A welcome respite
There isn't much Covid around in Oregon these days, which is a wonderful thing. The case numbers have dropped to the point that the state isn't going to include the figures in its daily email updates any more. This will leave room for more important news like the upcoming meetings of the Cannabis and Mushroom Equity Committee. (I wish I were kidding.)
Now, we all remember the last time the state declared victory over Covid. The next thing you know, it got worse than it had ever been before.
But for now, the numbers they're showing have got to be comforting, even to the skeptics. Except, that is, for Covid-related deaths. The virus may not be getting to as many people, or hospitalizing as many, but those who do get really sick seem to be losing the battle at a fairly steady clip.
Still, most people are dropping their guards, so much so that I suspect it's just a matter of time before the next wave hits. But for now, if you are well-vaxxed and/or have already had the virus, the rational thing would seem to be to live a little.
Are you daring enough to eat dinner indoors at a restaurant? It might depend on how old you are, I suppose, and how your health is otherwise. How about having a beer at an indoor bar? I'm still a little gun-shy about that one.
Or attending an indoor concert or play, surrounded by hundreds of strangers? Maybe with a good mask?
In any event, without the convenience of the state's daily email tallies, I may run out of steam in keeping up my homemade charts and graphs, which I've been doing for almost two years now. And so, for the record, here's where they were as of Friday. Click on the images for bigger versions:
time to get back to normal. Kids need to see faces (of all ages). Your students need to see your face and socialize with you, come into your office for office hours, etc. COVID-zero is not the way: I can assure you the stratospheric rates of depression and isolation in the generations preceding yours are much more to worry about. You ran a neat obituary about a firm partner recently and mentioned how partners once had time to mentor associates, unlike today. You can apply that to mentorship with students, networking, friendship opportunities, beers. How many beers did you have with professors when you were at SLS? How did that positively tie your path together? Perhaps it didn't. Perhaps you did it all by yourself, but I presume the opportunities you were afforded by every day interactions were numerous and today's generations deserve the same.
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