By now you’ve likely heard the recommendation to do your own research about whether or not to get vaccinated for Covid-19.
This short video is full of good advice:
Here’s a brand new one about protecting yourself from vaccine shedders:
The premiere has announced that the whole province is once again moving to online schooling for grades K-12. We got this letter from our superintendent:
In the last week the number of staff and students quarantining has increased significantly within Horizon and around the province. As of this morning, eleven (11) communities have transitioned to at-home learning due to severe staff shortages, and today at 6:00pm the Premier announced that all K-12 students will shift to at-home learning starting May 7th. They will continue with on-line learning until May 25th (after the long-weekend) Students will be in school on Wednesday May 5 and Thursday May 6. The hope is that this reset will reduce the number of cases, resolve the staff shortage, allow staff to get vaccinated, and allow students to close the school year with in-person learning.
Although I’m already teaching from home I was scheduled to be back in classes by either the 10th or 17th (depending on the kind of variant we find in our school).
We’re number one in North America. The map below shows our average number of cases per 100,000 over the last seven days to be 41.3.
The real worry is, we had 2,433 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 just yesterday. In a population of 4.4 million, that works out to about 553 cases per 100,000 people. The news can’t stop talking about India having a rate of 190 per 100,000 people so it’s insane that our infection rates are so high.
Here’s some rolling average numbers from South America right now:
As you can tell, the numbers aren’t even close and yet we still have people protesting that they don’t want to get vaccinated and who refuse to wear masks.
I’m out of school not because schools are closed but because my students have an option class with a teacher that has COVID-19. I was hoping we’d be heading out of this by the end of June. Now I’m just hoping our numbers will be more reasonable by September.
We’ll be shifting to online learning at my workplace for at least the next couple weeks after 66% of our school is considered close contacts with positive COVID-19 cases. My class is one of the classes that are out so hopefully this will give my vaccination the necessary 10 days for maximum efficacy. Hopefully I didn’t catch it in the one day I was back at school after getting my shot.
We got the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination today. I had a little bit of the tingles that some people are complaining about but no headache or other issues that my friends who got the vaccine had. Andrea says she has no symptoms at all. We’ll see how the night progresses. I’m super relieved to get it.
One of my close friends told me about his cousin who as a 45 year old teacher educational assistant contracted the virus. She got worse and worse over the last couple weeks going into the hospital and then the ICU. Today he let me know they took his cousin off life support and she died. She contracted the virus at work. Though I’ve never met her, I feel awful for her husband and two young kids.
Update: The next day was a different story. I was wiped out! Headache and joint aches. The symptoms calmed down a bit yesterday but three days out I’m still feeling residual stiffness in my joints and a slight headache. If this is just a small taste of what getting the actual disease is like… I hate to imagine.
Update: There is now a gofundme page for the Therrien family.
Early this morning the news broke that people over 40 in Alberta can get the AstraZeneca vaccine starting tomorrow.
I couldn’t get an appointment for after work tomorrow but I signed up Andrea and myself for Wednesday. I’m super excited to finally be getting this huge Covid stress out of my life.
I wrote to my coworkers a mass email about how I was excited to be getting my shot on Wednesday. I expected a deluge of congratulatory messages; instead crickets. Am I crazy? Is this not a huge deal?
I can’t imagine why anybody would want to prolong this pandemic? We’re all in this together and in order to move forward we all need to get vaccinated.
This two and half minute medley of classic pop songs with Covid-19 parody lyrics is just what I needed to get through this pandemic.
22 Minutes presents: The Official Canadian Pandemic Anthem. pic.twitter.com/NzDz5rkbG8
— 22Minutes (@22_Minutes) March 19, 2021
Last week I booked a vaccine appointment for my mom but last night she let me know it had been cancelled. My friends suspect the Alberta government was letting people overbook knowing their wasn’t enough supply and then turned around and blamed the federal government when the shipments didn’t arrive. It’s a bit on the conspiracy theory side for me, but I guess you never know. I was able to rebook her this morning at another location for a day later than the cancelled appointment.
Update: January 27 — my mom got her Covid vaccine.
My dad got his first Covid-19 vaccine this morning. He’s got an appointment for the second shot next month. I booked it for him shortly after they opened for reservations. I think it’s probably pretty common for “kids” to book for their elderly parents. It feels a lot like trying to get concert tickets—you don’t mess around.
I’m surprised how big the QAnon conspiracy thing has gotten. It’s gotten to the point that I personally know at least one person that has fallen for this 8chan LARPing BS and it boggles my mind.
In fact, I’m surprised that anybody believes any of the big conspiracy theories out there right now. Just today I was chatting with a coworker who said he heard that the coronavirus started in a lab in Wuhan China. I explained that I’ve heard those rumours too but from everything I’ve read they are just rumours and propoganda. I did a quick search this morning and found this article in New York Magazine:
My school division has been hit with a lot of COVID-19 cases in the last few weeks. From what I’ve heard there are cases all over the district with about 1 or 2 new cases every day. There was a confirmed case at my school and the person was there last Monday. I had close contact with them that day and now have to self-isolate for 10-14 days (the time away depends on getting a negative result back). This will be my third COVID test.
Update: My test came back negative.
In other COVID-19 related news it was announced today that the Pfizer vaccine was approved for use in Canada. It’s supposed to roll out sometime next week.