Monday, April 19th, 2021
Today started out with mixed weather, initially grey skies turned into a slight drizzle to be overtaken by sunshine making for a glorious evening.
The early hours of the morning were filled with calls followed by dealing with my inbox. I have a number of to do items on my list, now flagged to avoid them getting buried. I did unexpectedly manage to secure a lap lane and after I returned my day became very productive, which makes me rather happy.
EM was at school for in person classes, which after 400 days of both of us home all the time still feels very strange. No shared lunch, instead I had the leftovers while working. There are also no dinner plans, though I may need to revert to our old eating schedule of a hot meal late in the afternoon or the evening. This does mess with my swim schedule though as I am now booking 17:00 slots on the days she is in school and 13:00 slots when she attends virtually. I am not sure my body can adjust to a changed eating schedule every week.
Beyond the food problem today was just a regular day. Though both EM and I got a little entertainment. One of her friends stopped by for a chat and a colleague of mine had dropped his car and while walking up our road his kids wanted to see me. I am amazed they even Rember me and my house. The last time they visited was just before Christmas. It is nice though to just have people drop by for a quick chat. It makes life feel so normal, so pre-pandemic.
As far as the pandemic is concerned the US is doing well on the vaccine front, but still reporting high numbers of new infections with 51k added today to bring the total to 32.4 million. Other countries are doing much worse though with numbers in Mexico, Brazil, India and Turkey spiraling. The only way out is vaccinating the globe and here the latest news is not encouraging.
In a real life setting the vaccine CoronaVac manufactured in China and often the only vaccine available to developing nations is proving to be only 3% effective after one does. This goes up to 56% after the second dose. As a result, other public health strategies such as mask wearing and maintaining social distance need to stay in place to manage the spread as the example from Chile demonstrates.
There is another reason to remain careful: children cannot be vaccinated (yet). To protect them it is critical we the vaccinated adults do not let down our guard. Currently the 18-50 age group constitutes majority of people being infected and hospitalized. The B1.1.7 variant appears to be particularly aggressive. People seem to be surprised that the infected are getting younger. Given that anyone up to age 50 had been prioritized for vaccination until mid April I do not find these numbers surprising at all.
I am not sure why it has taken scientists this long to come up with possible treatment solutions for blood clots related to the Oxford and the JNJ vaccines, given this issue has now been discussed for months. However, good to know that there are solutions and use of the vaccine can resume with additional guidance. The chance of blood clotting induced by the inoculation is less than the risk of blood clotting caused by taking the pill and far less than blood clotting caused by COVID-19.
The world needs the JNJ as well as the Oxford vaccines, so please get over it. Manage the risks.