All aboard the plague ship
Aug. 27th, 2021 11:02 pmSo hey, my state is currently skyrocketing in the rankings for COVID cases per capita, hospitals are full, and people are dying, while our governor is trying to be a poor man's DeSantis or Abbot, insisting nothing is wrong, denying schools the ability to go virtual, and fighting mask mandates. Our vaccination rate is something like 41%, because of course it is. Useful infographic. Check out the "active cases" graph at the bottom right. I mean, I guess "vertical line" is a kind of curve...
I'm back to masking, of course--I think there was, like, two weeks in June where I took it off?--and going nowhere except the grocery, the rink, and my parents' house. Not giving up skating again to protect stupid people. Driving and skating extra carefully, though, seeing as our ICUs are overflowing. I'm starting to have critical care/pulmonary/infectious diseases MD faculty cancel on me for meetings/seminars, or be really delayed getting me information, and citing COVID workload for it.
The CDC added biologics as a reason for getting a third shot now, and my rheumatologist recommended it this week, so guess what I have to do next Friday. (Timing it for the off week of my Cosentyx and that Labor Day three-day weekend, because if the third shot is anything like the second, I'll need every moment of those three days to recover.) Hooray? I was hoping I could wait until there's a Delta-specific booster, assuming one is in the works, but oh well.
Work, at least, has given up the pretense that we are ever going back. The department head said that as long as no one over him requires it, he's fine if we work from home forever. As he said, "the most valuable resource in academia is space," so they're just going to add employees but not add offices. I guess eventually those of us who don't want to come in, or only want to come in when we have in-person meetings, will just get a hoteling space somewhere.
Speaking of work, our big behemoth grant will be funded! Yay, we all have jobs for another five years!
I'm back to masking, of course--I think there was, like, two weeks in June where I took it off?--and going nowhere except the grocery, the rink, and my parents' house. Not giving up skating again to protect stupid people. Driving and skating extra carefully, though, seeing as our ICUs are overflowing. I'm starting to have critical care/pulmonary/infectious diseases MD faculty cancel on me for meetings/seminars, or be really delayed getting me information, and citing COVID workload for it.
The CDC added biologics as a reason for getting a third shot now, and my rheumatologist recommended it this week, so guess what I have to do next Friday. (Timing it for the off week of my Cosentyx and that Labor Day three-day weekend, because if the third shot is anything like the second, I'll need every moment of those three days to recover.) Hooray? I was hoping I could wait until there's a Delta-specific booster, assuming one is in the works, but oh well.
Work, at least, has given up the pretense that we are ever going back. The department head said that as long as no one over him requires it, he's fine if we work from home forever. As he said, "the most valuable resource in academia is space," so they're just going to add employees but not add offices. I guess eventually those of us who don't want to come in, or only want to come in when we have in-person meetings, will just get a hoteling space somewhere.
Speaking of work, our big behemoth grant will be funded! Yay, we all have jobs for another five years!
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