We are not giving up on trying to account for the unaccountable events of the day. One of them was the proposal to appoint HRH Meghan Markel to the US Senate. So, things are getting a bit confusing. Senator Feinstein has had no change in circumstance, and we are uncertain what impact her absence might have had. But what we do have in a Continuing Resolution shorn of Ukrainian Aid. It was a pretty exciting process, and of course the conference bill is only good for a month and a half when the same crisis seems likely to recur. The government remains open this morning, there is a battle raging for the position of Speaker in the House, and there appears to be an air of mild hysteria in the air, you know?

– We promised Patient Zero this morning, so…

We had one Writer’s Section participant who was willing to talk about what happened to him, personally. There were no other reported reactions, at least on The Patio, so there is the possibility that the events on PZ are not shared in the millions who were vaccinated. But there are reports of a spike in sudden illnesses and deaths in otherwise healthy groups.

There is much that is unknown about all this. PZ is of the opinion that he would not have signed up to receive the vaccination had there not been an announced intent to impose a positive vaccination status to board commercial airliners. Family obligations made travel an important priority.

In order to avoid complications, the Moderna vaccine was administered down in Culpeper by volunteers from the National Guard. It was not an unpleasant experience and managed with a certain impersonal efficiency. Our vaxx sessions seemed to go without issue.

We don’t know if the medical adventure started with that, or with something different. We do know that subsequent blood clots in the femoral artery began then, and it was the start of something that resembled a short stay in the County slammer.

The numbers on the pandemic were strange from the beginning. There were some egregious misattributions in cause. Our favorites were the car wreck deaths counted as Covid fatalities because of a positive test. This was a huge endeavor. According to WHO statistics, in the United States alone there were more than a hundred million cases of the infection and more than a million deaths.

In the case of the Patio Salts, the first one to get it in the circle needed some drama, so we called him “Patient Zero,” and he tried to do what was expected by the Center For Disease Control. He asked when people could see him, stand awkwardly apart in uncertain lines and forget his screen camera was “on” while participating in Zoom meetings.

There was no speculation that there might be side effects in the vaccines, even as reports of sudden medical events involving athletes began to show up. Our Patient Zero might- or might not- be one of them.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com