Okay, so I went a little nuts about a couple stories I read/watched yesterday, so I include some extra ragey rants at the end of today's post, partially for your enjoyment, but partially to purge it from my brain and body so I can process and move forward, at least until my next ragey rants. Read at your own peril or enjoyment or mockery.
For now, I'll say I'm super excited to watch St. Vincent on SNL tonight and since I really ruined my sleep beyond anything reasonable, I'm forcibly shutting down my laptop and phone tonight by 11pm and taking a ton of melatonin so I'll be up and energetic for my parents' anniversary brunch in the morning.
Until then, I will say the great news is that between Friday and Saturday reporting, 118,040 vaccine doses were administered to that HPI quartile 1 as the state topped over 500,000 doses in one day! This means that the state is only about 150,000 doses from 4 million in that quartile. We may not get today's reporting until Monday because of Easter, but I would imagine Saturday shots exceed Friday, add the holiday, and we're cruising into that Orange Tier with the new lower case rate requirement of 2-5.9 cases/100k. A lot of those new guidances don't kick in until April 15 no matter what, but that means more vaccines in arms, some time for decisions by local businesses about taking more grants/loans and staying closed, opening at partial capacities as food service places, or opening as bars or venues with super strict vaccine/testing requirements. It's not gonna be easy and today was San Diego's first day to day increase in hospitalizations in weeks, but that's the price we'll pay for opening. I hope we all proceed with caution and stay safe out there.
- COVID-19:
- CDC Changes Tune on COVID Guidance for Vaccinated Travelers — It's low-risk, but you still probably shouldn't do it, agency says. - MedPage Today (4.2.21)
"I would advocate against general travel overall," (Walensky) said. - State of COVID-19: What you should know about the CDC's 5 variants of concern - Becker's Hospital Review (4.2.21)
- LA County has been a leader in maintaining more modified health orders than the state. (It probably has a lot to do with the thing about preventable deaths that I rant about below and things like this: Mayor concedes Los Angeles reopened too soon as virus surges - 10News (7.19.21)) They're now in the Orange Tier, so it is interesting to take a look at their Updates to Los Angeles County Health Officer Order Effective Monday. It's really long and specific so I won't copy the whole thing here, but a couple interesting things:
- Bars that do not provide meals will be allowed to open outdoors with distancing, masking and infection control safety measures. Indoor operations are not permitted. Visits are limited to 90 minutes. Masks are required except when people are eating or drinking. There can be no counter seating and people can eat or drink only when they are seated. Tables must be 8 feet apart, with a maximum of 6 people from up to 3 different households. There can be no live entertainment, television is permitted outdoors only and hours of operations are from 11:30 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.
- Breweries, Wineries, Distilleries that do not serve meals can remain open outdoors and can also open indoors at 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer. These establishments will follow the same public health directives as bars for their outdoor areas, however, there are additional requirements for indoor spaces: reservations are required for indoor seating, there is a maximum of 6 people per table and they must be from the same household, and there is no live entertainment or television viewing indoors.
- Grocery and Retail Stores can increase capacity to 75%, although Public Health strongly recommends grocery stores remain at 50% capacity until April 15 to allow as many grocery store workers as possible get vaccinated.
- Hair Salons, Barbershops and Personal Care Services can increase capacity to 75% with masks required, except for services where customers need to remove their masks. For services where customers must remove their face coverings, staff must wear a fitted N95 and goggles or a mask with a face shield.
- Politics:
- No politics today, but OMG the Gaetz story unravelling is beyond.
