Oops! We’re At It Again

Almost every day I check the New York Times Coronavirus map— which, unlike the rest of the NYT, is not behind a paywall, presumably so that citizens in other parts of the country, or the world, can see how safe it is to venture outside their own homes. (Good on the NYT for making these stats available to everyone.) In these maps, the darker the color, the worse the outbreak.

On Monday, my little rural county was a pale, pleasant orange. By Wednesday, it was a dark, angry orange— cases had doubled in just 48 hours. And now we’re becoming surrounded by districts a dark red clotted-blood color, which represent areas that have over 100 cases per 100,000 population.

Today 4,286 new cases were reported, an all-time high (especially for a state with only a couple million widely-spaced people). Hospitalizations haven’t gone up, presumably because it’s the Omicron variant that’s spreading, and Omicron is easier on the afflicted, particularly if they’ve had their vaccinations.

But still our death rate for the last week was #7 in the nation.

So here I go into lockdown again, going out as little as possible and double-masking when I do. I can’t escape the feeling that this variant has my name on it, but I’ll try to take comfort in the fact that I’ve been through this multiple times before.

So here we go again. Hang onto your hats— or your masks, as the case may be.