Coronavirus Pandemic Day 545 - Our Summer of Respite Is Over

Known COVID-19 cases in the U.S. - 40,516,940

Known COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. -  659,316

 

Yeah, there was a spike over the last week, thanks to the Delta variant of the damn virus. Just in the last week, COVID-19 cases in our county have doubled. What the average Joe and Jane don't seem to realize is that with every infection, the virus could mutate again.

Even when it's a break-thru infection for someone who is vaccinated.

The folks not getting vaccinated are setting themselves up to help create an even more deadly version of COVID-19. Why, oh, why is the human race so suicidal?

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 517 - What Will Happen When the Healthcare Workers Give Up?

In the U.S., we stand at 36,319,708 known cases of COVID-19 and 627,018 known deaths from the disease.

Yet, people continue to refuse to get the vaccine.

I read this anguished essay from a doctor last week. She echoes the things I'm hearing from friends who are in various medical positions. The amount of people pleading for someone to save them when all they had to do was get a free vaccine shot is horrible.

The healthcare profession are considered essential workers. They haven't the luxury of Netflix and chilling for the last seventeen months. And a lot of them have caught COVID-19 and died because of the lack of PPE and any vaccines.

So, for those of you who haven't gotten or refuse to get one of the vaccines for reasons that have nothing to do with your own health issues, what are you gong to do when the entire healthcare system breaks, mentally and physical, over the strain of trying to take care of those, like you, who refuse to take care of themselves?

What are those of us who need the healthcare system for things other than COVID-19? Believe me, you have no idea how much I wish cancer could be dealt with in one or two shots!

Look, take a ten-minute visit to your pharmacist. A quick poke, maybe two, depending on which vaccine they have in stock, and it's done. If any one was going to have major side-effects from the damn shot, it would have been me. But, nope, nary a sniffle.

Please get the vaccine! I don't want you to die!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 510 - Delta Cases Are Rising

In the United States to date, we have:

35,039,644 known cases of COVID-19
618,207 known deaths from COVID-19

I know damn well those numbers are under reported. Friends who've had it were told by their doctors to stay the fuck home unless they had trouble breathing. Hell, even my own doctor had to end up in ICU before he took it seriously.

And things are getting worse with the Delta variant now. Ohio had 2,388 new confirmed case last Thursday alone.

Frankly, I went back to wearing masks anytime I'm in public after a vaccinated friend developed a break-thru infection. Her husband was right that the vaccine prevented her from ending up in the hospital. However, it was a stark reminder that I'm still in the high-risk group. Like my oncology appointment last week wasn't enough of a reminder.  :P

The sharp rise is also putting our fall plans into doubt. Assuming Adorable Spawn comes to visit for Halloween, I worry about putting him at risk by exposing him to the rest of the family even if they have their vaccine. I'm also questioning my trip to Vegas in November since so many of the people I plan to meet up with are going to other writers conferences this summer and fall, including a major one in Florida.

Yeah, Florida. Where they announced a record 21,683 NEW cases on Saturday. Florida where the governor threatened healthcare workers for reporting their numbers to the CDC. Florida, a state with a large at-risk population and less than 51% are vaccinated. It makes me wonder how many cases there really are.

So, we're looking at another wave of cases this summer and fall. It's not good news.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 503 - It's Still Here!

Believe me, folks! I know y'all wish it were over. I wish it was over, too. But we have half the country refusing to get vaccinated, so it isn't going to go away. The virus will continue to mutate. The Delta variant is inundating the country as I type this. Scientists are still trying to get a handle on it and the new Lambda variant.

Then there's everyone who's not vaccinated refusing to wear masks. The folks in the hospitals whisper-screaming, "FREEDOM!", while the medical staff is trying to shove a ventilator tube down their trachea in a desperate attempt to save their life. The idiots who are trying to own the "libs".

I'm vaccinated, but I've started wearing my masks again. It's the middle of a hot, muggy Ohio summer, and I'm still wearing my masks because I'm immuno-compromised and the dumbasses around me don't give a fuck whether I live or die.

Or worse, whether my newborn grandson lives or dies.

The level of selfishness amazes me. Especially when it includes my family and friends. When GK and SO bring Adorable Spawn to our house in October, we'll have a much smaller gathering than we planned because I refuse to let one person who's not vaccinated step into our house other Adorable Spawn and his cousin, who are both babies.

I was supposed to meet some friends in Vegas in November, but I'm questioning whether or not to go because there's one person who's refusing to get the damn vaccine, even though he's in worse shape than I am.

