Shutdown Diary
The latest stats from WaPo:
The latest vaccine stats from CDC:
Well, definite signs of a top, although a modest decline from nearly 800K cases a day still dwarfs the statistics we had seen during the earlier waves. It's just stunning how quickly omicron spread; WaPo reports Delta's percentage now amounts to less than 1%. But make no mistake; this is serious with many healthcare personnel burning out over the stress and providers are looking to bring back infected personnel sooner to handle heavy patient loads. Let's hope that we get this wave under control before a new deadlier, more infectious mutant strain emerges.
From an extended family perspective, the casualties continue to mount. One of my older nephews and separately his ex-wife have it (different cities; share a son, so far uninfected); his younger brother (waiting for test results) has a wife and 1-year-old son who likely caught it from his infected mother-in-law, a school teacher. I mentioned the little dude in a recent post; his fever has broken, but he's sleeping longer than usual. Of course, at least 2 nephews and a niece (I have 21 overall) were infected by earlier strains during the pandemic. I don't know how many of my siblings have gotten their boosters. My sister-in-law, mother of the 2 brothers cited above, hasn't yet, and she has certain health challenges. Oddly, my brother and she had been planning to socialize with both families with MLK weekend, but one of my cousins and her husband had flown to Dallas to attend the Cowboys' NFL playoff game, and so my brother and his wife drove up to Dallas for a mini-reunion. My cousin's daughter is a nurse who got infected at work early in the pandemic.
One topic I didn't expect to revisit so soon is not only food inflation but empty grocery shelves back at both Walmart and Lidl. Oh, don't get me wrong; we aren't talking another run on toilet paper, egg and meat shortages (and my freezer is well-stocked. But, for instance. Lidl had basically locked down a large section of their fresh meat section (which usually stocks chicken products), I found a number of promoted specials out of stock, etc. At Walmart, I found multiple gaps of empty shelves in the frozen foods section. I didn't really check any relevant shelf labels, but an infrequent indulgence since my graduate days at UH has been frozen/fresh packaged burritos. (I love my Tex-Mex). You could find some multi-packs of frozen ones, especially breakfast, but otherwise where there were normally say two or three well-stocked shelves, I saw maybe a dozen or so packs. Now my "burrito test" may not be reliable, valid or representative; it's probably very idiosyncratic. (No, Lidl doesn't sell them..)
Can We PLEASE Have Better Overtime Periods in Sports?
The Bills-Chiefs closing 2-3 minutes in the fourth quarter saw a flurry of improbable scoring drives and lead changes with the Chiefs, with a mere 13 seconds on the clock, doing downfield to hit a game-tying field goal. Then the Chiefs won the coin toss in overtime to score a game-winning touchdown without the Bills ever getting a single down on offense.
You name almost any other sport, and I can't stand most of their tiebreakers, too, including but not restricted to:
- soccer, with a series of kicks on goal
- baseball, with a lead runner on second base
- tennis tie-breakers.
I do not like gimmicky finishes. I prefer an extra period/inning/etc. and each team given a reciprocal opportunity to score under normal game playing conditions
