On COVID, Part 5000

This is a must read post by Jackie! As she says “None of us are less than and none of us deserve to die. Period.”

Disability & Determination

There are a lot of reasons to care about COVID. It’s killing people, that alone should be enough. In my state alone, almost 9500 people have died now.

The other part that’s getting a lot less exposure is what is happening when the hospitals get overwhelmed. As more and more people get the virus and the hospital beds fill up, there’s no longer room to accommodate everyone. So what does that mean? It means doctors are having to make the horrendous decision of who to keep treating and who not to. Which essentially means they have to choose who lives and who dies. A big part of this decision for them is what someone’s quality of life is like and could be like if they’re able to beat COVID. This probably sounds obvious and sounds fair to most people. But what it means for members of the disabled community is…

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Family Fridays #20

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Family Fridays

This was quite the week huh? As if an ongoing pandemic wasn’t enough, a good portion of East Coast of the U.S. had to deal with Hurricane Isaias. Are you starting to get the impression that the Powers That Be are seriously ticked off at the human race? Here’s how things are going in Alabama.

There are now 93,402 Alabamians who have tested positive for Covid-19 and 1,654 who have died. In the last seven days that’s 7,640 new cases and 89 more deaths. After two days of semi good news of having under 1,000 new cases each day, yesterday we jumped back up to 1,626. So, that’s disappointing. But, as Mr. Trump says: “It is what it is.” Sorry for the sarcasm.

Two school districts reopened today with three more to follow tomorrow. Most districts however are holding off until the end of August or after Labor Day, in order to give schools and teachers more time to prepare. Hopefully things go well, but I’m quite nervous about this.

On Monday, armed with my trusty mask, I ventured out to change my driver’s license to reflect that I’m now a resident of Alabama. While I was waiting in my socially distanced chair, there was one guy about four seats down from me who had his mask dangling around his neck and persisted in sighing repeatedly. He then informed me that he was waiting to take the test for carrying hazardous waste for the fifth time that day. Yep. You read that right. He failed it four times! I don’t know if I’m being harsh but isn’t that a test that if you fail it twice, maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to take it again for say, at least six months?

Except for the stress, my outing was completely worth it as I now have a proper Alabama driver’s license AND I’m registered to vote! 

Now I just need to figure out the absentee ballot system here, because unless the pandemic situation improves I don’t fancy voting in person in November.

For this week’s positivity I found this cool new video from the folks on the International Space Station that I think will make you all smile.

So, that all the news that’s fit to print from me this week. I hope you and yours are all still safe and sound from both the pandemic and the wild weather. Let me know how you’re doing in the comments.