Yeah, I know there's some of you who can't take the damn vaccine. This rant isn't aimed at you. It's aimed at your friends and family who would put your life at risk because "FREEEEDAHM!"

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 419 - What Happened to U.S. Unity?

32,610,374 recorded cases of this damn disease in the U.S. 583,148 recorded deaths.

The question above is most certainly rhetorical.

I remember the afternoon the Eagle landed on the lunar surface. The collective excitement of the adults around me. The thrill of us doing something that's never been done.

Us. U.S. The United States of America.

Fifty years later, I hear despair from friends and acquaintances in the medical profession. They are abused by neighbors who've swallowed the belief that science is the source of all evil. They are cursed out by patients who still claim COVID-19 is a hoax as they struggle to breath. They struggle to save people who claim vaccines don't work. Or even more ludicrous, the vaccines contain tracking devices.

(*Ahem* If you're one of the last, you might want to take a good look at a certain handheld device I'm sure is on your person or nearby your body. Corporations and the government can already track us through our smart phones.)

As I said, the title is a rhetorical question. I know what's happened over the last fifty years. It doesn't mean I like it. 10% of the population has contracted this disease. And yet, people are refusing the vaccine.

Look, I want things back to normal, too. Even though DH and I are vaccinated, it felt very weird going out to dinner with GK and SO while we were in Texas. I wasn't scared for myself. I was scared for SO and Adorable Spawn. SO found out she was pregnant right as the vaccines were delivered to their base. At the time, her doctors advised against vaccination because they didn't have any data concerning the vaccines' affect on pregnant women.

It's exceptions like SO who the reason the rest of us needs to be immunized. The unity of her friends and family getting the vaccine to protect her and AS helps, but only so far.

I wish the other half of the country understood why this unity was so important.

Coronavius Pandemic Day 391 and the Race Against Time

It's been over a year since the U.S. went into the first lockdown. There's more than 30,925,269 known cases because Florida's Governor DeSantis is trying to hide how bad things are in the state and there's folks I know how have had COVID-19 in other states and weren't added to the official count.

Even worse, there's 560,601known dead from COVID-19. Over a half million. Those are somee awful numbers to contemplate.

Especially when less than a third of the people living in the U.S. have only have their first dose of a vaccine.

Look, I get being stuck at home is boring. I'm not a fan of masks anymore than the craziest right-wing neighbor. But I don't want to be responsible for carrying a potentially dangerous virus around. Especially when I have a grandson on the way and there's an even more contagious variant of COVID-19 running around the U.S.

The race against doesn't only refer to getting people inoculated.

The next volume of 888-555-HERO is due out in ten days. I have to meet this deadline because I'm prohibited by Amazon's policy to miss it, else I lose all my pre-orders. I've typed 3K words so far and I've got a couple of thousand to go before bedtime.

So, this is a mental break (sort of) before dinner and Jeopardy! See y'all on the other side!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 286 - Family and Pack

The U.S. tolls have jumped as the Thanksgiving foolishness has come home to roost--18,036,341 known infected and 321,097 known deaths from COVID-19. Those are sobering numbers. Approximately, the same number of Americans who died on 9/11 are dying each day.

I realize people are tired of the restrictions and the masks. I really do. Personally, I like sitting in Starbucks at this time of year, sipping a hot peppermint mocha and watching people. I've come up with some excellent story ideas by watching people at their best and worst this time of year.

But I haven't been inside any cafe or restaurant for nearly a year, other than to rush in to pick up a carryout order while wearing full protective gear. And it's okay.

My father-in-law sits nervously in his apartment, as more of his friends are taken to the hospital, never to come home. My niece has been in and out of quarantine the last two months because other parents won't keep their children home when someone in their household becomes infected. Granted leave by the Army, Genius Kid slept in his car to prevent exposure at any hotel in his 24-hour trip home.

But GK doesn't dare go see his Papa. There are limits to the risks we all take, but that doesn't mean we don't care. GK called his Papa and talked to him. We won't have the big family gathering on Christmas or our game night on New Year's Eve. But DH and his sisters are texting each other more this year than they have in the last decade. GK texts his cousins. I e-mailed mine.

Physically apart does not equate to emotional distance, and vice versa. You may not be in the same room, but that doesn't mean you don't care. Or they don't care.

There's a light at the end of this tunnel. Vaccines are coming, albeit slowly.

Or you could take a page from Bella's book. Pack is pack, no matter where a pack member may be.

The Week Before Christmas and All Through the House

...it looks like a chaos bomb went off.

I've barely made a dent in the unpacking, I can't find my address book to save my life, and my mind's so frazzled I've had to reset most of my internet passwords.

