Yes. This is ANOTHER covid post. It’s been months since the last one.
Yes. There is ANOTHER covid wave. It has not been months since covid disappeared.
Because it hasn’t.
It has been months and months since the United States decided en masse that they were done with masks.
And social distancing.
And, for all I know, washing their hands.
It has definitely been months since there has been a consistent centralized source of covid information, including number of deaths, number of hospitalization, and number of vaccinations. Yeah, since Johns Hopkins stopped collecting data for their one-stop coronavirus resource center. They stopped collecting data on March 10, 2023.
Now that there is a covid wave hopefully cresting, the information that is needed to discuss it fully is scattered. And hard to find.
People are thinking that this wave isn’t that bad, what are you talking about, Kate?
Well, we don’t know specifically how bad this wave is. All we have is anecdotal evidence.
There has been a marked increase in media discussing covid cases, alluding to the new wave.
Testing has been struggling to increase. This is a two-part fail. The first is because there is a vanishingly small number of people who report their at-home test results as they’ve been asked by the CDC. That is if the at-home tests that you have squirreled away haven’t expired. If they have there is a part on the CDC website to check to see if the test is one of the few that had their expiration dates extended. The FDA states that expired at-home covid tests might give inaccurate results when tested. Such as showing negative when it should be positive, and vice versa.
If they have expired, good luck finding some.
That is another way to know that covid cases are rising; the sudden decrease in available tests. It took me three drugstores to find a test when I was sick a few weeks ago. Even then I had to ask where they were and I got the last one.
It was negative, I had a summer cold. But my husband has been sicker for longer and has a cough that won’t quit. He won’t test, relying on my negative test. Man flu or covid? Hard to gauge. I’m completely back to 100%, he is coughing and sneezy still. You decide.
But, Kate, why didn’t you make him test?
I am not his mother. As the nurse in the house, all I can do is advise. Just like I advise diet and exercise and a good medication regimen.
The last harbinger of a covid wave is hospitalizations.
The hospitals around me had a few weeks of zero covid hospitalizations.
Now all I do is watch the number spike.
Some places are bringing back mandatory masking. I wear a mask at the university out of courtesy to those who are immunocompromised and STILL in danger. I have begun wearing one to stores, in addition to shopping when they are just open or in the last hour they are open.
Mandatory statewide masking is not going to happen in North Carolina. not with the political mix we have here. Hell, many vocal people in the communities still deny the existence of covid, or the advantage of the vaccines.
How about you?
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 