Sunday 22 August 2021

What We Did This Summer

 The Summer began with this burst of optimism as vaccination rates soared into the 90%s here. A few close friends we've only seen for socially distanced cocktails in the yard all year came in for a hug. I went away for a night with a close friend and stayed in a hotel and dined in style in Sonoma (though still avoiding indoors and crowds). We drank champagne and toasted our new year ahead. 

Look how happy!

After a massage and a walk through the gardens at Cornerstone I was feeling pretty great. The following week our pod family gave us a night away for father's day. Joel and I stayed in the legendary Olema House Inn and again enjoyed a patio dinner and once the restaurant cleared out late that night, we came in to enjoy a nightcap with the place to ourselves. Tiny steps toward normal. Marin's numbers got down to 0 new daily cases, there were no COVID cases in the hospitals and we hoped, this was the new normal. 

Well we know what happened next. The Delta Variant came along and had a heyday. Our local numbers went from 0 daily up to 12 and then 20 and now holding steady at 40-60 a day in our population of 250,000. Very few of those symptomatic cases are breakthrough cases, almost all are among the 50,000 unvaccinated 20-40 yr old adults and children under 12 who aren't eligible yet. And this is in a place where people are highly educated, we live outdoors almost all year round, and science reigns supreme. Delta really is a complete game changer. 

And somehow, in this place of uncertainly, we managed to take the leap of faith and send the boys to school last week. The school is well ventilated. There are no hallways, just open air courtyards. And classrooms have individual a/c and UV and HEPA filters and windows and doors open to outside. Kids are masked indoor and outdoor and our county is one of the few that is still quarrentining for exposures. In hopefully a month, the kids will get their first shot, we'll be eligible for boosters, and we can start to breath a sigh of relief again. 

No comments:

Post a Comment