Well, the passwords needed to changed anyway. A lot of them were pretty old.

So my house is filled with moving boxes instead of wrapped boxes, and the living room looks more like a warehouse depot than the pretty picture above. It's okay. The important thing is all the COVID-19 precautions we've been taking means we're together and healthy this holiday season. For that, I thank all the gods.

Also, Genius Kid will be arriving sometime this weekend. He's being super careful--to the point he refuses to stop and spend the night in Memphis which is the halfway point. "I'm not taking the chance of bringing COVID home to you and Dad by staying in a hotel."

If you see people sleeping in their cars at rest stops along the freeways, that's what their trying to do. Keep their family safe.

Pfizer's vaccine was rolled out this week, but we have a long way to go before the pandemic is over. A Sgt. Esterhaus always said, "Let's be careful out there."

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 279 - Hope!

We're at 16,368,406 official infections and 302,141 deaths from COVID-19 here in the United States.

But there's a glimmer of light on the horizon. The FDA gave emergency approval to Pfizer's vaccine last week. The first trucks rolled out from Pfizer's Michigan facility yesterday morning, filled with special refrigerated units containing vials of the vaccine. The first frontline medical workers were injected this morning.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. That the vaccine works. That there's no horrible unknown side effects from the rush to develop it. That this vaccine will safe the thousands of lives that might otherwise be lost over this winter.

I am by no means an anti-vaxxer. However, I balked at getting a shingles vaccine until its efficacy improved. When it was first introduced, the shingles vaccine was only 30% effective. I finally got one this year once I was comfortable the efficacy was above 90%.

Two months ago, I made a point of getting both the flu and pneumonia vaccines. If I happened to get COVID-19, I didn't need those two diseases piling on. For people with compromised immune systems like me, such things could mean death.

You see, January of 2007 started with a little head cold. Then flu. Then the flesh-eating staph. Then another case of the flu. For four months straight, I was so fucking sick I often had to crawl to the bathroom.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed this vaccine works as advertised. In the meantime, I'm wearing my mask, social distancing, and washing my hands until the are raw.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 272

As I type this on Monday morning, most of last week's snow is gone except for a few splotches here and there. Official infections in the U.S. have reached 14,879,831 and official deaths have reached 285,564.

Why do I keep track of this stuff? Because in twenty years, I want to be able to look back at everything and say, "We survived."

 

In the meantime, life plugs on. We're in the new house. I've got a space heater for my office, but I'm still in my recliner. Partly because my body is still recovering from the stress and physical exertion, and partly because Bella is used to napping in my lap as I work.

The moving stuff got in the way of several projects I was in the middle of, including the stories for the Bloodlines Shorts Anthology, so the next few days will be me playing catch-up between unpacking a couple of boxes.

You know how it is with a move. No matter how carefully you pack and label, things get lost in the process.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 265 - The Winter Holidays

As I type this, the United State has officially reached 13,506,766 known infections of COVID-19, and 270,520 known deaths. Even as we face numbers not seen since April, people had their Thanksgiving gatherings despite recommendations not to do so for fear of spread.

Yet, everyone is looking forward to the winter holidays. Kind of.

In the meantime, we're moving into the new house this week. And of course, Mother Nature decided to drop 2-4 inches on us today.

We've been so careful. We haven't made more than one appointment a day with folks delivering appliances, connecting services, or cleaning the place. The carpet cleaners are supposed to come today. I'm waiting to see if they will be able to come. In the meantime, I'm still laying shelf liner through the house and putting things away.

 

We'll see if the snow is gone by Friday for all the big furniture to get moved.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 258 - Moving During COVID

As the U.S. closes in on 12.5 million infected with COVID-19 and over 260,000 deaths, most of the state of Ohio has gone red. Columbus (i.e. Franklin County) is firmly in the purple range as far as infection rates and hospitalizations go.

Yet, in the midst of this chaos, Darling Husband and I found a darn near perfect house. We're in the process of moving, i.e. taking boxes over before the moving guys haul the big furniture to the new place.

Once everything is inside the new place, we won't be going anywhere for quite a while. Not while the 'Rona rages around us.

Amidst the insanity of moving to a new house during a world pandemic, we will find what comfort we can. And I'm especially thankful for lamburgers and cherry cheesecake!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 251 - Another Shutdown Is Coming

People are calling the current COVID-19 uptick in cases the third wave. However, here in Ohio, the numbers have been one continuous wave. An ever-growing wave. There is no trough. There has not been a trough since the first diagnoses in the state back in March 3.

Even worse, we've hit 10 million cases and 250,000 deaths nationwide. Those health professionals who've managed to survive are exhausted. And there are still people calling this a hoax.

