At 9:15, we packed both kids into the car to visit the Urgent Care Center in Paramus, next to the Tom Sawyer diner for four rapid COVID tests. At Sunday’s Easter Dinner, we were exposed to two family members who were harboring evil buggies.
Jonah could not return to school, so he had to endure edifying lectures on everything from sleep habits to study methods this week. Ian’s afternoon activities flipped to the remote options. Others in the extended family were more inconvenienced and stressed than ourselves. My brother, one of the sickies, propped himself up at his laptop and jammed out copy for his local newspaper, because he the last guy at the paper who produces content.
It’s true that rapid tests have less than stellar validity. Because all four of us were tested and all four tested negative, we chose to believe the results. We celebrated with eggs at the Tom Sawyer diner.
Later, we left Jonah at home to do his remote classes and then took off to climb a mountain and stroll through a quaint Hudson River village. Pictures on Instagram.
Picture: The Bear Mountain Bridge
I wasn’t in front of computer today, so I don’t have too much to share.
Will it stigmatize and traumatize kids to find out how far they fell behind this year?
“46 percent of parents said they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year college. Same for all incomes. People want training for their kids.” If community college could get their acts together, they could totally take over. Too bad they can’t organize themselves out of a wet paper bag.
Every shore house from Maine to NC is booked already for the summer. We’re now looking for a Plan B lake house.
Insomniac Rag Reading: Caitlyn Jenner is thinking about running for Governor on CA. She’ll corner the Republican Trans Vote, for sure. Her step-daughter, Khloe, who used to be “the normal one,” is really upset because a natural picture of her went viral. I fell for an April Fool’s joke that Meghan and Harry’s Netflix gig was going to be her natural birth; it’s really going to be about his disabled veterans project.
Shopping: I splurged on summer sundresses at Garnet Hill. After a year of wearing Old Navy t-shirts, I think I’m allowed. Hint, their clearance section is excellent.
Tomorrow: Vaccine at 9:00. Writing stuff all day. Figuring out vacation spots. After dinner, we’ll meet friends for drinks downtown, if we’re not feverish.
Apt. 11d 
Laura wrote, “Tomorrow: Vaccine at 9:00.”
Nice!
We’re at the point where it feels like everybody is getting shots all the time. Britney Spears just got hers.
I got my second around lunchtime today. I’m feeling mildly respiratory, which might be the shot, might be my husband’s cold, might be the fact that I had to get up early this morning to drive a kid to a tennis competition. (I know that my husband doesn’t have COVID because he’s had both a rapid test and his mandatory weekly test for the college and he was negative both times.) I’ll probably take tomorrow off as much as I can. For some reason, my youngest has to wear a toga to school tomorrow, so we were figuring that out.
Now, time to wait for my eligible household members to catch up with me vaccine-wise.
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Just got my second Moderna! Yay! Everyone at the vax site was acting kind of giddy. Might also be the nice weather.
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Wendy said, “Just got my second Moderna! Yay! Everyone at the vax site was acting kind of giddy. Might also be the nice weather.”
That’s how people were acting when I took my 10th grader to the hospital for Pfizer last week.
My 10th grader said that a bunch more classmates and teachers are newly vaccinated as of today.
Fingers crossed, I think there’s not going to be a big school outbreak and closure now, at least not in our upper school (7th-12th grade). There’s just not critical mass, or soon won’t be.
My second shot was yesterday and I took a huge afternoon nap today. I wouldn’t say that I feel sick now, just extremely unambitious. We will probably need to be more strategic about 2nd shot scheduling for my husband, college freshman and 10th grader.
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Got my first dose today. I feel like someone hit my arm with a hammer. Ow
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At around 1 am I started feeling like I’ve been hit by the Moderna truck. Oh well. At least I know it’s working.
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Wendy said, “At around 1 am I started feeling like I’ve been hit by the Moderna truck. Oh well. At least I know it’s working.”
Yep!
I’m about 44 hours out from my second Moderna and feeling pretty good, but yesterday was a complete loss.
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I’m seeing out the pandemic with Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. It’s annoying in spots (Rachel and her rich boyfriend are kind of boring), but it’s a nice distraction.
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Is that bridge on the Appalachian Trail? The name seems familiar.
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Yes it is, said Steve
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Thanks. I read about hikes I won’t have time to take.
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Bear Mountain Bridge!!! A big part of my childhood, which often involved driving from Hartford to Newton, NJ to visit my grandma. The way to do the trip w/o scary traffic.