- News:
- Undefeated Gonzaga beats UCLA on last-second shot, advances to NCAA Tournament final against Baylor - AP News (4.3.21)
- U.S. puts J&J in charge of plant that botched COVID vaccine, removes AstraZeneca - Reuters (3.3.21)
- Other Reading:
- In Support Of Shame: Go ahead and call out people who break COVID restrictions. - Slate (4.2.21)
- Are You Ready To Rock? Music Festivals Prepare For A 2021 Comeback - NPR (3.30.21)
- Global COVID-19 Stats (JHU 4.3.21 8:20pm):
- 130,665,236 Known Cases
- 2,845,241 Known Deaths
- US COVID-19 Stats
- CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Data Tracker
- JHU
- 30,671,405 Cases
- 554,779 Deaths
- CDC Data Tracker:
- +65,933 New Cases/30,424,145 Known Cases
- +944 New Deaths/552,829 Known Deaths
- 207,866,645 Doses Delivered/161,688,422 Doses Administered
- Moderna 94,112,600 delivered/74,713,387 administered
- Pfizer 105,060,345 delivered/82,986,550 administered
- Janssen 8,693,700 delivered/3,840,647 administered
- California COVID-19 Stats:
- State of California Safe Schools For All Hub
- Vaccination progress dashboard
- Aggregate California ICU Bed Availability: 30.3%
- R-effective: 0.80
- 24,530,300 Doses Delivered/19,368,672 Doses Admin. (+506,581)
- 4,877 New Cases/3,577,951 Total Cases (5.1 new cases/100k)
- 135 Deaths/58,404 Total Deaths (0.17 new deaths/100k)
- 1.8% 7-day test positivity rate
- 2,429 COVID-19 Hospitalizations (-109 patients, -4.5% from prior day)
- 576 COVID-19 ICU hospitalized in CA (-29 patients, -5.0% from prior day)
- 2,159 ICU beds available (+2 from prior day)
- San Diego County
- Free Testing Sites and Schedule in San Diego
- VaccinationSuperstationSD
- Vaccination Dashboard
- San Diego County Of Education School Reopening Dashboard
- State Data:
- Southern California ICU Bed Availability: 32.7%
- R-effective: 0.83
- 496 New Cases/271,036 Total Cases
- 13 Deaths/3,568 Total Deaths
- 4.9 cases/100k population (Assessed on 3/30. Unadjusted Case Rate)
- 2.1% 7-Day Test Positivity Average (Assessed on 3/30)
- 2.7% Health Equity Positivity (Assessed on 3/30)
- 196 COVID-19 hospitalized patients (-18 patients, -8.4% from prior day)
- 57 COVID-19 ICU hospitalized patients (-4 patients, -6.6% from prior day)
- 265 ICU beds available (-8 from prior day)
- County Data:
- 299 New Cases/271,334 Total Cases
- 3 New Daily Deaths/3,571 Total Deaths
- 1,887,395 Doses Received/1,793,988 Doses Administered
- 3% Daily Test Positivity/2.2% (7-day avg after 7-day lag)/2.3% Test Positivity (14-day average)
- 4.9 cases/100k population (Assessed on 3/30. Adjusted case rate per 100,000 excluding prisons.)
- 98% Case Investigation
- +0.4% Day Over Day COVID-19 Hospitalizations (168 patients. -56% over 30 days)
- 36% ICU Capacity (56 patients. -55% over 30 days)
- 52 Staffed ICU Beds Available
- 1 New/11 Community Outbreaks (7-day)
- Universities:
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COVID-19 Rants:Some COVID-19 Deaths Were Preventable. I saw this story covered on NBC San Diego, News 8, 10News, and the local Fox affiliate.
My favorite coverage may be this full interview (unedited) by News8 where the interviewee Nathaniel Brown, Director of Health Data Sciences with Scripps, goes into this elaborate explanation of their modeling and findings when the reporter cuts him off and says, "Can you just say, kind of give me that as a headline there? The particular numbers that led you to that result that perhaps some people would be alive had we shut down longer?"
Each station that covered this were like, oh no! How come we didn't prevent those deaths??
They're still doing this every single day, including ramping up stories about a potential recall special election based on Newsom's alleged overreaction to the pandemic for keeping things shut down.
Use of face coverings is mandatory throughout the venue in all settings indoor and outdoor, unless actively eating and/or drinking. Guests who do not comply should be removed from the facility immediately.
- Scripps Experts Find 45 COVID-19 Deaths Could Have Been Avoided Last Summer. Nearly two deaths a day could have been avoided at Scripps' five hospital campuses alone had the pandemic restrictions remained in place, researchers found. - NBC San Diego (4.2.21)
- Scripps Health Says Summer Business Reopening Led to 45 Extra COVID Deaths Locally - Times San Diego (4.2.21)
My favorite coverage may be this full interview (unedited) by News8 where the interviewee Nathaniel Brown, Director of Health Data Sciences with Scripps, goes into this elaborate explanation of their modeling and findings when the reporter cuts him off and says, "Can you just say, kind of give me that as a headline there? The particular numbers that led you to that result that perhaps some people would be alive had we shut down longer?"
Each station that covered this were like, oh no! How come we didn't prevent those deaths??
So I thought I would go back into their news pages and Youtube channels because these were the same news desks who posted DAILY stories about how we should reopen, interviewing some new down-and-out small business owner, businesses that were pushing for carve-outs in the health orders or businesses who were defying health orders, and those who filed lawsuits against the state and county. They LOVED those.
