So, how are we doing?
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| People in the Sun, Hopper, 1960 |
Not that bad, actually. The last time we talked about these things was back in March, and now we live at the start of August. The world has adapted and moved on - we're now worried about the fact that the planet is baking itself, the Atlantic Conveyor is about to fail, and the Mariners have moved from "This is the Year" to being happy that we're playing .500 ball.
But, of course, COVID is still out there. Globally (per the World Health Organization) there have been 800,000 new cases and 4800 deaths over the past month, which is bad but not too bad (globally speaking). Official numbers so far are 6.9 Million deaths globally, which is horrible (globally speaking). In King County, reported COVID deaths have dropped below that of Flu deaths, and only about 2% of hospital beds are being used for COVID patients. The NYTimes is still tracking things nation-wide here. The numbers have been going down, with the note that we have fewer reported cases in part because a lot of people have stopped testing and, worse yet, stopped reporting. Further, as I dug through the numbers on this, different sites authorities report the numbers slightly differently. But by any metric, the numbers are going down.
But it is still with us, and probably will take a jot upwards as we move out of this particularly hot summer and into the fall, particularly in my age cadre (Senior Discount at the AMC Category). Facebook still reports people coming down with it. Every major convention I have heard of ends with a report of people hit with the virus. Numbers are small, the damage is miserable but lessened, but it is still present.
Media coverage has also moved on. I'm no longer seeing as much of the "I don't believe in masks"/"The person who wrote this has been intubated" duality on the 'net. I am seeing a tic upwards of the nutbar "COVID is a hoax"/It's the vaccines that are dangerous"/"My brother's dentist got vacced and died the next day"/"He was hit by a bus"/"But the BUS DRIVER had been vaccinated, which proves my point" discussions on the Internet. Oh yeah, and there have been sporadic reports of "Number of folk who don't believe in COVID are on the decline because a lot of them have died of COVID". But a lot of the COVID-deniers have swapped back to being climate-deniers, with similar results as their electric grid fails and they start slow-baking.
Personally? I'm doing masks rarely now, primarily because theatre season is over, but even there there people have returned to normal. I tend to be unmasked when shopping except when picking up prescriptions, but that's more of a solidarity thing with the people working the pharmacy (and the likelihood that someone picking up prescriptions will be, you know, sick).
We shuffle, now as the seasons change, towards flu season and the probable uptick of numbers. Get your flu vac and keep yourselves safe.
More later,