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Apparently, you can walk across it.
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Not all CCs are as trouble-prone as yours apparently is. Don’t paint the sector of 1100 community colleges across the US with such a broad brush. You should visit State Tech in Missouri, a two-year residential CC that focuses on a wide variety of skilled trades. Get in touch with Matt Reed, vice president for academics, at Brookdale CC–I think that’s your neighboring CC–you are in Bergen County CC distirct, right? Matt can help you with this sector.
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Yes, of course, you’re right. Matt is a good guy. Talked with him before.
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Laura tweeted, “I finally got my first dose today. I feel like someone hit my arm with a hammer.”
My 10th grader tells me that the boys at school were punching each other in the shot-arm.
OW!
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I thought the first dose was less painful ( and my arm was less sore) than getting a flu shot.
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This is depressing:
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/04/09/good-grief-unvaccinated-people-much-more-likely-than-vaccinated-people-to-say-its-safe-for-them-to-travel-n382284
According to a new poll, 51% of those who don’t plan to get vaccinated think that it’s safe to travel out-of-state now, while only 29% of the vaccinated think so. (Some of the non-planners may have had COVID, of course…)
“Another question from this same poll asked people when they think it’ll be safe for them to go out without a mask. Among the vaccinated, just 14 percent said it’s safe now. Among the unvaccinated, 45 percent said so.”
(There may be a mistake here with confusing unvaccinated and not-planning-to-vaccinate.)
That’s nuts unless we’re talking about literally OUTSIDE, in which case I’m on board with the 45%.
“Similarly, when asked whether it’s safe for them to hang out with friends right now, 52 percent of unvaccinated said yes versus just 21 percent of the vaccinated. Among the latter group — the people already immunized — 13 percent said it won’t be safe until next year.”
“The takeaway from this data supports a point made in the earlier post about a “vaccine wall,” namely, that we may be headed for a longer pandemic in red states than in blue states. Partly that’s because Republicans are less willing to get vaccinated than Democrats are but partly too it’s because the unvaccinated are much more willing to take risks than the vaccinated.”
Some thoughts:
–Some of those not planning to get vaccinated have already had COVID.
–A lot of red states have very strong vaccine programs. The weakest states are mostly in the Southeast, which is where you have a) reluctant white Republicans b) reluctant black people and (in some areas) c) reluctant Hispanics, i.e., just about every major demographic has a large group of reluctant people.
–The states that are having the worst COVID outbreaks right now aren’t red states. That may change in future, but that’s where we are today.
–The US has been very successful with vaccinating people 65+. I saw a number today that 77% of people in that category have already gotten at least one shot.
–As I’ve said, before, the federal PSAs that are running right now stink. They’re at least 2 months behind in terms of relevance to the current situation. They’re all about masking and distancing and getting a shot when it’s your turn–rather than saying that you are probably eligible for vaccination right now, there are shots available at mass vaccination centers and pharmacies and and you should get yourself an appointment tout suite. They also don’t mention that shots are free and that people 16 and up are now eligible in many states. There’s a total lack of relevant information unless you go looking for it.
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–A quick note–while the states with the weakest vaccination programs are almost all in the Southeast (with the exception of Indiana), it isn’t true that all Southeast states are doing poorly.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
After a pretty dismal month or so, Texas has clawed its way up to 25.2% coverage, with 30.6% having been given at least one shot. (The national average is 27.7% coverage.) The states with the lowest coverage are:
Alabama 21.2%
Georgia 22.4%
Mississippi 22.6%
Tennessee 23.5%
Arkansas 24%
Indiana 24.7%
Louisiana 24.9%
Georgia has used only 65.9% of vaccine supplied, Tennessee has used 69.3%, Alabama has used 62.2%, Arkansas has used 66.2% and Mississippi has used 64.6%. On the other hand, all of those Southeastern states are enjoying what is probably a seasonal low, with case counts from 5-12 per 100k. Florida is weird because it has a) higher vaccination rates but b) much higher COVID rates (27 per 100k) than the rest of the Southeast. I suppose that that’s because it’s more in sync with the NE than other Southeastern states…
We may be looking at a (moderated) replay of 2020, with high cases in the NE and Michigan in March/April and then high cases in the sunbelt during the summer–with the possibility of entirely squelching the summer sunbelt wave with a good enough vaccine program.
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