Misery, In Three Charts

With only 49.4% of its population fully vaccinated, the state of Georgia has the 41st lowest vaccination rate in the country, even lower than Florida (59.9%) and Texas (56.1%).  Not surprisingly, the average number of new covid cases is rising. Georgia now has an average of 5,745 new cases per day, 5th worst in the country, or 54 new cases per day per 100,000 people, the 9th worst.

The frustrating thing is that we had it virtually beaten.  After the vaccines became available, the number of new infections started falling, down from a peak average of 9,694 cases per day on January 13, 2021 to a mere 266 cases as of June 29. But the emergence of the new delta variant, along with July 4 superspreader events and the reopening of schools, has resulted in case numbers rising back up again. If more people were vaccinated, and if we only had the common sense to wear masks and not herd into mass gatherings at the first available opportunity, we could have kept the numbers low, or at least not seen the dramatic rise we're seeing now.

Back on April 8, in a fit of optimism due to the declining levels in Georgia, I went ahead and bought tickets for an August 21 show by the band Bully at The Earl in Atlanta.  It would have been my first live music show in a year and a half.  Since I bought the tickets, the number of new cases at first continued to decline, but then in July they started rising back up again and haven't stopped rising since.

This puts me in a difficult situation with regard to the August 21 show.  If it was "unsafe" to go back in August 2020 when we were experiencing about 2,500 new cases per day, why go in August 2021 when we now have over twice as many cases? Sure, I'm fully vaccinated and unlikely to get seriously ill, but who wants to get even "mildly" ill?  To their credit, the band and the venue are both requiring all participants at the show to have documentation of a vaccination or a negative test within the last 72 hours, and to wear a mask except when actually sipping on a beverage, but the evidence shows that even fully vaccinated people can still spread the virus, people can and have faked vax records, and who's going to actually enforce the mask mandate?  Will the bouncer really toss someone out for having their mask off for too long? (I doubt it.)  

It's a sold-out show, so The Earl will be at full capacity.  They even added a second show on Sunday, which is now almost sold out itself.  A crowded show in a small, moderately ventilated facility is not the best setting to avoid the virus.  Add to that a cheering audience (it's a rock concert, not some gallery opening) exhaling all over each other and you've got the perfect setting to exchange microbes.  

The show is next Saturday night, so I have a week to decide what to do.  With the rate of new cases continuing to rise, the band may cancel or the venue may shut, but after 18 months of no revenue, it would be a hard decision for them to cancel two nights of sold-out shows (Bully added a second show on August 22).  Here in Georgia, Republican Governor Brian Kemp is unlikely to pull the plug on anything, and the City of Atlanta already has a mask mandate for indoor events.

Do I trust in the vaccine and the efficiency of masks, get on with life and go rock out at The Earl?  Or, despite the precautions, do I avoid crowded indoor spaces, especially in one of the most highly infected states in the country?  

Meanwhile, probably to the surprise of no one, it turns out that July 2021 was the hottest month ever on record. Not the hottest this year or the hottest in North America, but the hottest year ever as averaged across the entire globe.  But I think we all already knew that.

As forecast, Fred has reorganized into a tropical storm and is expected to make landfall on the Gulf Coast early Tuesday morning.  The latest projection shows it tracking a bit more easterly than before, now crossing over the northwest corner of Georgia.  However, it's an asymmetrical storm with most of the thunderstorms occurring on the eastern side, so Atlanta may be spared damaging winds, but can expect thunder and lightning galore, and up to three or four inches of rain over the next several days. 

And then Grace, right behind it, isn't content with merely bringing more misery to Haiti (700 dead from yesterday's earthquake and counting).  Grace has apparently decided not to catch the Gulf Stream and track along the Atlantic coast, but will instead cross into the Gulf, where it may make landfall in  covid-ravaged Louisiana or panhandle Florida.  Why is it that in either case, I somehow still imagine it's going to end up over Atlanta?

Most suffering is in our head as we anticipate the worst.  I haven't caught the covids at the Bully show yet and probably won't, even if I go.  No hurricane or tropical storm has arrived here yet and even if it does, the worst probably won't happen. By definition, "the worst" are those low-probability, unlikely outcomes (like that large tree falling on my house last October).  So what's to fear but fear itself?