With the cold weather settling in the northern states, everyone will be forced indoors and in close proximity. That means things are going to get worse.

A lot worse.

 

Gov. DeWine is talking about another curfew. Other states have already implemented partial or full shutdowns. And we're ten days away from Thanksgiving. That means cases will increase through December because Americans just can't handle being told not to do something.

I don't look at the subdued holidays as a punishment though. As I've been telling friends, I didn't go through the bullshit of breast cancer to be felled by the common cold's pissant little cousin.

We going to start stocking up on things as we move into our new house. Once we're in the new place, we're going to limit our trips out and about. I mean, I'm only going out to medical appointments and food pickup as it is.

It means no holiday celebrations this year. We'd hoped to host a tiny one in the new house, but it's not going to happen. It's just too risky with all the various health problems among the family members. And that's before we add COVID-19 to the mix.

So I have no excuse not to complete a bunch of things over the next two months.

As long as I can stay healthy.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 230 - It's Not Going to Stop Until Everyone Takes This Virus Seriously

Over 8.7 million confirmed cases. Nearly 229,000 deaths. And this is in the United States alone.

Yet, so many of my fellow citizens still don't take this pandemic seriously.

 

Two weeks ago, I made a dash to West Virginia. A cousin had to have surgery. It was a laprascopic procedure, so the down time would be minimal, but she needed someone at home with her for a few days.

So many, so, SO many people weren't wearing masks on that. And they can't figure out why the coronavirus is surging in that part of the state.

 

But me? I still had the travel pack from the Texas dash in August. Disposable masks, latex gloves, and a huge bottle of sanitizer. I got weird looks, but I didn't care. My life, my cousin's, and DH's were more important to me.

The whole situation makes me sad. This pandemic should never have been politicized or lied about by national officials. The American eople needed timely accurate information to protect themselves.

And now, we have a huge number of people dead who shouldn't be.

COVID-19 is not going to magically go away, not matter how much we wish it would. The FIL's assisted living center has stopped visitation for the third time in the last eight months. They aren't taking any chances. No one should. It isn't worth your life.

What Are You Reading?

I know a lot of people thought the COVID-19 pandemic would be over by now. Unfortunately, the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago took roughly two years to play out. I resigned myself to that fate back in June. Ironically, accepting that potential outcome helped me shake off the low-level depression I had in the spring.

Like many of you, I've taken refuge in books. Not so much new ones though, for which I apologize to my fellow authors. I've been reading a lot of things I found comfort in while I was in high school.

Stuff like the Star Trek Original Series novels. Hell, Barbara Hambly managed to cleverly insert the cast of Here Comes the Brides into the Star Trek Universe in Ishmael. (For those who don't get the joke, Mark Lenard, who played Spock's father Sarak in the original series, also starred in the other TV show.)

Then there's Patrica McKillip's Riddle-Master series, Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series, and Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series. I could keep going, but you get the gist.

 

So, what are y'all reading that's gotten you through the last seven months? What's on your list for the next seventeen?

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 208 - Why Am I Keeping Track?

 7.5+ million cases of the disease so far in the United States. 213+ thousand dead. Now, allegedly the president and first lady plus a good chunk of the White House staff have the disease.

I read an interesting article over the weekend concerning President Woodrow Wilson's handling of the Spanish flu pandemic. He followed a route of downplaying the virus similar to our current leadership. The result was he ended up with the flu as did many of his staff. In Wilson's case, the flu weakening his body may have led to the stroke that felled him a couple of months later.

From a more creative standpoint, watching the pandemic unfold has led me to changing the rough outline of the Soccer Moms of the Apocalypse. I rearranged the order of the series, and Penny (AKA Pestilence) will take center stage in the first book. Especially since she runs a coffee shop.

 

Damn. I really miss writing in the local coffee shops.

It's odd how this crisis has triggered new ideas and changed some old.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 201 - What the Hell Was I Thinking!

 7.2+ million infected and 208+ thousand dead are the known numbers in the U.S.

These numbers are staggering. And yet, we pretend life goes on.

Case in point, DH and I are in the process of buying a house.

Back in July, we kind of given up on looking between the buyer's market and finding something that would work for us. Our primary criteria is having home offices on opposite sides of the house. When you both work from home, it can get disruptive. Especially in an apartment where I'm stuck working in the living/dining room and DH has to go through it to get a soda refill in the kitchen.

(Before anyone suggests it, yes, we do have a mini-fridge. No, we don't have any space in the apartment to put it.)

