Letter to the Editor: So, in your shallow attempt at compliance with Government edicts, you have ignored the growing hard of ‘renewable’ energy problems. You are deliberately ignoring the tyranny of Chinese rare-earth extraction using children and virtual slaves in Uighar minority areas. Then, the destruction of worn-out windmill blades and solar panels that cannot be recycled. And this morning we read the only Tesla in this part of the Piedmont burst spontaneously into flames in a local garage. We asked about the hazard of lithium batteries, charged by coal-fired generators and their distressing propensity to catastrophic failure. The local Fire Marshall was asked about what we do with the lithium fires and how to stop them. He (patriarchy!) responded we should do the same thing they his department does: “Nothing.”

– Concerned Reader

Editor’s Note: We talked about this at the morning meeting, which was devoted to the Qanon that to the 5,000 National Guardsmen and fines that separate the Capitol from the deranged citizens who do not fully support the variety of sensible social restrictions. The consensus at the table is that we appear to be surrounded by madness, of which yours is symptomatic. The best means we have found to deal with it is compliance to anything Washington says. It must be true, since it is the opinion of Experts. We further decided to ignore letters to the editor which appear to be non-compliant, and have opened discussions with the Facebook Fact Checkers to help us identify the disloyal and possibly treasonous opinions abroad in the land. Meanwhile, Marlow is tracking the other Emergency.

– Vic

Author’s Note: In pursuit of keeping things real and real time, let’s see how my Magic 8-Ball did:

+ declining leading indicator trends continued locally, and it seems, nationally across the board ✔️
+ we’ll meet mid-summer trend lows down here about three weeks from now ✔️
+ mid-May will see enough vaccine shots for all Americans per 46 in his brief March 2 Q&A ✔️
+ as of March 1st: 33% of this county (GA’s fifth most populous) has had at least one shot and 20% has had two shots ✔️ ✔️
+ we’ll attain local herd immunity from serious or fatal plague cases NLT mid-summer — much earlier than I previously thought ✔️
+ CDC announced revised protocols for vaxxed people would be coming soon ✔️

Although your humble scribe is a native quality Jive speaker, no Jive was required above or below.

-Marlow

04 March 2021

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

“Yo, Marlow, you just got your second and final plague vaccine shot last week . . . ”

Unless I reference a source, what follows are my opinions not medical facts or the consensus of the “experts,” so please take them as ruminations of a geezing seaman recruit ditty-bopping his way past the front gates into the post-plague bootcamp.

We here in the Coastal Empire peaked in new cases (seven-day average) right around New Year’s Day and our hospitalizations peaked seven days later. Since then, we have seen steady, steepening declines ever since. That means our 7-day average declines are approaching two months in duration — not some flash in the pan, number trend fake-out. By month’s end, we will be within a whisker of our post summer lows. To give you an idea of how few cases we have — < .16% of our locals are hospitalized/quarantined with active confirmed cases, while 18% of our population has begun or completed vaccination. That means that currently in our region we’re 100+ times more likely to interact with an at least partially vaccinated individual than a person with confirmed active COVID. Even if you go with the upper limit of what the experts are saying and assume that there are 10 times more individuals who have active COVID than we are identifying that still means that picking any old Coastal Empire bubba on street means you are 10 times more likely to pick a person who has gotten at least one shot of the vaccine than a person with COVID. These factors are literally skyrocketing upwards each week, thus lowering the spread quickly. Getting past the bummer national total fatality figures and looking more broadly, worldwide numbers for the first time during this plague have decreased. Why? No doubt some of this due to vaccines, but this alone does not explain the drop. Not at least yet. There are some arguments out there that this is the natural decline due to the holiday season being over and people being less mobile, and if you just look at the local, national, and worldwide numbers that is a logical hypothesis. Wow, we humans can and do follow common sense guidelines. So, the new, next big fear is variant spread, and that threat is real. However, the current variants are I think being overblown. Imagine that. For example, did you know that the numbers in Great Britain and South Africa are essentially back to where they were prior to the variant outbreak and Brazil cases are decreasing? Nope, didn’t think so. Variants taking hold do not mean we should endlessly scamper about with our hair on fire running wildly away from the closing-in, deadly Dementors. The (soon to be) 4 vaccines that will be available in the United States for all statistical purposes will prevent all severe cases of COVID and hospitalizations. The South African variant may cause symptomatic cases in vaccinated individuals, they should be mild and are reportedly clinically similar to a flu (3-5 days of fever, malaise, cough, muscle aches, fatigue and dyspnea on exertion) which is something we humans have tolerated as a risk of engaging in normal society for millennia. So, UNTIL we see headlines about lots of fully vaccinated people being hospitalized with COVID, there is no reason to fear these variants if you are vaccinated. BTW the sooner we get people vaccinated the sooner we stop community spread and the chances then become quite good that we’re done with this by late summer. I’m all for slow walking goals so that the public is not disappointed again, and I was quite pleased that the CDC announced that vaccinated people do not have to quarantine after exposure; but, for the love of God, our media honks gotta stop telling vaccinated people to continue to act like they aren’t vaccinated. That is dumber than a bag of hammers. Here’re few other conundrums . . . Why is this the first vaccine in history of mankind that we must prove that it reduces transmission? All previous ones we assumed they did so. Also vaccinated people in the past have never been expected to put up with extra precautions unless they were about to interact closely with a person who has an active case of the disease. Right now, with wide community spread I’m not advocating just going back to normal once vaccinated, we should continue to do the most effective things to prevent the disease – (1) handwashing, (2) social distancing OR masking up. However, if these “experts” and “influencers” want to get the public to buy into getting a vaccine they must give the unvaxxed a reason to want it. People who are vaccinated shouldn’t need to mask or social distance when socializing with other vaccinated people, vaccinated people should be able to travel and go to large public gatherings so long as they mask, and they can sure as hell go to a restaurant provided social distancing is occurring. So, open them up. As cases continue to go down, vaccinated people should be able to drop social distancing and masking sooner than non-vaccinated people but in practice it will happen for both at the same time. The “experts” will most assuredly lose the trust of the public if they continue to push hard lines like these. Why? Their advice is not based “on science” but is entirely based on fear. In closing, even if you can’t get a shot before community spread ceases, for the love of God get your damn vaccine shots when offered. I fully expect that when international travel resumes slowly next year (W and I fully intend to do so), we will get a Covid variant that will come back. At that time some vaccinated people will get sick, but the difference will be that vaccinated people will very highly likely have a flu-like illness, and non-vaccinated people will get severe disease symptoms. Post-plague, let us hope this plague changes one thing -- people stop going to work when they’re sick. Yeah, I know, hourly employees who don’t go to work don’t get paid. But ain’t it high time to work this into our culture to at least protect other people? In Japan for example, people wore masks long (like for many decades) before the pandemic ever started. Maybe, just maybe, it might be a damn good idea if we started wearing masks if we insist on coming to work sick. I’ll buy the world a Coke, when that is pitched from the beltway or the nation's experts.

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