No need to remember when cuz everything old is new again… Here I am going through the page proofs of the third and supposedly final volume of The Accidental Plague Diaries while out in the greater world, Covid numbers are skyrocketing. An article came out in Fortune this weekend in which a number of experts opine, based on wastewater samples and other data, that the current surge is on track to equal or surpass the surge of late 2020 or the Delta surge of 2021. The numbers they quote are of 650,000 new infections daily (with roughly 2% of the population currently acutely infected) and the expectation that up to 30 or 35 million will become infected during this wave before things calm down. These are some scary numbers but there are some differences between then and now.
A majority of the country, despite the loud and media amplified voices of a belligerent minority, are vaccinated and most have had a booster or two in their somewhere. The majority have also caught a case of Covid at some time in the last three and a half years giving their immune systems a good defensive primer on the virus and something to build from should they become reinfected. Therefore, the rate of serious clinical disease is not skyrocketing as it did with previous waves. Yes, hospitalizations are climbing. They were at a nadir around June and they climbed about 20% over the summer and they’ve put on another 5-10% in the first half of September but they are nowhere near the numbers that brought the health system to its knees. However, the health system is nowhere near as robust as it was in 2020 given the protracted effects of the pandemic on finances and clinical staffing so smaller insults may have much greater effects going forward. The death rate is also beginning to climb but I haven’t been able to find really good numbers nor numbers that distinguish between deaths from Covid and deaths with Covid.
I’m not panicking (other than at the thought of having to produce a fourth volume in The Accidental Plague Diaries). I have had it twice and had My original shots and three boosters. I’ll get this newest booster as soon as it’s available. When will that be? I don’t know. We keep hearing ‘October’ so hear I sit under the tree like Vladimir and Estragon waiting… I’m also not certain that I want to stake my life planning on an article that appears in Fortune. It’s not necessarily the most pre-eminent of scientific journals. I would like to see this confirmed in more reputable sources and I would love to see some better real time tracking numbers. Unfortunately, with the end of the public health emergency in May, we more or less disassembled a coherent federal response and turned everything back over to the patchwork of state, county, and city public health agencies where the collection and dissemination of data is now somewhat dependent on local politics.
So what do we need to do? Get the new booster (which has been reformulated to work better against current circulating omicron strains) when it becomes available. Should you mask? That’s a tough one. Masking works best when it is universal as it’s more about protecting others from you than it is you from others and it requires a cultural paradigm of care for ones fellows as much as for oneself. If there’s anything the cultural history of the pandemic era has taught us, it’s that that particular ethos has more or less been tossed out the window for political expediency and there are now laws preventing mask mandates in various places. Masking when the world does not won’t hurt you. It might help some. The other thing to do is get back in the habit of keeping those hands washed and sanitized if you’ve gotten out of it. The litany of 2020 still holds true.
On to other topics. I should have the page proofs fully checked and back to the publisher by the weekend of the 23rd. Allow two weeks for those corrections to be made, another two weeks for proof copies to be printed and checked, and then I can announce a publication date for Volume III. Should be just before Halloween. Incidentally, the cover is orange and black which I suppose is fitting. We decided to go with secondary colors for the series. Green/Purple/Orange. Don’t make me have to go all primary as well. The chapter titles come from the work of my third favorite Broadway lyricist after Sondheim and Cole Porter. You’ll have to read the book to discover who it is.
My theater/music calendar is shaping up for the 2023-2024 season. I’m thinking I need to create a graphic like my professional opera singer friends with all my gigs listed out. Unfortunately, a few things are still in flux so I can’t do that as of yet. It looks like a symphony concert (and maybe two) and a play prior to the New Year and a couple of stage appearances, another symphony concert, and a directing gig in the first half of 2024. Should keep me out of trouble. More details to come as things like contracts are finalized.
I went and saw Virginia Samford Theatre’s production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue, A Grand Night for Singing, last night. Four of the five performers were old friends whom I have known and worked with for years. The fifth has relatively recently come to town and I hope I get a chance to share a stage with him sometime. R and H is not everyone’s cup of tea these days but boy did they know how to craft a song with a melody and a relatable lyric. The five performers are all terrific in their own right but what blew me away was the blend of their voices when they sang both unison and harmony arrangements. It really did sound like a single unified vocal. Kudos to Debbie Mielke for her work at the piano and with the performers to achieve that. I went to the show with a few friends from church. We met first for dinner at a local Indian restaurant which recently had to relocate after decades. Taj India, now in the late lamented Bogue’s space, remains as good as you remember. Nothing has changed in the kitchen. Ten minutes before we left to go to the theater, the skies clouded over and the sunny day turned into one of those Southern gullywasher rainstorms that drops several inches in the course of half an hour. Intersections were flooded all over the Southside and visibility was near zero but we managed to get to the theater on time, albeit much wetter than we had intended.
I need to start thinking about putting my life together for my trip to Eastern Europe in a couple of weeks, lord willing and the Covid don’t rise. But that’s just modern life. You make your plans and you play the hand that nature deals you, whether it involve infectious disease or planetary change from climate or other issues. If the travel posts start in early October, you’ll know I’ve made it. In the meantime, there are clinics to conduct, house calls to do, legal cases to review, a book to finish, and various choral rehearsals. Plus the occasional Dungeons and Dragons game. We’ve discovered the joys of playing over brunch with mimosas. Highly recommended if you game as an adult. Bandon the cleric has to arm up later this morning for continued adventures in the Feywild.
He washes his hands and believes in the magic of vaccines.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 