SARS II: Respiratory Boogaloo

In the past year the science has shown surface transfer is rare. Masks and social distancing are what work.

See if your wife's Dr has the vaccine.

Speaking of social distancing now for schools six feet of separation has been reduced to three feet. As for my wife's primary care provider having the vaccine, being a military dependent her primary care is at a military hospital that isn't giving it to her category yet. Granted the info could have changed. I went on the official Fort Gordon facebook page* and Thelma from "Good Times" is at the PX doing a book signing! Yay, I guess for that. But no info on any vaccine updates for the hospital.
INTERESTING thing about the military and the COVID vaccine - it's not mandatory for the active duty members! Apparently the vaccine isn't FDA approved or something - the link explains it better than I could but I was amazed to be honest, because on Fort Gordon you better wear a mask everywhere no matter who you are or why you are there or they will boot you right off the post.

* I don't use facebook but my wife does, so I'll have her research the page to see if she can find any info. Regardless I'm going to try to get a Walgreens appointment right now.

"Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are under an emergency use authorization, which means they haven’t completed all of the multiple rounds of rigorous testing required before the FDA clears them. Because it is federal law, department policy is that a vaccine under that authorization won’t be mandatory, though service members are required to receive myriad other inoculations in order to serve."
About a third of troops have turned down the COVID-19 vaccine (militarytimes.com)

Got two appointments - wife and myself - through Walgreens! During the week but I can go in conjunction with lunch, so I won't have to use too much personal time for it. Only about seven miles down the road so that's not too bad. It's Pfizer brand of vaccine.

Found out last week that work is paying us for four hours to get the vaccine, and once we get it (both or single shot or shots), we also get an extra vacation day.

Do you want like a medal or something?

Damn that's right! I think I saw a corporate e-mail notice about something like that where I work. I'll check that out first thing Monday.

Not really - I already have a shit ton of them, and a damn decent chest to pin them on too.

Might want to get your tetanus shots in then

HA! Had to think about that for a second. That said if you are impatient skip to the 25 second point and watch for a few seconds - this is actual footage of oldfella getting pinned!


F Troop Opening Credits and Theme Song - YouTube

Some states are doing better than others when it comes to distributing the vaccine(s). But which ones? Aye, there's the rub!

A surprising new analysis found that states such as South Carolina and Florida that raced ahead of others to offer the vaccine to ever-larger groups of people have vaccinated smaller shares of their population than those that moved more slowly and methodically, such as Hawaii and Connecticut.

“The infrastructure just wasn’t ready. It kind of backfired,” said Dr. Rebecca Wurtz, an infectious disease physician and health data specialist at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. She added: “In the rush to satisfy everyone, governors satisfied few and frustrated many.”

Numerous factors stymied state vaccination performance. Conspiracy theories, poor communication and undependable shipments slowed efforts after the first vials of precious vaccine arrived Dec. 14.

But the size of the eligible population was always within the control of state officials, who made widely varying decisions about how many people they invited to get in line when there wasn’t enough vaccine to go around.

“It got a little chaotic,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “We created far more demand than there was supply. That stressed the system and that may have left the system less efficient.”

Plescia said the analysis suggests that “a more methodical, measured, judicious, priority-based approach — despite people’s perception — actually can be as efficient, or more efficient, than opening things up and making it available to more people.”

West Virginia bucked the trend with both high numbers of eligible residents and high vaccination rates in early March, but the state started slow and built its capacity before expanding eligibility.

Similarly, Alaska maintained a high vaccination rate with a smaller eligible population, then threw shots open to everyone 16 and older March 9. This big increase in eligible adults near the end of the period studied led the AP and Surgo Ventures to omit Alaska from the analysis.

The analysis found that as of March 10, Hawaii had the lowest percentage of its adult population eligible for vaccination, at about 26%. Yet Hawaii had administered 42,614 doses per 100,000 adults, the eighth-highest rate in the country.

