Ehlana and Ethan:
The camping last night was a blast; Tai Chi by the river with extra exercise buddies was awesome; and one of us won’t comment on breakfast with Zack, Eli, and the other guys they goaded into their version of food fun. Since then, it has been a fall clean-up chores day with a lot of work that included packing up the tents; we worked until dinnertime with breaks for lunch and cool-down swims; and then we really needed bath or Jacuzzi time after that before getting around to our evening entertainment. It was just the four of us for that tonight; we watched a movie; followed that up with some music fun; and now we’re doing the bedtime twin chat while doing this update.
Since we don’t really have any news from home – especially compared to yesterday and Violet’s pregnancy; let’s do a pandemic update before calling it a night. For the big picture, we’re passing more milestones this weekend – thirty-three million confirmed cases and one million deaths worldwide. The numbers in each country are very different, but while they’re at different stages on the pandemic curve; the weekly new cases worldwide will still be over two million for the second week in a row. The daily death toll is still averaging around five thousand and hasn’t been rising, so our treatments are obviously more-effective now – along with other factors including more cases being detected from younger, healthier people and at-risk people taking better precautions to avoid catching the virus.
Cassie and Michael’s college data backs part of that up; though we don’t get all of the information they’re sure to be collecting; and we’ll skip commenting on the aspects of their back-to-school issues that seem more like an evil science project for more than just tracking the spread of a pandemic through a controlled population. Approximately five percent of their student population has now tested positive; and that number is growing at approximately one percent per day. The daily growth rate is happening even with all of their social and health precautions, but while everyone is reportedly recovering; we don’t know whether there will be longer-term health issues for those students. That five percent total is about double the national rate, but the testing is sure to be better and targeted; so that isn’t really a surprise.
One thing we do expect to learn over the next few months from that college data is related to herd immunity. Current estimates suggest that the actual number of people that have had coronavirus is ten times the confirmed cases – which for the national total would mean that we’re somewhere between twenty and twenty-five percent instead of the confirmed 2.2 percent. If that proves true, then Cassie’s college would actually be at around fifty percent – and that would put them fairly-close to the numbers needed for herd immunity. If that happens within the next month or so; then we should see a large decline in new cases to near-zero – and if the rates for new cases don’t change; then those estimations are wrong. Let’s not get into the possibility that virus immunity might be temporary, since even with an effective vaccine; that’d mean that coronavirus vaccines might need to be repeated – just as is done now with flu shots or other vaccinations.
There is still a lot that we just don’t know about this virus, so we’ll keep doing what we can to help out – whether that’s at the lab or through the family business and charities. That never feels like enough, but then that’s true for everything bad in the world that we can’t just fix or keep from happening at all. The good news is that we know that things will get better; since we do believe that our side will win the battle for the coming Ascension of the Light! ;^)
That’s enough for tonight, and we are tired after a long, busy work day; so we’re out of here; and will be off to dreamland soon.
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
