I didn’t think they could pull it off, but Tokyo pulled off a successful Olympic Games relatively Covid free. That’s where I start my week.
The Olympics were something to see at a time we needed to see something good. The United States did well. 39 gold medals. 113 total medals.
By the time the closing ceremony happened, most of the athletes had already gone home due to strict Covid protocols.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach told the athletes, “For the first time since the pandemic began, the entire world came together, sport returned to center stage, billions of people around the globe were united by emotion, sharing moments of joy and inspiration.”
Now it’s Monday, and with the Games over, all our news seems to center around Covid. To mask or not to mask? That’s the big question at schools.
Districts in Florida seem to have come up with a work around. Governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to cut off funding if school districts implement mask mandates. So, requiring them, but with a way to opt out, might be the answer. We will see how this plays out over the next few days as kids go back to school.
It appears we are in another Covid wave. As of Friday, the seven day average of daily cases in the U.S. was more than 107,000.
Fox News reports that’s the highest average for a week since early February. 93% of those cases are the delta variant.
More than 97% of Americans live in areas of substantial or high Covid transmission. That includes every county in Florida except one.
I’m starting to think we are going to be living with this for awhile. Reuters reports there could be more variants to come.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, recently warned that the United States could be in trouble unless more Americans get vaccinated, as a large pool of unvaccinated people give the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate into new variants.
So, that’s we are on a Monday. Covid. Covid. Covid.
I wish there was other news to report. There just isn’t.