.” “If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting,” he said during an  interview with KVIA in El Paso.

Texas hospitals are running out of drugs, beds, ventilators and even staff. Short-staffed hospitals in Midland and Odessa have had to turn away ailing COVID-19 patients from rural West Texas facilities that can’t offer the care they need. And epidemiologists say the state’s hospitals may be in for a longer, harder ride than places like New York, where hospitals were stretched to capacity in the spring and some parked refrigerated trailers outside to store bodies of people who died from COVID-19. On  July 10, 2020 a patient in his 30’s who attended a coronavirus party later became seriously ill. The patient said to his nurse before dying, ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,’ said Methodist Healthcare’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jane Appleby.

Summer Camp COVID-19 Outbreaks

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An overnight summer camp in rural southwestern Missouri saw 82 campers, counselors and staff infected with Covid-19. Missouri is one of several states to report outbreaks at summer camps. The Kanakuk camp near Branson ended up sending its teenage campers home. On Friday, the local health department announced 49 positive cases of the COVID-19 virus at the camp. By Monday, the number had jumped to 82.

A parent interviewed about the outbreak said he felt that the camp had done everything they could to keep his children safe. Kanakuk plans to reopen later this summer once test results from all staffers are returned and show it’s safe to do so, said Dr. Randall Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health.

Kanakuk employs numerous layers of systems and protocols to ensure that the facilities, staff, and campers stay safe, clean, and healthy. However, the most important thing they do as an organization is spend countless hours praying in advance for every camper and staff who walks through the gates. They pray for a healthy and safe environment.

Some states, like Oregon, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, closed summer camps this year, and many camps elsewhere have voluntarily canceled programs. But other camps are plowing ahead, hoping that precautions like social distancing, masks and requiring children to quarantine before coming to camp will quell the risk.

In Texas, 76 cases of campers and staff who attended Pine Cove’s Christian camps have tested positive, and several weeks of camp were canceled after clusters of cases were discovered. The spread came despite state requirements that include enforcing social distancing and banning outside visitors. As of last week, campers and staff must wear masks when social distancing isn’t possible.

In Lake Burton, Georgia YMCA Camps, at least 85 kids and counselors tested positive for COVID-19, Georgia Department of Public Health officials told McClatchy News. Campers were all between 7-14 years old and staff between 16-22, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The YMCA says this situation happened despite careful planning and adherence to safety guidelines laid out by leading health experts and mandated by the state, 11Alive reported.

In Arkansas, Mount Ida’s Camp Ozark closed after “several” people were infected, though it didn’t say how many, Fox said. It’s a calculated risk for camps, to open or not open, but most are choosing to stay closed for safety, or are being forced to stay closed by state or local government mandate, according to CNBC. Nearly two-thirds of summer camps haven’t opened this year.

A Fort Myers, Florida children’s theater camp shut down this week after two students tested positive for COVID-19. “The students that tested positive didn’t have any symptoms,” Jeremy Kuntze, the executive producer for the nonprofit Creative Theater Workshop said. The students had rehearsed and performed in the summer camp production of the musical “Hairspray Jr.,” which ran June 15 through July 3, 2020. “We had taken safety precautions,” Kuntze said. “We required temperatures to be checked every day before students arrived. Sanitizing. All staff and volunteers wore masks. Visitors wore masks.” Students, however, weren’t required to wear masks, Kuntze said. “They were encouraged.” When performing on stage no one wore masks.

Screening for fevers with temperature checks is not a panacea. “The absence of an elevated body temperature is not a seal of approval,” said Dr. Fred Jacobs, a pulmonologist and former commissioner of the New Jersey Health Department, told ABC News. “The answer is not temperature. The answer is testing.” Children in particular can be asymptomatic and spread the virus with no sign of a temperature.

All of this foreshadows the insanity of opening schools in Florida 5 days a week despite the surge in COVID-19 cases. Children are not immune to the virus and they can certainly spread the virus to friends and family.

