Sigh....That was quick. My last post, on June 17, was about the mask mandate being lifted. Two weeks after that, the indoor mask law was reinstated (but I couldn't bear to blog about at the time).
I had a whirlwind trip to the US (4 states, 4 plane trips, a rental car and an overnight train ride) earlier this month. It was interesting to note the differences in the US vs Israel: as expected MUCH less mask-wearing in the US, BUT when people did wear masks (and I was in Los Angeles right after their indoor mask law went into effect, so mask-wearers weren't just those that self-selected to do so), people wore them properly. Lovely to see proper mask-wearing and NOT see a person's nose. Or (argh) their nose and chin (not sure what the point is of wearing your mask's earloops and that's all). In every city I was in, there was a noticeable amount of empty storefronts, definitely an increase from past years (even in JFK airport).
Sadly, the Covid rates are high and getting higher here: yesterday there were 8700 positive cases, the most since early February. HOWEVER, it is quite clear that the vaccines are protecting people from getting seriously ill. From the Covid 19 Updates whatsapp group (PM me if you'd like the link to join): per 100,000 unvaccinated people in Israel there were 97.3 severely ill and only 17 severely ill who were fully vaccinated. In Washington, DC those same rates were 606 and 12 hospitalizations per 100,000 people respectively.
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Bit of Blog housekeeping here: due to a change in Google, I needed to switch the system that sends out emails from this blog. If you get an email asking you to confirm your subscription, please do :)
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