As a world we are facing a big test now. If we ignore, minimize, and obfuscate relative to SARS-CoV-2, will it leave us alone? That’s essentially government policy around much of the world and much of popular thought.

One of the key staff at the employer is sick once again with COVID-19 as is the rest of that staffer’s family. The news brought word of First Lady Jill Biden being sick once again with COVID-19. The Ohio COVID-19 data reports are now hosted on the Data Ohio hub but thankfully they’re still being updated. Wastewater reporting is the key indicator of how we’re doing in terms of viral activity locally.

Mandates are a matter of slamming the barn door closed after the horses have already bolted. It is important to watch how people are acting in the here and now. Hospitals are already re-imposing mask requirements in my relative region as seen in New York State. News outlets increasingly have their reporters separated so that some are working from home and are distributed away from being concentrated in studios. Schools are seeing staff out sick again. Performers like Ricky Gervais are going down the stupid path of trying to “power through it”.

The list of underlying conditions from CDC that lead to bad outcomes is actually pretty long. I may move in the worst circles but for the people I encounter daily they generally are high risk in at least two or more ways. Ashtabula County has really bad health outcomes according to CDC’s own data so this whole area is essentially “high risk” for COVID outcomes due to our sky high incidence of heart disease, obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes type 2, COPD, and more.

Of course, thanks to the misinformation engine known as Facebook we still have people locally thinking that they can magically protect themselves from COVID by smoking multiple packs a day of cigarettes. Yeah, this is MAGA country. Even though there are people who need to take extra precautions locally they instead think they are specimens of perfect health that should illustrate medical textbooks.

This is not the best of situations to live in, it seems. For people wondering why I want so much to relocate, this is a large part of it. Living somewhere else that takes health seriously is a good goal, I think.