Florida  just shattered the number of cases reported in a single day with, 15,299 new cases on Sunday July 12, 2020. This is the highest daily total of any state in the United States. 45 people died in the state on Sunday July 12, 2020.

They Know Not What They Do

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Vice President Mike Pence took a trip to Texas where he visited the First Baptist Church in Dallas on Sunday June 28, 2020. A choir of more than 100 people performed without masks spraying each other and the audience with aerosolized droplets which spread COVID-19.  According to organizers, nearly 2,200 people attended the Celebrate Freedom Rally.

Studies have suggested that COVID-19 can spread through respiratory droplets in the air that can linger inside buildings. High-powered vocalizations, for instance loud talking or singing, are particularly efficient in producing these tiny particles. Other choir-linked outbreaks have occurred in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

Throughout the service, the members of the choir sang at full volume, behind an orchestra. I really feel bad for the orchestra who would have gotten the full force of the fire hose. Singers were not six feet apart. The audience packed in a few rows back were also not practicing social distancing. Face masks at the event were “strongly encouraged,” with signs posted around the venue signaling the suggestion. Perhaps 50% of the audience took the suggestion while some wore the masks incorrectly. The choir put their masks on between songs which is counter intuitive since the singing is the best way to spray the virus into the venue. Secret Service agents must have known to place the Vice President off to the side rather than being seated front and center. The indoor service lasted for about one and a half hours.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an outbreak in a 122-member choir in Washington state. 86% of singers that attended that one rehearsal contracted the deadly virus. At that 2.5-hour choir practice attended by 61 persons, including an symptomatic patient, there were 32 confirmed and 20 probable secondary COVID-19 cases that occurred. Three patients were hospitalized, and two died.

In an interview Pence said that “people should listen to state and local officials on wearing masks in public, every state has a unique situation.” Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott opened his state early. The state has become a hot spot for the spread of the virus in recent weeks and he has had to reverse his position by requiring bars to close, putting restrictions on outdoor gatherings, and scaling back restaurant dining to help stop the spread.

The CDC initially recommended that churches consider suspending or at least decreasing the use of a choir and congregants singing during services. The CDC asserted that “The act of singing may contribute to transmission of Covid-19, possibly through emission of aerosols.” They have had to soften their language by “suggesting” or asking people to please “consider” life saving measures. Late last month however, the agency quietly removed that guidance from its website. According to The Washington Post, the White House requested that change.

I actually got sick to my stomach working on this illustration. I went into the bathroom and dry heaved. I am being physically affected by blatant the irresponsibility I see all around me. I scrubbed the bowl while kneeling before it. That is when the image of the Exorcist pea soup fire hose effect hit me. It occurred to me that Trump uses the same distraction technique when he doesn’t have an answer to any policy question. Denying reality does not defeat reality.

“Forgive them father for they know not what they do.”

The Shasta Trailer

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Traveling to Austin Texas, Pam and I decided to stay in a Shasta Trailer parked in someone’s garage. It was an affordable option that felt like a camping adventure. There was a shower in the backyard where a few chickens wandered. In this sketch, Pam is making breakfast. Behind her is the bathroom which was the one flaw of the trailer. I couldn’t get in and out of the bathroom without bonking my head. It was also too tight for me to stand to lift my underwear back up, so I would have to crawl out of the bathroom and then shimmy my skivvies back into place.

This trailer also promised several bicycles but they weren’t working. We ended up taking Ubers wherever we wanted to go instead. On a whole however, this tiny trailer was the perfect place to explore Austin from. The host offered plenty of suggestions for restaurants and venues to explore. Austin’s restaurants are strangely loud and always crowded. It is as if the louder a restaurant is the more crowed it becomes. We tried several Texas BBQ joints to see how Texas compares to Central Florida BBQ. My humble taste buds could not differentiate. I would need a blind taste test side by side.