waiting for december 14

Why that particular date?

Is that when I hope to have all my cards posted to near and far?

Well, no.

As I changed it up to sending Thanksgiving greetings, that is all done, except for the one going up to Canada.

Is that the last date for mailing off Christmas packages?

No, those dates would be December 15th for ground service, the 18th for first-class, and the 19th for priority.

Are you having the family gathering, perchance?

Um, no.

The pandemic is still a-foot and will no doubt linger through much of next year, if the people of the world don't get themselves into the proper mindset.

I've just done my analysis of the COVID data and I can't say I'm happy about it.

Of my ten states, two of them (California and Texas) have surpassed the million mark for people infected by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

One more - Florida - should attain that dubious 'honor' by week's end.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma have had their numbers skyrocket.

Why has that happened?

Well, as I said at the start of this month, early voting for this latest round of elections was quite detrimental to the health of American citizens.

Election Day, and the brouhaha that has followed and continues, hurt even more.

That's why December 14 is so important.

That's when the Electoral College finalizes all results, certifying who the 'winner' is for the presidency.

Sadly, for Georgia the madness continues into the new year for run-off elections for lesser seats, meaning the vitriolic political ads will be marring our holiday specials on television.

Doesn't it seem like the parties would call a truce?

Ack.

So, back to the effect of politics on infection rates, and what better way to do that than with graphs?

The good news is this: the numbers have started dropping, now that we are four weeks past Election Day.

Here, the seven-day sums of new COVID infections 

is graphed versus time, from November 3 to today, for my ten states.

The numbers are lowest on Election Day, gradually rising (due to early voting lines and people close together), then taking off at that magical two-week mark, then starting to taper off and decrease during this past week.

To truly appreciate the madness that was evinced by folks insisting on standing cheek to jowl in line to vote, keep in mind that the above is the cropped view of this one, which has a two-month time span.

EVERY STATE EXPERIENCED AN INCREASE IN NUMBER OF COVID CASES.

All of that could have been avoided if folks would have used absentee ballots.

All of it.

This graph has the weekly sums of new infection for the month of September.

All of the states I follow were showing a month-long decline in those values, except for Texas, which eventually fell into line by month's end.

That's where things stood in the beginning on that middle graph, for the first two weeks of October.

Then early voting began and the peaks attained were higher than those in the summer.

What about the rates of infection?

How about normalizing the data for COVID cases per 100,000 people in each state?

Sure, I have that right here, covering the two months' worth of data for October and November.

Appalling, isn't it?

Louisiana has had the highest rate since I started tracking this data in May.

Now, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama have surpassed it - surpassed it, not just caught up.

Michigan's rate has tripled and Pennsylvania's has doubled.

Let's hope that the quelling of the political turmoil will settle things back down.

Our lives depend on it... literally.

For those who may have forgotten the legend I use to distinguish the data sets, here it is.

Georgia is dark blue with squares.

Florida is dark orange with diamonds.

California is sunny yellow with upside-down triangles.

Michigan is dark green with triangles.

Texas is dark purple-brown with forward arrowheads.

Pennsylvania is light blue with reverse arrowheads.

Alabama is light green with squares.

Tennessee is purple with circles.

Louisiana is black with little bow ties.

Oklahoma is orange-yellow with hash marks.

Okay, I'm going to go do something positive: I'm watching the first-ever "Disney Holiday Sing-Along".

And I'm sharing the experience 'with' my first niece and my nephew Michael and my friend Sandy....

and I just may be singing loudly enough that they'll hear me, too.

(smile)

Please, folks, keep wearing masks.

Please keep an alligator between you and folks who don't live with you.

Please wash your hands after you touch anything others might have handled.

Let's try to make the world better, starting here, starting now.