So,with all the pandemic crap, we resigned ourselves to living another year at the apartment and saving our money to build the type of house we need.

And then this house just kind of dropped in our laps. DH got the notice two weeks ago. Listing indicated this place met most of our criteria. We looked at it two days later with a super-critical eye. Man, this could actually work for us.

We called the bank to renew our pre-approval. We put in a bid, and six hours later, we had an agreement. Technically, it took that long because our realtor had a ton of stuff lined up, and it was a Saturday.

Now, I have to pack the apartment and make arrangements for various maintenance things once we have possession. Frankly, having a bunch of strangers in and out of the house worries me.

Okay, it worries me a lot.

But my new office will be the Florida room. All kinds of natural light and a space that's all mine. And we're only going across town, not 1200 miles across the country.

I hope it's worth the risk.

The Publishing Challenge

 During one of WMG Publishing's class sales, I bought The Publishing Challenge. It sounds stupid on the surface, paying someone to make me accountable for sticking to a publishing schedule.

But with the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. descending into facism, this challenge has helped keep me on track with my writing through the chaos.

Each month, I need to publish one of the following:

- a novel

- a novella (minimum of 20K words)

- a bundle/anthology/boxed set (minimum of five short stories)

 

I can hear some of you say, "But, Suzan, you just published a single short story this month!"

Yeah, I did. Under the Suzan Harden name. I published a novel under Alter Ego, and that counts. It doesn't matter which pseudonym I use.

So what's the point of this post?

Do whatever you have to keep going through hellscape 2020 has become!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 194 - Moving again

6.8+ million cases. 202+ thousand dead. Those are the REPORTED numbers in the United States alone.

 

I say reported because some governors (looking at you Florida Governor Ron DeSantis) and White House representatives are doing their damnedest to hide just how bad things are. Most citizens are doing what they can to slow the spread. But between those who STILL claim the disease is a hoax and the lack of a cure or a vaccine, more people will get sick.

 

More people will die.

 

And yet, the earth spins on.

 

A weekend ago Sunday, DH got an alert on a house for sale. Last month, we'd pretty much given up looking. We hadn't found anything that worked for us considering we both, well, work from home.

 

Like I've told several friends, arthritis is starting to become an issue. I'm going to have to switch to dictation sooner rather than later. I can't be dictating a sex scene while DH is on the phone with a client, walking them through journal entries. So, we need offices on opposite sides of the house, or sufficiently distant our devices can't pick up the other one.

 

But yeah, we'd given up last month, renewed our apartment lease, and planned to save up to build exactly what we needed. And this house pops up, so DH said hey take a look at this while we were watching the Steelers game.

 

I looked, not expecting a whole lot. But damn. This one could work. I mean, the only thing I could nit-pick on Realtor.com was the white stove in a refinished kitchen with hickory cabinets, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. So, we made an appointment to see the house on Wednesday. I was absolutely sure there would be something wrong.

 

The only thing I could bitch about, besides the white flattop range, was the puke yellow paint in the master bathroom. An easy fix. But most importantly, it has rooms on the opposite sides of the house for our offices. Heck, DH and I can't even see each other when we go to the kitchen for drinks or head to the bathroom.

 

We got the financing pre-approval arranged on Thursday and Friday and put in the offer on Saturday. Six hours later, we had settled on terms. I swear that was the fastest negotiation on real property I've ever been involved in.

 

So yeah, we're moving again. In the middle of a pandemic. GO TEAM HARDEN!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 187 - Exhaustion and Science

I slept until two p.m. today. The stress of getting a new book out and the hellscape our country has become wore me down. Not even DH's birthday helped. We had a low-key celebration at home with a lot of takeout food.

We're at 6.6M+ cases in the United States and 197K+ deaths, and the numbers are still climbing.

After six months, everyone's tired of the disease, the deaths, and the drama. I get it. But if you go back and read the account of the Spanish Influenza pandemic, COVID-19 wasn't going to go away after six. months. I know a lot of people were hoping so, but it ain't gonna happen.

Nor am I an anti-vaxxer, but I want a vaccine with proven effectiveness. I refused to take the shingles vaccine for years until its prevention rate was above 60%.

Despite the propaganda being bandied about, we aren't getting an effective, safe COVID-19 before the end of 2020. I never had hope that we would. One of the research studies had to shut down their human trials because of some serious side effects. It sucks, but you can't rush the research.. It always needs to be refined and tested over and over again.

I believe the research facilities WILL find a vaccine, but it takes time. Time is something some of my fellow citizens will not allow. Or else they believe the disease is a hoax. And that belief will kill hundreds of thousands of more people, and the thought makes my heart ache.