So yeah, I’m not resuming my Quarantine Diaries series, but a lot is happening right now, so I thought I’d bullet-point my way through this mess.

• My sister and one nephew officially have covid, thankfully mild, and thankfully my BIL is pretty much better already; we don’t know yet about my other nephews but in any case, everyone’s cases have been mild either way
• San Antonio had an insane one-day case total on Wednesday of 7,704 new cases, which is over twice as high as any day from 2021, and the highest by far of the pandemic so far
• Additionally, our positivity rate is up to over 31% this week, and our 7-day average is just shy of 5K (4,841)
• CDC is recommending that severely immunocompromised folks get a fourth dose of the vaccine five months after their third dose. The rules around “severely immunocompromised” are a bit unclear, but one states that treatment with drugs that suppress the immune system – the one I’m starting for RA does that – counts. If I qualify, then, I’ll be eligible in March. I wouldn’t mind getting a Moderna booster to help my system!
• School districts are so short-staffed that they’re asking for parent volunteers to act as substitute teachers, even though subs are normally vetted and approved beforehand, so these parents will essentially act as babysitters. One local district had to close this week due to shortages
• We’ve received several notes home from the school about students with covid for the first time since September. Supposedly Laurence has been in contact with two kids who tested positive, but it’s probably much higher than that. Considering that one of the theatre directors was sick with covid in December and they didn’t notify us of that despite the guy directing the musical practice daily, I don’t trust their contact tracing…
• Ambrose got sick on Wednesday and went to urgent care Thursday for a covid test because he couldn’t get an actual test appointment anywhere; he tested negative but we’ll keep an eye on it because sometimes it takes days for omicron to show on a test (his symptoms aren’t really covid-y, though; his work just required a negative test before he could go back in)
• We officially hit 5,000 deaths in our county this week
• All the Hamilton shows scheduled here in SA were canceled this week. I have friends that were supposed to go and they’re all very, very sad.
• The MLK March this upcoming Monday was also canceled
• The Supreme Court blocked the vaccine mandate, ugh
• Apparently the current conspiracy theory is that people should drink their own urine to prevent covid infection…okay, guys, go ahead…have fun with that one!

I think those are the main things I want to remember from this week. Our current graph is insane, still rising and not near the peak yet, and yet twice as high as any former spike. Omicron is nuts, y’all.