A couple of very interesting articles regarding COVID 19 and from CNN.com.

The first, written by Christina Maxouris, is a cautionary warning regarding the state of the states with regard to COVID 19 numbers, which are now looking as if they are starting to rise:

Some US states report concerning Covid-19 case increases — and one warns the surge is already here

I’m not going to get into the full rundown of the article but I will sum it up this way: Who didn’t see this coming?

I mean, seriously?

The problem, as I see it, is that there are just too many… man, I don’t want to be insulting here… short-sighted (how’s that for being somewhat nice about it?) people out there who think that the worst is over and now’s the time to get back to the old ways.

Mind you, I suspect a large number of these individuals -especially the politicians of one certain party- never felt there was a need for masks or social distancing to begin with and now that the numbers have gone down -coincidental with the rise of vaccinations- they are chomping at the bit to do away with any and all those pesky preventative measures.

I was in Jacksonville, Florida over the weekend, where we began the move of my daughter and the Mayor there declared all businesses could now operate without masks.

I was bewildered by the statement and find it damn concerning to walk around the area and notice a few -thankfully not that many- people walking around others without masks.

But we went to the Riverwalk, a downtown arts/food market on Saturday and it was very concerning to see people in a large -though, I would add, not huge– groups walking around not wearing masks.

On Sunday, when we left to return home, we stopped by this Breakfast/Biscuit place and ordered some food to go. As we sat down to wait for our order, a largish family (it seemed to be a grandfather/mother, a mother, and two kids) walk into the place and the older ones are not wearing any masks. Mind you, they’re older and also all three of them (the grandfather, grandmother, and mother) were also somewhat overweight, making them much more in the danger zone regarding COVID 19 than the two 20 year old or thereabout youngsters with them.

Those two youngsters were the only ones of the group wearing masks.

Yikes.

On a more personal note, as of this morning I’ve now had both of my shots and, in another two weeks, should have the full benefit of the vaccine.

I hope everyone out there is doing all they can to get theirs. The supplies are obviously becoming greater and greater and more states are now allowing virtually everyone who wants it to get a vaccine.

Do it.

But please, stay safe.

*****

The second article I wanted to point out, also on CNN.com and written by Jim Parrott and Laurie Goodman, concerns something that will become a very big issue soon enough, mortgages and rents.

The article:

We can’t suspend evictions and foreclosures forever

Basically, because the economy essentially went into the shitter with the rise of COVID 19, Congress as well as localities instituted a slowdown/freeze on evictions in many places because people -many of whom through no fault of their own and the economic problems- simply didn’t have the money to pay for either their mortgages or rents and there was the very real fear that a massive amount of people might be homeless.

Naturally, in the middle of a freaking pandemic the last thing we need is to have a ton of families and children displaces so the freeze was enacted.

However, as we seem to be approaching the end of the worst of the Pandemic (provided the possible next surge isn’t that horrific), there will come a time when the freezes will have to be lifted. Further, there will likely be a need to create some kind of funds that people may borrow from at low interest so that they can pay any back rent and mortgages.

It’s a fascinating topic, at least to me, because I’ve dealt with both sides of the issue in my life, both with owing rent and mortgages to dealing with tenants at properties my family owns.

Its a delicate balance, as I mentioned. You don’t want people to be thrown out due to the economic hardship of a pandemic. But on the other side, the people who own the properties have to have the rents paid so they may continue to provide services and care for the building(s) they operate. While its sometimes tempting to lump all building owners as unsavory because of some, the reality is that there is a tremendous amount of work on that end as well, and they do deserve to be able to get the rents from their tenants so they can pay for the various services they provide.

I’ll be real curious to see how this all plays out in the coming months.

*****

So here we are, on the cusp of entering into April. The rate of the vaccines per day is moving at a sizzling pace, rising to nearly 3 million or so per day.

While I don’t often like to get too political, in these days its hard not to be and so: I think the Biden administration is doing a terrific job with the vaccinations. Check out this chart, taken from NPR.com’s vaccine administration tracking site:

Note that the chart essentially begins in the later part of December and, come January, the line is going up and up and up in terms of vaccinations.

I’m not going to totally badmouth the Trump administration for the low number of vaccines early on, but the fact is that he had such a “I don’t care” attitude about the vaccine process that I can’t help but wonder what this chart would have looked like had he somehow gotten re-elected.

Frankly, that thought chills me.

On the other hand, the Biden administration’s laser like focus on getting more and more vaccines out there is showing in this chart. At this point about 15 percent of the population has been injected at least once. I hope in the next few months this chart will really start to take off.

I can’t wait to get back to some semblance of normalcy, but we have to be prudent about it and not jump the gun.

Let’s see how things go…