We stopped off at Club Splash this evening for a Sunday Funday drink and we ran into the COVID-19 vaccine police! Entrance into the hottest gay club in the Central Valley now comes with a price: you need to be vaccinated.
Continue reading “Splash rolls out the vaccine patrol!”Tag: COVID-19
COVID-19 Update
In the past few weeks, as more and more vaccines are rolling out, and with a competent administration leading the country, COVID-19 is finally being dealt with. Much of California is starting to recover, with most of its counties leaving the purple tier category. However, much of the Central Valley still remains purple. Despite that, the Central Valley is now nearing to moving below in the red tier. Tulare county, surprisingly, has managed to become red already.
The rest are to join in soon as well (people permitting). The most significant statistic to keep an eye out for is infections per 100K, in which less than 8 per 100K is the threshold for exiting purple tier. Central Valley counties are barely hovering in 2 digit territory, at 12 or less infections per 100K (while Tulare is at 7.8, just barely within the limits).
COVID-19 Update
It has been 23 days since my last update. Since then, California got 477,478 new cases, going from 2.8 million to 3.3 million total cases (17% increase). Testing by comparison increased by 16%, with that slight discrepancy barely raising the positivity rate. As for the fatalities however, there are 10,812 new deaths, a 34% increase. As seen in the county map, almost all of California has a widespread COVID-19 status. The four counties that aren’t purple tier have so little people that their bar in the graph is virtually nonexistent. The only good statistic today is that CA’s infections per 100K has dropped from 109 to 40.
| Cases confirmed | 3,294,447 |
| Deaths | 42,466 |
| Testing done | 43,235,327 |
| Positive rate | 7.62% |
| Cases leading to death | 1.3% |
| Cases per 100K | 40 |
Meanwhile, there is a new statistic on CA’s dashboard: Vaccines administered. California has managed to vaccinate 10% of its population, which is approximately 4 million people. This marks the transition from Phase 1A (Estimated 3 million people; healthcare workers and long term care residents) to Phase 1B (About 8 million; People 65 and older, and at risk workers in the following sectors: education/childcare, emergency services, and food/agriculture.
Phase 1B confusingly has another phase within it, which includes more sectors, then incarcerated and homeless people. The next phase, 1C, will go further beyond to those aged 50-64, 16-49 (conditions that increase severity of COVID-19), and additional sectors. But it will likely take a long time to get to that phase. Remember when California initially announced they would vaccinate those 65 and over? There weren’t enough vaccines at that time, so it took another week or two before that could actually happen.
Bill Gates interview on MSNBC
Philanthropist and co-chief of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did an interview over the weekend. It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Microsoft (and MSNBC for that matter). I think I am even a bigger fan of Bill Gates. He might very well be the smartest man on the planet.
Bill Gates famously warned about the risk of a pandemic in 2015, and in 2021 he offers ideas on vaccines and preparing for the next pandemic. Gates stresses that spending in advance is actually quite a “bargain” compared to the cost of reacting to a pandemic once it ravages the world and cripples the economy. Gates also discusses tech regulations, attacks on him and Dr. Fauci, systemic racism, tax policy and his reaction to being cited in so many rap songs, in this debut of The Summit Series, a collection of in-depth interviews with leaders at the summit of their fields by MSNBC’s Ari Melber.
Aired on 01/28/2021
We have a long, long way to go before we get ahead of this pandemic and that is a both a tragedy and a truth that we all have to grapple with. Wear a mask, practice social distancing, stay at home as much as possible and get vaccinated as soon as your possibly can!