Corona Log Entry- 9/8/21
By jxmartin
Thu, 09 Sep 2021
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3 comments
Corona Log Entry- September 8, 2021. (8/9/21)
It is a sunny and cool morning here in Western New York. Hurricanes and raging rain storms are still assaulting our east coast, and across the Florida Panhandle. The NYC and New Jersey area are still cleaning up, in the wake of a ten-inch rain storm, from Hurricane Ida. Southern Louisiana is still trying to restore power to several hundred thousand residents, in the wake of Hurricane IDA. It was a bad storm that took over fifty lives.
Firestorms are raging across the American Northwest. One blaze even threatens the resort community of Lake Tahoe. It is the worst fire season in our recorded history. Still, many refuse to ascribe the causation to Global warming. Perhaps an evil tooth fairy is to blame for the severe climatic changes?
The Delta variant, of the Corona virus, is rampaging across the United States. Infections, hospitalization and death rates have soared, to times like those before the Covid-19 vaccine was discovered. Most of the illness is being visited on the unvaccinated, who still stubbornly resist preventative serums. Some eighty million Americans remain unvaccinated. Much of the resistance is politically motivated, which defies all logic. Unfortunately, children are now falling victim to Corona in alarming numbers.
School boards across the country are having heated arguments with parents about masking requirements. Parents still insist that they have “The right to choose.” I wonder where that silly notion ever arose from? In Florida, several large school districts took Governor De Santis to court, to overturn his masking ban. They were successful, yet the man won’t back off. Florida has the highest rate of infections and deaths from the Corona Virus, in the United States.
Nearby Mississippi, Alabama and Texas are overrun with Covid-19 cases as well. Their hospitals are at capacity, again the majority of whom are unvaccinated. President Biden is planning a new assault on the Virus, offering plans to help get the recalcitrant in to be vaccinated. The CDC has approved a third booster shot for anyone who had received the Pfizer inoculations. The shot will be administered effective Sept. 20th. Dr. Fauci, of the CDC, advises that those receiving the Moderna shot will get approval for a booster shot, several weeks in the future. The Johnson and Johnson single-shot has as yet received no official announcements. The World health Organization is appealing, to wealthy nations, to hold off administering these booster shots and funnel the doses to poorer countries in the third world.
Our borders with Canada to the North are still closed. And the European Union has just turned on the “yankee go home” sign, after our Covid-19 figures rose so precipitously. They have enough problems of their own. Even Australia and New Zealand, who initially had low infection rates, are in lock down from an assault by the Delta variant. No real news about Africa and South America makes it to the nightly news. The human toll of damage there, from Corona illness and death, must be horrific.
In the world around us, we are still recovering from the massive airlift of American citizens and Afghan refugees, from Afghanistan. These 100,000 new citizens must be settled in and absorbed into the mainstream of American life. The Taliban yesterday announced that another 200 people, with American passports, will be allowed to fly out of its northern airfields shortly. That should put a cap on the exodus of Americans and their supporters from this war-torn pile of rocks.
It is only a few days before the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C, which precipitated our invasion of Afghanistan, to go after the perpetrators of the attack, which then evolved into a twenty-year exercise in failed nation building. There will be commemorative ceremonies across the nation, honoring the three thousand dead and the brave emergency rescue personnel lost during the attack.
On the political front, Republican Legislatures across America are still passing laws to restrict voter access, claiming stories of voter fraud, something that every Court in America has ruled didn’t happen. In Texas, new laws have been passed restricting women’s right to abortions, seemingly in contretemps with the Historic Roe V. Wade Supreme Court Decision of the 1970’s.
In Washington D.C., Congress is still struggling with passage of the new, massive, Infrastructure Bill and a needed Budget Bill to pay for it all. The wrangling of both parties will go on right up until they turn the Governmental lights off, AGAIN.
Economically, the $300 bonus payment, to the unemployed, has expired. It should be interesting to note its effect on the job market. There are job vacancies everywhere around us. Businesses are restricting their hours of operation, to accommodate the lack of staff. Even at NFL Football games, there is a lack of ushers and service personnel. That is like saying there aren’t enough religious available to man the Vatican in Rome.
The stock markets are roaring along, at the 35,000-point level in the Dow Jones average. Nothing seems to phase the money train. Prices in all categories are rising. Gasoline is $3.29 per gallon- regular, at the pumps. The cost of food stuffs, and everything else, are rising as well. There is a horrendous disruption in the world supply chain. A lack of computer chips, for automobiles and any number of spare parts, is throwing a monkey wrench into that industry.
The Tourism Industry was just starting to recover, when the Delta variant began to run wild. Now, Europe is closing up and Cruises are getting restrictive about unvaccinated passengers. That is another area where Florida gov. De Santis tried to ban the Industry from demanding masks and inoculations. So far, her has lost if Federal Court on this issue as well.
In general, we are in hunker-down mode, trying to cope with the massive surge of the Delta variant of the Corona Virus. It seems like this Corona Monster will never go away. We are nearing two years of assault from this pandemic. Both the nation and the world at large are weary. We will get through it though, one day at a time.
-30-
( 1,035 words)
Joseph Xavier Martin
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Comments
A great summary of the real
Permalink Submitted by David Kirtley on
A great summary of the real situation in the US. I would rather read your summaries than watch the US news channels! (They should be offering you employment!!)
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It must be genuinely
It must be genuinely frustrating that vaccination is politicised in the way it clearly is in the US. I note the ongoing mayhem at the Texas-Mexico border now due to a lighter approach to migration brought in by Biden.
Keep safe and well. We will prevail! Paul
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