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Orca at Sea World (Taken 6.22.21)

It's three in the morning and I'm finally wrapping up my night and I just had to pull Tikka in from her catio because it was raining! Hallelujah! It only lasted for a few minutes, but it was a beautiful and welcome sight. 

As I mentioned in my last post, I guess I'm officially off EDD as Casbah finally got their SVOG grant so I guess my pandemic sabbatical is over. I mean, technically I was always WFH anyway, but I may have to step up with more regular, normal, human-adult hours and surrender at least some of my zombie vampire nights.  

This post is kind of a combo of yesterday's news and today's. No surprise that fuckface McConnell blocked discussion on SB1, the Coronado basketball coach was fired last night, which is hopefully a first step and not the only consequence, and I included some links about some small business funds available through San Diego County, new music from Joshua James in support of suicide prevention, and a funny post about the most misspelled words in each state. No surprise "corn teen" was the top misspelling across the country. And we wonder why vaccination rates remain so low in certain parts. And then of course the good news from Monday that an appeals court put that disgusting decision by an activist judge-- that would've overturned the assault weapons ban in California-- on hold. That fight is long from over, but at least the appeal is being considered for real.

In COVID news, you could say the delta variant is going viral (har.har.) as the news channels have really stepped up their pandemic panic porn, a new study used interesting methodology to show a correlation between birthdays and spread of COVID, and I decided to play with some County data on our vaccination numbers which you can see below.   

The news was teasing upcoming changes at Sea World, but after digging, I just think they're going to roll out the calendar for the remaining Electric Ocean experiences that don't kick off until July like Electric Floating Acts, the High Voltage Brass Band, and the always-anticipated iteration of Cirque, which this year is called Cirque Neon World. Hopefully for Nova they'll have news on Tidal Twister, too, which I think has been shut down for over 2 years after people had to be rescued by SDFD in 2019. I gotta say, it was really nice to spend my afternoon there. I just watched the orcas in their pools for like an hour, saw a couple shows, watched the dolphins, and watched one of the sloths (very slowly) eating her dinner. I just kinda go into a trance and ignore the crowds around me and it was kind of awesome. I'll definitely be back soon, keeping my mask handy when gobs of people are drawn to me like a magnet. And I think we might get back into testing since we're all back in the world among unvaxxed a whole lot more than before. 

Stay safe out there. 

• COVID-19:
• Birthdays: Cake, Ice Cream ... and Increased COVID Risk? — Study makes a link, but public health implications hard to see - MedPage Today (6.21.21)
• Delta variant likely to become dominant in US within weeks; may see July COVID-19 surges among unvaccinated - Becker's Hospital Review (6.21.21)
• Frequently Asked Questions from Operators or Managers of Pools, Beaches, Waterparks, and other Aquatic Venues - CDC (6.18.21)
• If you've been keeping up with me, you know sometimes I like to play around or dig deeper into data. So a couple of things caught my eye after this week's COVID-19 Watch which the County issues every week. 
• For the period of 6/6-6/19, there were 974 new cases, our first time under 1,000 in months. (Note, asymptomatic/vaccinated people may be testing less)
• Still, when it came to identifying community exposures, 13% were in bars and restaurants, 31.9% in workplaces. 20.8% identified household exposures, 9.5% education-related exposures, and 19.3% travel related. 
• 1,658,335 persons fully vaccinated on COVID-19 Watch/1,820,613 from the Vaccination dashboard updated on 6/22/21. 
• Using the eligible 12+ population of 2,802,581, almost 1M eligible San Diegans are still not fully vaccinated!! (981,986 to be precise)
• If we're more generous and use the partially vaccinated number, assuming those people will get fully vaccinated, that's still almost 650K eligible people who haven't been vaccinated (648,673) which is about 20% of our TOTAL population that don't have any shots yet. 
• If you know someone eligible who isn't vaccinated, do whatever you can  to compassionately convince them to get their shots. 
• I haven't looked at death statistics much lately, but 43% of COVID-19 deaths had the underlying condition of hypertension...which got me wondering...how common is hypertension??
• According to High Blood Pressure Statistics - Measure Up/Pressure Down: High blood pressure (hypertension) is one of the most prevalent health conditions facing Americans. In fact, 68 million Americans – 1 in every 3 U.S. adults – have high blood pressure, and nearly 20 percent do not know they have it.
• Get vaccinated! It would be really, really tragically stupid or stupidly tragic to be a young, relatively healthy person who dies of COVID at this stage of the game. 
• Weekly Epidemiological Update for COVID-19 - WHO (6.23.21)
• Politics: 
• EXPLAINER: What’s next now that GOP has blocked voting bill? - AP News (6.23.21)
• Letters From An American June 22, 2021 - Heather Cox Richardson
• White House: 
• Press Briefing by White House COVID-19 Response Team and Public Health Officials
• Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, June 22, 2021
• Statement by Vice President Kamala Harris on the For the People Act
• Statement by President Joe Biden on the For the People Act
• Readout of President Biden’s Meeting with FEMA and Emergency Preparedness Team on Extreme Weather Preparation and Response Efforts
• Remarks by President Biden Before a Meeting with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and Homeland Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall
• News:
• California Appeals San Diego Judge’s Ruling Overturning Assault Weapon Ban - City News Service/kpbs (6.21.21)
• School Board Votes to Fire Coronado Basketball Coach Following Postgame Tortilla-Throwing Incident. During a regional CIF championship basketball game on June 19 between Coronado and Orange Glen high schools, members of the Coronado side threw tortillas at the opponents in a racist act. - NBC San Diego (6.22.21) 
• Other Reading:
• Each State's Most Commonly Googled Misspelled Word
• Joshua James has a new record, Forever In Life, For Now, and is raising money for the American Foundationi for Suicide Prevention. You can donate to the cause (and get the record) via GoFundMe. 
• County of San Diego: New Funding for Small Businesses and Nonprofits
• You need to reapply even if you applied for County small business stimulus funds previously
• You need to be a private for-profit business or nonprofit
• You need to have twenty (20) or fewer full-time equivalents (FTEs), including sole proprietorships and independent contractors
• You need to be based and operated in San Diego County, providing local goods and services to the community
• This funding is only eligible for businesses and nonprofits smaller than 20 employees (Note: this is different than for previous funding rounds)
• You need one year of operating history, as of February 14, 2020
• Eligible expenses for funds date back to March 2021
• Sole proprietors and independent contractors are eligible to apply
• You need to have experienced financial hardship as a result of COVID-19. These impacts must be documented, quantifiable, and clearly driven by COVID-19.
• You need to be in compliance with all state and local public health guidance