COVID. Our provincial governments certainly seem to think so. Most people I see around seem to think so. I wore a mask into Coop the other day. There were a few other people doing so, but not many. And one of them at least, I've seen her every now and then over a period of many years, wearing a mask and white cotton gloves. Nobody at the pool is wearing a mask. I think on public transit we're supposed to be wearing mask. But then, I haven't taken public transit in more than two years, and don't anticipate doing so any time soon.
And yet there's still more than a thousand people in hospital with COVID, and six more died yesterday. According to CBC 3,992 Albertans have died from COVID. For a while they were including a comparison between normal hospital capacity, and the so-called surge capacity, but I can't find it now. I believe normal capacity was about 1100 or 1200. Every bed taken up by a COVID patient is one denied to someone else who needs hospital care, like ongoing cancer treatments, or heart attack/stroke victims, just to name a few examples. There's lots more.
When the restrictions were lifted I was looking for the hospitalizations to start picking up again about now, and so far it hasn't happened. So far. I am cautiously hopeful.
So where do we go from here? Supply chains are snarled from hell to breakfast. Nobody knows if a particular thing will be available, or how long it will take to get it delivered. Rental cars are hard to find, who knew? Even the new car market is messed up. Every week we get an email from one of the Honda dealers wanted to buy our car. The latest offer was 110% of book value. Turns out the Fit isn't being made and it's really popular. Which raises the question of why we'd sell it.
International air travel is still a bit of a gong show, with nobody quite knowing what the rules are, or what they will be. New Zealand is still closed to tourists.
Plus the whole working from home thing. It sounds like people are supposed to go back to the office, and from the little I hear, that's a deal killer for some people. They like working from home. It gives them lots of flexibility. Others like going into the office for whatever reason. Maybe they're social butterflies, or are in a job where it's best done face to face. Or maybe the boss is a control freak and want's the workers under their thumb. I feel for the people that bought a house out in the boonies because they thought WFH would last forever.
Pandemics have a way of changing the game. The Black Death brought an end to feudalism. Spanish Flu changed how health care is delivered. It's a pretty safe bet that things will change this time to. Best be prepared.
Of the Day
Driftwood
Peony
Same plant, just different light. Neither is quite right.
Lily
But first an artsy serendipity.
A substantive comment from my friend James who has been tracking various COVID numbers since the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThe world case rate has started up again. A bit too early to be certain about the five jurisdictions that I'm tracking more closely. Two of the five might be heading up again, though not certain unless it carries on for another week or so. One of the five has levelled out fairly high up, so might be thinking about heading up. Two of the five are still currently low level and mostly horizontal.
If Alberta is going to head up again soon, it will be a week or maybe two before we see that unambiguously in the cases (and test positivity numbers), with hospitalizations delayed beyond that. Certainly no sign yet of it going up.
A potential good sign is that South Africa, where Omicron first hit badly, has not yet started up again.
The purple lily picture is great.
(ed note, the lilies are a very dark red, verging on black. They are difficult to photograph and come out looking right, much like the red peonies just above them. I'm looking forward to capturing the flowers on film this year, even though the camera I have is decidedly not a macro.)