A turn for the worse


As I predicted a couple of weeks ago, late last week Oregon reached the point where it had more Covid patients in intensive care beds than ever before. We hit 146 such patients on Saturday; the prior worst was 143, on December 13.

Yesterday we were up to 151.

And we seem likely to hit a new record number of overall Covid hospital patients statewide soon, too. Yesterday that population numbered 592; 10 days earlier, it had been 312. The all-time high was 662, on November 30. We could be there by the end of this week.

Pity the poor hospital staffs. We stopped applauding at 7 p.m. every night. Maybe we need to pick that up again.

Deadly Deborah has reinstituted a face mask requirement in Multnomah County effective this Friday. Killer Kate thinks that's a splendid idea, but she won't do the same statewide, as she has before. Let the dumb counties proudly die, I guess. That certainly includes Tootieland.

Meanwhile, the state has issued new statistics showing that a significant number of fully vaccinated people are catching Covid, getting sick from it, and even dying from it.

The Oregon Health Authority reported Monday that 10 of the 55 Oregonians who died from COVID-19 in July were fully vaccinated.

The report corrected information previously issued by the agency, which originally reported that only five fully vaccinated Oregonians died from COVID-19 last month.

Health officials said that epidemiologists found that five deaths among fully vaccinated people had incorrectly been counted as deaths of unvaccinated individuals. The new data means that 18% of the state’s COVID-19 deaths in July were among fully vaccinated people.

You can make statistics say nearly anything you want, and the state bureaucrats are rightfully afraid that this revelation will add fuel to the anti-vax fires burning in the red counties. Vaccination is the only way out of this.

But I'm more concerned about what this report says to us people who have gotten our shots. To me, it's saying, "Go back to what you were doing a year ago." Namely, extreme caution. Staying out of shops and stores. Forgetting about restaurants and bars. Airplanes, trains, or buses? No. At least for another few weeks. Until this thing slows down.

And pray that reopening the schools doesn't push us past the breaking point.

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