H/T Scissorhead Dennis Cole
As we say here, we might be done with the pandemic, but the Trump-Virus ain’t done with us:
The number of attendees who have tested positive for the coronavirusafterlast weekend’s Gridiron dinner has risen to 67, organizers say, including Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who became the third member of Biden’s Cabinet in attendance who was infected.
The subhead of the article says that “More than 10 percent of attendees of Gridiron dinner have been infected with the virus.” And as is typical for D.C., the WaPo didn’t include the health status of anyone who worked the event. I guess the invisible are truly invisible.
As the Gridiron dinner was announced and the society pages at Der Tiger Beat auf dem Potomac filled with stories of who was going, tuxedo rentals, the bon mots of the guests, I kept wondering if it was going to turn into a super spreader event, and lo! it has.
Look, I get it. I’ve been hunkered down since March 13, 2020, and so going on 3 years without dining out, going to a concert, no travel, doing much of anything in public has been a chore and always a gamble after assessing the odds. But even a nobody like me, I knew that this thing was not going to end well, and I wondered why the connected and powerful didn’t see it.
Anyway, this is now an object-lesson for the rest of us. Keep following protocols. Stay safe.
Mock Paper Scissors 
I may have had the Trump virus back in December 2019. Was a volunteer bottler at my daughter’s distillery, one of the volunteers had just returned from China. A few days later everyone else working there got real sick. Thought it was just a bad flu, and this was well before the word Covid had entered the lexicon. Everyone who was there fully recovered and moved on. A few months later, we wondered if we all had caught Covid. I guess we’ll never know, but I’ve never been that sick before…
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Worst community theatre version of the Masque of the Red Death ever !
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I’m keeping my mask on for the foreseeable future. I sanitize with Everclear 190.
I’m old and it’s just not worth the risk. At this point, it’s second nature, no big deal.
Third shot was 12/15.
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Got my third in August and going for #4 next month, and I wear an N95 wherever I go. I’m only 81 and have a few good years left.
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Getting my fourth this Friday, and I’m a fairly healthy guy. But as stated by revzafod, I wear an N95 when I have to go somewhere near wee the people…
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All these people are described as asymptomatic or barely symptomatic. I guess the Very Important get tested every day just for the hell of it.
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Well they do get tested every day, but not for the hell of it. There’s a line of succession and it runs through the Cabinet after Veep, Speaker, Pro Tem of the Senate. This is why one lucky Cabinet member spends State of the Union somewhere other than DC.
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The Costcotariat have decided they’re done with this; only a few masked folks in the store yesterday; there were more masks in evidence at Fry’s (Krogers for the rest of the world) by an order of magnitude when I did my weekly shopping yesterday. Fortunately cases are really low at work (where we still have an active testing regime) only 28 cases out of 2300 tests. We also do wastewater testing; although I think that’s only on the dorms. Crossing fingers, it appears we got through Sping brreak without a new wave; not seeing much eveidnce of a BA2 surge here…yet
We had strict masking requirements all last year and through the first part of this year untill the nimbers came down.
https://covid19.arizona.edu/dashboard
Statewide they’ve just given up reporting anything though. https://directorsblog.health.azdhs.gov/end-of-covid-19-declaration-of-emergency-means-changes-for-three-dashboard-entries/
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We order groceries online and have them delivered to our car. Avoiding the maskless minions is still a priority…
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I simply cannot bring myself to trust someone else to pick out my produce. It’s a flaw, I know, but it absolutely rules out that method…
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I appreciate your point of view. I just can’t do that. I’m not ready to buy my groceries online. I just barely got online about 10 years ago and i still don’t trust it.
That doesn’t make me a minion. I like going to the market, and i like seeing my people.
It is a big problem because they seem to be brainwashed. They are feeling sorry for themselves. Everytime they try to understand another tragedy, they say trump will save us.
At least that is how it is around here.
So i still wear mask. I get vaccinated.
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It’s incredible how many are willing to go without the mask which, 100%, reads as willing to infect/sicken/cause the death of others. I live on a tiny tropical island awash with oozing germbag tourists (aka bonafide”Costcotariats” -lol BDR) coming in from all over the world, the mask is absolutely a permanent fixture of my stepping-out attire.
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BTW, I’m kinda “Costcotariat” myself but, really, just for the $1.50 hot dog🌭 & drink🥤 deal and the cheap pizza🍕 … 😊
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I keep several packets of 3M N-95 masks on the front seat of my car; and a box of examination-type gloves, and a small bottle of hand-santizer on the floor. I don that mask every time I go into any kind of establishment. Usually, I am the only person wearing one. Even all the old farts in line on Costco’s [soon to be abolished] old-fart Tuesdays/Thursdays are maskless. I shake my head.Yay, back to “normal,” they exclaim. Well, it’s a new kind of normal, now.
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Back to normal? Here in Pensyltucky we’re at about half-a-thousand new cases per day, which is higher than last summer.
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It is not going to be like before. I am back to wearing a mask when i go to the store or any crowded plublic place. Most people don’t. They think they have sacrificed enough. I am an older person and have a different perspective.
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ROFL… they’d last a week with WWII rationing before they’d be pounding on Roosevelts door demanding he surrender to the Axis…
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