The quiet last week of the year – Uproar in Milton Keynes – Good news from Dr. Fauci – Marjorie Taylor Greene – Evening statistics
When I was still working, the last week of the year was always a rather uneventful time. In some cases the firms I worked for directed its employees to take vacation days between Christmas and New Year’s, so that they could economize on heating and maintenance of the buildings in which their offices were located. Later these vacation days became “floating holidays” that employees could take at any time of the year that they chose. I never scheduled vacation days during the last week of the year after that. It was pleasanter to take vacation days when most other people were not doing so, and when the offices were nearly empty I was able to complete various long-range tasks that I had earlier been forced to set aside during more hectic work seasons and now could attend to at leisure.
So I am used to not much happening between December 25th and January 1st. Even now, despite having been retired for several years, it appears to me in the natural order of things that this is a “slow” time of year, allowing one to concentrate on matters of upkeep without the fear of interruption that occurs among the more active periods. This year has been no exception, with little to distinguish one day from the next outside of the festivities during Christmas and New Year’s days themselves. And the same appears to be true with regard to the nation at large. Most of the headlines I’ve seen differ little from the ones I read two or three days ago. Such developments that are new refer mainly to the effects of the pandemic.
It appears that we Americans are not alone in having a segment of the population with little learning and less sense, who somehow contrive to be priggish, self-righteous, and violent all in the same moment. In Milton Keynes, a fairly large town in Buckinghamshire, a group of anti-vaxxers stormed a test-and-trace site of the National Health Service and, by way of protesting against the vaccines, stole test equipment, menaced the health care workers, and tossed a number of test samples into the trash, while loudly proclaiming their right to decline the vaccine and to infect the populace at large – no, on second thought I believe they omitted this last part. And the British government appears to be as ineffective as our own in dealing with marauders of this stamp. Many Members of Parliament have denounced the actions of the protestors, but no arrests have been made. What is particularly mystifying about this failure to take punitive action is that at least two of the leaders of this foray are readily identifiable, being figures of some national prominence: Jeff Wyatt, former deputy leader of the far-right For Britain Movement, and Piers Corbyn, brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
In a pleasanter vein, my impression that the Omicron variant will peak within a relatively short time has received confirmation from Dr. Fauci. He has said that the likelihood is that the number of cases will continually rise until the end of January, at which point they will begin to decline. Since omicron is becoming the dominant variant of the country, and indeed of the world, such a decline could signify the beginning of the end of the pandemic. He is cautious, of course, and emphasizes that no guarantees can be made about such a matter, but it is some comfort to hear this note of optimism from so prominent a source.
Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to flout the mandate that requires members of Congress to wear facemasks. It must be said that she has the courage of her convictions, for she earns about $174,000 in salary as a representative and she has already forfeited over $60,000 in fines for her disobedience. She is doubtless anxious to preserve one of her most potent weapons to use in floor debates; for although her Medusa-like features do not quite have the power to turn onlookers into stone, they most certainly have an intimidating effect upon their beholders.
Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 284,906,146; # of deaths worldwide: 5,438,607; # of cases U.S.: 54,656,866; # of deaths; U.S.: 844,383.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 286,766,334; # of deaths worldwide: 5,445,330; # of cases U.S.: 55,226,252; # of deaths; U.S.: 845,712.