Holy s***, what day is it? It’s been 87 days since my last post. A lot has happened since then, but quite a lot of that is beyond the scope of Pandemic Diaries.
Here’s some things that have transpired since my last writing. You’ve probably heard about them already. But, I hold on to the idea that someone, somewhere (somewhen?) in the future will want to look back and see what was happening curing and around the time that the world dealt with SARS-CoV-2, the 2019 edition. You see, history will be rewritten, dumbed down, spun, reprocessed, and served up to you as if you weren’t there. You deserve to hear how it’s been firsthand. You deserve to now that, yeah, you did live through what you thought you lived through. You deserve to know what happened, and that your experience is valid. You owe that to yourself.
In the 87 days since Pandemic Diaries 110, 173,810 people have died from CoVid, worldwide. In the United States, during that same time period, 39,141 people have succumbed to the virus (that’s about 449 per day). In my home state of New Mexico, we’ve lost 429 people (about 5 people per day).
Here are the CoVid numbers as of this writing. Global cases: 629,897,234 (6,571,252 deaths). U.S. cases: 98,827,318 (1,090,376 deaths). New Mexico cases: 622,170 (8,601 deaths). Navajo Nation: 75,199 cases (1,925 deaths).
On September 19, 2022, President Joe Biden surprised us all by declaring the pandemic over. [click here for source] Frankly, I understand why he was tempted to do it, but with winter coming on, I hope his remarks were not premature. I fear that people will be tempted to abandon caution altogether (not that people were really exhibiting an excess of caution this late in the game) and we’ll get caught flatfooted as the temps drop and virus has time to mutate again, and spooky flu viruses are circling, waiting for a place to land.
Still, cynical as I can be, I decided to check things out for myself. One of my measures for how bad things were during the height of the pandemic was the number of refrigerated trailers that were needed my OMI (Office of the Medical Investigator) to handle body storage. I don’t know (but honestly, I ought to find out) how many bodies they can store in their facility before they go to “yellow alert” and start ordering up trailers. But, inquiring minds want to know, so I drove over to OMI today to see what I could see, and here’s what I saw.
Nothing. I saw nothing. All the trailers are gone. That little white shack (left middle of the frame) is for the regular parking attendant. 87 days ago, there were still three or four trailers out here. So, whatever is going on with the virus, its impact has been attenuated enough that OMI believes that it can handle it with the facilities they have. And, as cynical as I can be, this seems hopeful to me. I’m not sure how I feel personally, but this does seem like a positive development.
Thanks for staying this long. I’m planning on continuing to post. The POTUS may say it’s over, and that’s fine, but I think we should all continue to keep an eye on things.
See you next time!
Lori O'Ferell 