— पांच हजार एक सौ बीस —
I learned something new about
the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations at the University of Washington's daily infections projections today. I probably should have noticed this before. Firstly, their "estimated infections" has Washington State reaching the Omicron peak on January 16, with numbers falling since—that's five days ago now. But! They do have a separate filter for "Reported cases," and their estimate of the peak
there is January 28. I suppose the estimated total cases, which would include what's not officially reported, is the more relevant number, but wouldn't that have more of a theoretical element to it? I have no idea. Maybe not? Fuck if I know, I'm neither a scientist nor a statistician. Sometimes I think I actually should have majored in statistics in college. It probably involved math at a far higher level than I could handle.
Anyway, it should also be noted that those are statewide numbers and those are actually worse than they are for King County, where I live. Unfortunately that projections page can't be filtered any more specifically than the state level, but the
King County Daily COVID-19 Outbreak Summary page does indeed show local county cases steadily declining since . . . January 10! I kept wondering where Susan Dennis
on Twitter had come to that date. Duh. I should have checked the King County dashboard for that. I mean, I look at that page regularly anyway. I finally put two and two together here.
I wonder if Susan will get some kind of notification that I mentioned her here? It would be completely on brand for her. Hi, Susan!
Anyway. I'm actually a lot more partial to King County's
COVID-19 Outcomes by Vaccination Status page, and guess what? The cases are going down in all populations, but
far more dramatically among the vaccinated. What a surprise. I'll never understand how anyone can look at that graph in particular and still resist getting vaccinated. It's genuinely baffling to me.
All right, hold on to your seats now. I think I'm going to go see a movie today. In a theater. The new Pedro Almodóvar film
Parallel Mothers is playing right down at the Egyptian and I really want to see it on the big screen. I figure if I wear a KN95 mask and go to the less-attended 5:00 showing then the risks will be relatively minimized. I'm hoping the balcony will be open and I can go up there where no one else is sitting. That's what Ivan and I did when we went there to see
Nightmare Alley. SIFF Cinemas have long been requiring proof of vaccination without exception anyway—they don't even bother with the pointless "proof of negative test within 72 hours" for unvaccinated people. I'm glad for that. It'll be my first time to a movie theater since December 27. Three and a half weeks ago.
It looks like King County case rates right now are still about double what they were then, but, I only recently started wearing KN95 masks, which, assuming what I have aren't counterfeit, provide exponentially greater protection than the cloth mask I had been using for the previous year and a half. So, there's that, at least.
— पांच हजार एक सौ बीस —
— पांच हजार एक सौ बीस —
As for last night, Shobhit worked from 3:15 to 7:15 in the evening, but after he got home, we watched the episode of
Peacemaker that was released on HBO Max yesterday. Actually we did that after a phone call to Comcast, to get ourselves a new promotion contract locked in for the next 24 months, as the previous one just expired, jacking the monthly bill up by about $46. The guy we spoke to was very patient, understanding and professional though, even as Shobhit said several times he wishes he could have FOX News removed from our lineup, but Comcast will only include it as part of the package we otherwise want. The guy said he would log an official complaint for us.
Shobhit asked where his call center was and the guy said Houston. Shobhit laughed and said, "Oh, I bet more people there are asking for MSNBC to be removed, haha." The guy just lightly chuckled but otherwise offered no editorial commentary.
Anyway, episode 4 of
Peacemaker was . . . fine. I'm finding this show moves regularly between dull with flat dialogue and scenes that are wildly entertaining. It makes it a bit uneven but overall I'm still finding it worth watching.
— पांच हजार एक सौ बीस —
Oh! And just because I had to go straight from my lunch break to my weekly checkin Teams meeting with Eric, I didn't have the chance yesterday to mention that I had my virtual FaceTime lunch with Karen, originally scheduled for last week but she had to bump it to this week—which means the next one will be just next week.
It was nice to catch up with her as always, particularly after what then had to be a nearly three week break. We didn't have a lot of import to talk about, except that apparently Anita had a possible exposure to COVID at the school she teaches at. Karen was actually back in her office, which was otherwise empty yesterday. She said right now she's either working there or at home depending on which is more empty that day. I hadn't seen her sitting in her office in a while.
I sure do look forward to the day we can meet for lunch in person again. God knows when that will happen. Pandemic or not, I know the virtual ones are far easier for Karen to deal with just on a logistical level.
— पांच हजार एक सौ बीस —
[posted 12:39 pm]
