Shutdown Diary
I'm thinking of re-titling this recurring segment because to date we are not in the early days of massive layoffs and work for mostly "essential workers", churches shuttered daily/weekly services, indoor dining basically disappeared. As I write, most of that is in the distant past; I no longer see mazes in front of Walmart entrances, but you will often find cart wipe-down supplies. I don't have to make appointments to the barbershop. Some of my medical emails no longer lead with COVID-19 topics. As I write, the Left Coast has announced its intentions to drop school mask mandates.
Oh, the usual places still require masks: clinics, assisted living facilities, airports, in-person work, etc. I hesitate to call an end to the pandemic; there's still a chance for a mutant variant to emerge with a significant proportion of the population unvaccinated/never infected, and many vaccinated/prior infected with waning antibodies.
The latest stats from WaPo:
The latest vaccine data from CDC:
We now see firm double-digit declines on all 3 national metrics. We are now down to a rolling average of about 65K cases a day, the lowest I think we've seen since late July..
The biggest news since my last journal post is that CDC finally published new masking guidelines last Friday that basically liberalizes masking guidance for about two-thirds of the country, including public schools. CDC has your local county status available here. For my Maryland county:
In XXXXXX County, Maryland, community level is Low.
- Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
- Get tested if you have symptoms
Miscellaneous Notes
Well, I didn't make my 2K reader goal for the blog in February (a month with fewest days), but it wasn't the lowest readership over the past year, in part due to a relatively good count on the last day of the month. I should pass the 100 post mark over the coming week. My Twitter account statistics are still in a slump but starting to recover. I haven't gained any new followers in quite some time. I did notice one odd thing; Twitter Mommy seems to be checking my use of colorful language in occasional tweets (I don't suffer fools gladly) and asking me if I want to edit my tweet.
My youngest niece has graduated from an SEC university. She reportedly has been accepted into the graduate program at Berkeley. I think she intends to pursue a doctorate (not in the IT field like yours truly). I had two nephews (different family) who were accepted into PhD programs in engineering and meteorology respectively but decided to stop with their master's; they are in decent jobs with SpaceX and NWS respectively
