The End of the Pandemic!

I'm not completely sure it has ended. We do have a mix of masked and not. The Navajo are amostly sticking with the masks. Might have to do with how hard the tribe was hit, initially.

Maybe the pandemic will end region by region. In Massachusetts vaccination rates are climbing and covid hospitalization numbers are falling. Things are definitely changing here. You can see it on people's faces.

Are restaurants and businesses opening for you Roger?

My daughter will be going to an amusement park with a group of friends next week to celebrate the end of the school year! She hasn't been able to do that in a long time.

I'm pretty sure businesses that are going to reopen are open. Same for restaurants - though still at reduced capacity. They do seem to follow the national trend of not having enough employees. Denny's at least is reduced to take out only, or outright closed due to lack of staff.

I'm planning to go into a city to see Fast and Furious 9 at a premium large format theater in a week or two.

52 foot wide common height screen and Dolby Atmos sound.

It'll be my first theatrical movie since seeing Star Wars 9 (which I actually saw in the very same theater).

I can't remember for sure, but I think it's the first time I've left my house for anything but blitzkrieg grocery runs since Star Wars 9.

The theater chain has a new owner now. They went bankrupt during the pandemic. I feel bad for the previous owner. But I hope the new owner turns out to be good. Time will tell.

Restaurants and bars open in Michigan, USA, but many are still running at a 50 % capacity - not because of the pandemic but because they are short- staffed.

The hospitality industry has been hard hit. Staff is not returning to the workplace. It’s a real issue here.

Just like New Mexico. I was very happy with the wait staff when they were required to close. Now they don't want to come back and I don't know what to think. Maybe I worried for nothing.

Well, it is still thought to be a pandemic, I think.

We've got still quite a few regulations, but life looks better and better.

I meant to say I was worried about the wait staff.

wevw got major pockets of rapid evolution where variants,c possibly drug resistant, rapid spreading ones, can develop. Evolution cannot be predicted, it can only seen in hindsight. If people still want to believe in"Intelligent Design", they really hvent been watching the progress of this pestilence.

Evolution isn't magic. It is a part of life. There is no evolutionary pressure for this virus to kill us. Sure there will be mutations and some of them may be problems and others may make the virus more benign.

We should trust the science. They are watching the performance of vaccines carefully and the evidence says strongly that the vaccines are effective against the current mutations.

Is it possible that something bad may happen? Of course it is. But it is also possible there will be a comet strike or a huge earthquake or a volcano.

Things are looking up! Let's enjoy it.

as an incentive to get the hesitant ones jabbed, the state is offering $1 million or a college scholarship in the "VaxMillions Giveaway".

the only requirements appears to be: mass resident, eighteen or older, fully vaccinated.

i've never purchased a lottery ticket in my life, but i think i'll take a crack at this...

It is 18 or older for the $1 million lottery; for the scholarship it is only for 17 and under and I believe it is $300k and deposited in your 529 plan. So my just turned 18 year old is looking forward to her lottery opportunity.

United is offering free trips for a year. I would rather win that, This doesn't doesn't make any sense since $1 million would buy a lot of trips. But, I really like to travel.

How do you apply for that ?

It looks like you have to sign up for their MileagePlus program to enter.

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/your-shot-to-fly-sweepstakes.html

I am already a member. They send me an email or something.

We have had a Delta variant (B.1.617.2, I believe) death yesterday of someone who had been fully vaccinated. We are in Stage 2 of 3 stages of opening. So, you can go inside a restaurant and library now, etc., in reduced capacity. But masks are still being worn. And many businesses say they will still require them even in Stage 3. The Calgary Stampede is going ahead but everyone will have to provide full vaccination proof to get in.

96% of the covid patients in hospitals have not been vaccinated.

The Delta variant is the most rampant one here, and is harder to deal with.

Uh oh.

Do you have a link to an article about it?

Funny you should ask that - I was just writing this.

From: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/pfizer-astrazeneca-preventing-hospitalizations-from-delta-variant-in-britain-1.5470170

"Delta, one of the variants first identified in India, is proving to be the most infectious of the variants known so far, and Monday prompted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to push back plans to lift all public health restrictions next week.

A surge of cases linked to Delta has tripled the COVID-19 infection rate in the United Kingdom in the last three weeks. The U.K. had seen the number of new cases fall to below 30 for every one million people in mid-May, from more than 1,000 in January. It's now back up to more than 100.

Last month, Public Health England said a single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca was only about 33 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 after one dose, but after two doses, that rose to 88 per cent for Pfizer and 60 per cent for AstraZeneca.

On Monday, Public Health England said it had new data that showed the vaccines were doing really well at keeping people from getting extremely sick.

The study, based on 14,000 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 due to the Delta variant between April 12 and June 4, found two doses of either vaccine were more than 90 per cent effective at keeping people out of the hospital. There were a total of 166 hospitalizations in the group.

After one dose, Pfizer was 94 per cent effective against hospitalization, and AstraZeneca's vaccine was 71 per cent effective."

I'm hoping for information about the death of the fully vaccinated person.

I need to decide whether to cancel my plans to start going out into the world again.