Thirty percent of Connecticut’s adult population was eligible as of the same date, and it had administered doses at the fourth-highest rate in the country.

In contrast, Mississippi had the sixth largest percentage of its adult population eligible at about 83%. Yet, Mississippi had administered only 35,174 total doses per 100,000 adults, ranking 43rd among states.

Missouri, with 61% of its population eligible, had dispensed 35,341 doses per 100,000 adults.

Seven states in the bottom 10 for overall vaccination performance — Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina and Missouri — had larger-than-average shares of their residents eligible for shots.

Among high-performing states, five in the top 10 for high vaccination rates — New Mexico, North Dakota, Connecticut, Wyoming and Hawaii — stuck with more restrictive eligibility. Another two high-performing states from the top 10 — South Dakota and Massachusetts — were about average in how many residents were eligible for vaccine.

What happens next will depend on how much states can improve their vaccine delivery systems and whether Americans remain eager for vaccination, even as the threat eases with more people protected and case numbers dropping.

One of the bright spots about this pandemic is we're learning a lot about how to deal with pandemics. How well it's applied when the next pandemic rolls around, we'll see.

I would imagine that some lessons will be learned and some will be forgotten.

well Gibraltar is the first nation to vaccinate 100 percent of it's adult population. Okay kind of a stacked deck because Gibraltar is tiny, but nonetheless YOU ROCK GIBRALTAR! *

* anybody who doesn't get that reference sucks!

Gibraltar is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 - Deseret News

So they excluded Alaska because it did well, and then half of the remaining top ten had average policies, and West Virginia was in there as well. Sounds like there was almost no correlation at all between speed of eligibility expansion and delivery efficacy, especially once they got the right numbers for Missouri. The only person who’d even commit to a quote about it said overly quick expansion “may” have led to less efficient delivery.

I think the only real point that's being made is that it's hard to tell why some states are doing better than others. Florida's a mess because the governor is from the "Government doesn't work, and I'll make damn sure it doesn't" school of Republicanism. Other than that, whatever...

Rock On (harharhar) Gibraltar!

turns out my company does not give free time for getting the vaccine, but I didn't expect them to. Regardless my wife and I got the Pfizer with no side effects other than a little stiffness and soreness.
I would equate it to a typical flu shot.

They believed he was a detective? How many elderly detectives with unkempt hair/beard run military convoys off the road these days? I'm going to ballpark the number at ZERO.
Line up all of these soldiers for a nice hard pimp slap and a kick in the ass. What-the-holy-fuck? Don't these soldiers have any tactical convoy training or experience? What the hell is the army teaching these fuckers?

Aren’t you a male republican? Why did you get a vaccine?

Saddam Hussein is alive and hijacking vaccine shipments for extra money?

Definitely a RINO and probably a closet liberal.

I got my second shot on Wednesday, February 10th. I woke up Thursday the 11th with a 101 degree fever and all the other non-respiratory flu symptoms. I called the owner of my store and he insisted that I come to work because it was the Thursday immediately before Valentine's Day, the second biggest day of the year in the Jewelry Industry. After all, it's just a side effect from the vaccine and I wasn't contagious, right?

My now former employer is looking for a bench jeweler, watch maker, engraver, and office manager if anyone is interested.

Spoke with a neighbor up the street while out for a walk yesterday. Haven't said but "hi" to her all winter. Last November her elderly mother-in-law and uncle were both in the hospital for different reasons, caught COVID there and died. Her husband and his two brothers had visited them both, and all three of them caught it, but survived. We spoke about 20 feet away from each other, and I stepped back a bit farther after hearing that. Oy vey.

ha, you got a stiffy. yeah priapism can cause soreness after some time.

Ooh, how did he take your resignation?

It was coming anyways. I'm back on that sweet, sweet .gov payroll in a law enforcement capacity. Public Service is just a thing in my family. I have the gift.

I was hoping you'd say he took it up the ass, whence you shoved it...