As time rolled on and things closed down again, these news desks covered Jim Desmond almost daily arguing that 'enough is enough' and his belief that everything needed to open and sports needed to restart and even now, saying schools should have opened back then and all these fucking idiot organizations who kept pushing for re-openings instead of focusing on getting support and aid to stay safely closed, or preparing for reopening with new ventilation and floor plans.
As time rolled on and things closed down again, these news desks covered Jim Desmond almost daily arguing that 'enough is enough' and his belief that everything needed to open and sports needed to restart and even now, saying schools should have opened back then and all these fucking idiot organizations who kept pushing for re-openings instead of focusing on getting support and aid to stay safely closed, or preparing for reopening with new ventilation and floor plans.
A search on 10news alone has 3,231 stories with the word "reopen." Let's look at a couple of examples. If you read these you may glean that KGTV only interviewed Supervisor Desmond on reopening unless quoting Nathan Fletcher from a briefing, KGTV held a deep belief that sanitizing and plexiglass were end-all be-all safety protocols (Businesses doing everything right,) and they love a good sad small business story. If it feels like I'm picking on KGTV, I am. They suck. They're not far behind KUSI in the shame they bring to news in San Diego.
- Pence urges school reopening in Louisiana amid virus surge (7.14.20)
- Full Transcript: Governor Edwards and VP Pence COVID-19 Press Conference July 14
We’re in a much stronger position to save lives, to protect the most vulnerable, to flatten the curve and to continue to open up...America. - Pence - Nail salons, massage parlors, tattoo shops can reopen pending approval (6.13.20)
- Gov. Gavin Newsom defends reopening, urges public caution (6.15.20)
- Downtown Disney reopening draws large crowds (7.9.20)
- House committee holds hearing on reopening schools after Trump blocked testimony of CDC director (7.23.20)
"Dr. Redfield has testified on the Hill at least four times over the last three months. We need our doctors focused on the pandemic response," an email from the White House to committee members read... - Activists in Carlsbad call for business, schools to reopen. (8.16.20)
"We got to get our economy going again and we need our businesses and schools open at the same time," San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond said. - Frustration builds for San Diego businesses over lack of reopening timeline (8.18.20)
- Church reopens for indoor services, defying public health order again (8.25.20)
- Exclusive: White House Document Shows 18 States in Coronovirus 'Red Zone'. Unpublicized recommendations say states should return to stringent control measures. (7.17.20)
They're still doing this every single day, including ramping up stories about a potential recall special election based on Newsom's alleged overreaction to the pandemic for keeping things shut down.
So I have a question for Nathaniel Brown since none of the news channels would ask. What would local deaths have looked like if we hadn't had the stay at home order in December and January? And how many deaths were caused by the fucked up last administration and the messaging from our media that we should just open back up? Or the news showing the constant drumbeat by Supervisor Desmond? In her shamefull CNN appearance, Dr. Birx estimated that US deaths over 100k were preventable. So what say you when it comes to San Diego?
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Rant: Padres Fans Need To Mask Up, Padres Need To Enforce The Rules: It was kinda funny that someone actually called the news to complain about fans at Padres Opening Day not wearing masks (YT clip), but I noticed it, too, and wrote about it on Thursday. The few always ruin this shit for the many. What is actually even more infuriating now after seeing the story, is that the Padres gave some BS response that safety is always the most important thing and that they'll give people warnings that they may be removed. The state guidance not only allows for ejection, but people who don't comply "SHOULD be removed from the facility immediately."
Use of face coverings is mandatory throughout the venue in all settings indoor and outdoor, unless actively eating and/or drinking. Guests who do not comply should be removed from the facility immediately.
Your warning was when you bought the tickets in the first place and agreed to follow the safety protocols. It matters because some of us go out into the world based on how safe we think we will be and count on businesses, retailers, institutions, and restaurants to hold up their end of the bargain by enforcing safety protocols. And we count on our fellow humans to get along in civil society by agreeing to abide certain social norms and rules, especially during a motherfucking pandemic that has killed over 550,000 of your fellow countrymen. "If you don't like it, stay home," doesn't work here. WE are the ones following the rules, it is YOU who are not. This is why it matters so much at San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. This is why many of us have skipped places we love like beaches and hiking trails and boardwalks, and especially indoor spaces like retail outlets and malls and stores, because we saw that nobody was enforcing the health orders. Music events will be coming back, and I will damn sure be reporting violations from people or businesses who think it's okay to flout the rules. So call her a Karen, I'm glad that lady had the guts to call the news and call out the Padres organization.
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