Saturday, July 24, 2021

Covid-19: Breakthroughs, Delta, & Our Highest Case Count Since February | San Diego Zoo Snow Leopard Tests Positive For COVID | CA To Offer Park Passes At Libraries | Superspreader Olympics Begin |


Ramil, A Snow Leopard at San Diego Zoo, Tests Positive for COVID-19 (Taken 2.10.2020)

I wrote this post late last night but apparently forgot to publish.  Whoopsie. All this information is from Friday, but the state and county don't publish new numbers on the weekend anyway... 

Friday: A friend of mine dropped by after running into Darren at Pancho Villa's. I said that I intended to take advantage of the backyard this weekend, so that's exactly what we did. I moved some plants around, we set up the new outdoor rug to go under the table, and had tacos in the shade, while we watched the construction guys next door drop a huge piece of wood from their scaffolding and break our butterfly planter, which they promptly fixed. 

While he was over, he told us about his bout with COVID-19. He's a fully vaccinated adult but who has been living a little too risky for my tastes...partying, picnics, numerous trips to Mexico. He has three young boys, too young for vaccination, and they are all in summer school and after-care programs. Their mom is unvaccinated. They all got COVID. The boys were mostly asymptomatic though one did lose taste/smell for a few days. My friend felt like shit for about 5 days, but was healthy enough to care for the boys while they had to quaranting. Their unvaxxed mom couldn't get out of bed or care for them for eight days. The reverberation was that the boys had to notify their schools, and all three of their classes plus their after-care program had to shut down for two weeks as all the students and teachers had to quarantine. Even if you don't care about getting a mild upper-respiratory illness and a few days of brain fog, the consequences affect more than just you. Obviously they cannot trace the source of the illness, but naturally there's a lot of bitterness and anger at the mom for not disclosing that she was unvaxxed. But the whole story made me really think that breakthrough cases are far more prevalent than we know. Some places are reporting more than 10%, others higher, but I included a few explainers below on why that would happen, even in high-vaccinated populations. But mostly it makes me so angry how many parents aren't enforcing masking among their unvaxxed children and I hope that lawsuit by the Let Them Breathe people gets dismissed as they choose to cherry-pick their data and use old information when new variants and circumstances require looking at it all anew. 

We went to Hoover twice to pick up Nova...they were on a field trip to the beach and got back later than expected...we drove straight to the testing site at USD. Unfortunately so did everyone else because they were maxed out on walk-ins. Then we drove to the Kimball Park Senior Center in National City, but that line was about 30 deep with only about an hour left, and we opted against waiting in a huge line amidst people who all probably suspect they're infected. We'll try again in a day or two, or maybe even wait until Monday. 

I wanted to go to the San Diego Zoo today, but after all the driving around, we all kinda just crashed at home and took naps. We learned that Ramil, the one-eyed snow leopard at the San Diego Zoo tested positive for COVID-19 and so now both snow leopards and both amur leopards in their exhibit are quarantined and the exhibit closed for the time being. I would hope that this would mean more encouragement for people to mask up at the Zoo, because even though you're outside, this is peak season and it is always packed with families from open to close. There are no quiet and distanced parts this time of year. I didn't mention it, but we went to Sea World on Thursday and it was horrifying crowded with nary a person masked up, not even in the inside spaces like the sharks, sea turtle, wild arctic, or the penguins. Might have to put a pause on our visits there for a minute. 

I hope everyone is doing well. The Casbah sold out tonight and I turned down a merch gig because I'm not ready for 4 hours on the smoking patio among people who may or may not be vaxxed but who are most definitely drinking and smoking without masks. Choose your own risk is all I can say about that. 

Stay safe out there.  

 



Posted by Rosemary Bystrak at Saturday, July 24, 2021
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