put on yer easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it

... but forget about any parades.

Seriously.

We're still in a pandemic and, as slowly as vaccinations are occurring, we're likely to stay in pandemic mode for months yet.

Sure, the President is excited that more than 150 million doses of vaccine have gone into arms, and so am I.

But, doing the math, that means, at most, 75 million Americans are fully vaccinated.

At most.

Doing the math, that means, at most, 22% of the USA's population are fully vaccinated.

At most.

More people need to step up and get the vaccine.

Now, folks can even drive up at a mass vaccination center and don't even have to get out of their car or truck or SUV.

More people need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, of being an American citizen fully invested in making this country better.

It isn't like folks are being asked to roll up their sleeve and donate blood; just roll it up and get a quick little jab from a very tiny needle.

Let's work together to stop the deaths from COVID.

Please.

Okay, how about some graphs to encourage people who are floundering or waffling or just plain being a baby about needles?

(By the way, thousands of people with diabetes use needles daily - daily! - to monitor their glucose levels or administer insulin.)

This graph has the total number of COVID-infected people since the start of the pandemic, concentrating on the first three months of this brand-new year.

As can be seen here, three of the ten states I monitor already had more than a million cases when 2021 dawned. 

In fact, on January 1st, sunny California began the year with more than 2.5 million people who had been infected by SARS-CoV-2 and developed COVID. Now, at the end of this third month, that West Coast state has added another cool million to that sum. That's an additional 1,000,000 cases of infection in not quite 90 days.

How appalling.

Texas and Florida both started out with around 1.5 million infected citizens of their respective states.

Texas has added one million more since then; Florida, thankfully, has not added quite a million, lagging behind by about a quarter-million.

Good for Florida.

Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, and Michigan each began their 2021 with more than 500,000 cases of people infected by the coronavirus.

Of the four, Pennsylvania is the only one that has doubled its number.

That would be another half-million in less than 90 days.

Georgia and Tennessee have kept close company with their numbers, as if one of them is serving as the pacer for the other in this mad race.

I expect both to pass the million-people mark fairly shortly, with Michigan close behind.

That leaves Alabama, Louisiana, and Oklahoma all at the bottom, all starting just below the half-million, all just above it now.

All total, for these ten states, 2021 began with about nine million people who had been infected; now, that sum is at least twelve million.

For only ten states.

Mind, that's with no major holidays or even nice weather in many of those states.

Now, spring has sprung and Easter and Passover are here.

People are flocking to airports, restrictions are being lifted, and the general mood is one of gaiety and mirth!

Are we to infer that life can return to 'normal'?

Are there no new clouds of cases threatening rain on egg hunts and backyard parties and religious gatherings?

Let's take a look at where not to travel.

How are these ten doing with their cases per 100,000 population?

Well, honestly, like in the above graph, this one shows the order of the states to be the same from January 4th to March 29th, the end dates on which I gathered the data.

Tennessee leads all: it had 9 people infected out of 1000; now, it has 12 people infected out of every 1000.

That 30% increase is seen for all ten over this almost 90-day period.

Ranking them from most dangerous to visit to least, that would be Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama, then, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and California, with Pennsylvania and Michigan at the bottom, having at most 8 people of every 1000 having been infected.

So far, the graphs have looked at overall numbers, which include those since all of this began here in the States, with the influence of new cases accumulated.

But what about those new cases?

Well, here are the 7-day totals of new infections, since January 4th of this year up to yesterday, for seven of my ten states.

(I chose not to show California, Texas, and Florida because their values for the first six weeks were so far above the others that no meaning could have been discerned.)

I would like to say that have a clearly marked decreasing trend in numbers of new cases, I would very much like to say that.
However, I cannot say any such thing because something is obviously amiss in Michigan and Pennsylvania for the last three weeks.

At the start of 2021, Georgia had almost 70,000 new cases per week ; now, that number has dropped to around 10,000 new cases per week.

At the start of 2021, Georgia had the most new cases, followed by Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Michigan, with those latter four hovering around between 30,000 and 25,000 new cases per week.

Almost 90 days later, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Louisiana are all at 10,000 new cases or less per week.

Pennsylvania, however, is up to 25,000 new cases per week!

Michigan is even worse, at more than 30,000 new cases per week!

I asked my ex and he spoke of sports games causing their rise in numbers.

What craziness.

So, what are my holiday travel plans?

Zero, zip, zilch.

I'll be staying in town this coming weekend and minding my 3 w's.

I'm going to the Savannah VA Center shortly for my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, then I'm going to treat myself to a lunch I don't have to cook.

I look forward to being able to dine with fully vaccinated friends and family by the end of April; by that time, my body will have had the two to four weeks required to generate the antibodies needed to protect me from death by coughing, i.e., development of severe COVID if I should become infected by the coronavirus.

Hence, my continued attention to the 3 w's.

(smile)

Oh, for those wondering about some data points being missing for the past few weeks, do not fret that I have been ill and unable to obtain data.

I have decided to only collect data on Mondays henceforth.

I had been collecting on Mondays and Thursdays, but once weekly is all I can abide to look at these numbers.

Truly.

And now, time to head off for my appointment!