CoVID-19: P1 Variant Outbreak In Canada Interrupts NHL | California On The Cusp of 4M Doses To Lowest HPI Quartile | Happy 51 Year Anniversary, Mom & Dad! |

Vaccinated and Celebrating 51 Years Together (Taken 4.4.21)

We spent Easter Sunday at my parents' house for their 51st wedding anniversary where my sisters and mom had made a brunch feast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, ham, potato salad, fruit salad, chipotle pasta salad, macaroni salad, deviled eggs, and all kinds of other delights. It was super nice to hang out and watch the Padres game with my dad, as he dozed in and out and I was puppy mauled by Roxy who tried to lick my face off. It was a chill time and so nice because all of the adults amongst us are at least partially vaccinated. None of us are really out in the world, but it is still amazingly unburdening knowing we're all mostly protected. And I know it would be ineffective, but Nova is getting mandatory testing for her school tomorrow, and we'll probably do another test at the end of the week just to be doubly sure. 

California is only 71,387 doses away from hitting the 4 million doses to the HPI first quartile which will adjust the metrics for the tier system, putting counties with three weeks with less than 5.9 cases/100k into the Orange Tier. From Saturday to Sunday, 80,132 doses were administered in this quartile, so counting today will probably put us there unless a significant amount of vaccination centers closed for Easter. Either way, San Diego should be Orange by the time of the next assessment (Tuesday) which I think goes into effect within 24 hours. 

I was trying not to delve too deep into news today, but I noticed a post about the Vancouver Canucks NHL team which led to a deeper dive into the P1 Variant and how widespread it is across Canada and then the science of why hockey rinks are especially dangerous with the aerosolized virus and it kinda got me a little panicked. I feel like the County and State have been pretty good about getting information out through their media briefings, but if I had my shot at a question this week, it would be how many test samples are being sequenced in the county and in the state and what is the rate of growth they're seeing. Santa Clara county is panicking. The R-effective is growing locally and statewide. The holiday is going to throw off numbers so ours are looking really good (1% positivity, 193 new cases,) but as things open up we could certainly see some backsliding. I was getting fine with the idea of Nova going back to school, especially because it's only going to end up being 8 total days in two months, but I'll definitely be watching closely. As vaccinated people, so long as we have an unvaccinated kid in the house, we can maybe relax our shoulders but not our habits and diligence. Stay safe out there. 

COVID-19: California Passes 40,000 Deaths | Surprising To No One: Coachella 2021 Canceled | San Diego Zoo and Safari Park Reopen |

San Diego River at Mission Trails Regional Park (Taken 1.9.2020)

Darren and I had a fun late night in the speakeasy on Friday night. We were listening to the new releases from Arlo Parks and Adrianne Lenker as well as catching up on some podcasts and dipping into some old music, too. That resulted in a super chill and low-key Saturday. Darren has always wanted us to see Persepolis but we could never find it streaming so he checked it out from the library and we finally watched it. We also watched the CNN special investigation on QAnon which is even more bonkers than we already thought. In between, I'm also watching Bling Empire which is awful and terrible and a full-on trainwreck and hilarious and great TV all in one. 

We haven't had takeout food in weeks, but I've been having a hankering for egg drop soup. So instead of going to Hong Kong, I found recipes to make it and the accompanying wontons and it turned out amazing, though I'll need a pasta maker to get the wontons thinner in the future or just suck it up and buy them for a buck at the grocery store because they took way longer than the soup itself and now my back is killing me. 

Because of all that, I didn't do a whole lot of news watching or internet reading, though I was really sorry to hear about the jogger, Max Lenail, who died at Mission Trails Regional Park. We've been there during storms when the river is rushing and while beautiful, conditions can get really dangerous, and it sounds like he was there on Friday while the rest of us were at home marveling at the rare hailstorm. All that to say, I'll get back to it tomorrow or Monday but you're not really missing anything: people are still fighting back and forth about schools reopening, more cases of variants have been found in the US and will continue to be identified so long as samples are sequenced (which isn't happening nearly as much as it should), and there's crazy weather across the US. 

Stay safe out there!!