Hoosier

Knocking on the door of 80. Quite a turnaround from the low of 34.

Have a shot to achieve the unusual low in the 30s to high of 80 today, but it will take a lot of warming the rest of the day to pull it off. High temp looks to occur later than usual in the afternoon and could have about 5 more hours of warming.

ORD finished April +3.0 for the warmest April since 2017. The back half of the month was mostly cooler than average but the first part put up some huge positive anomalies that were unable to be wiped out.

I forgot that it's routine to lock in summer weather north of 40N in May.

I don't think we're getting to 90-95% immunity from covid illness + vaccinations anytime this year. There is overlap between people who had covid and are also getting the vaccine which has to be factored in. That being said, if we can even get that combined number to 80%, it would be great.

Any fires that manage to get going tomorrow could grow rapidly.

Variant info has now been added to the Indiana state dashboard. The raw numbers of variant cases are not going to be accurate since only a portion of virus samples are genetically sequenced, but the percentage breakdown should be a better indicator. Of the identified variant cases, about 3/4 of those are the UK variant, with the rest being the California, Brazil and South Africa variants.

Interesting to see the trends by region. The Northeast has dropped quite a bit in the past 2-4 weeks, but if you go westward through the northern states in the Midwest/Plains/Northwest, the drops are not as significant (MI has dropped a lot, but they were a bit of an oddball with such a big rise prior to that). In fact, yesterday and today are our 2 highest case numbers in Indiana in the past ~10 weeks.

Is it colder or warmer than average? Do we stop the expanding drought in its tracks?

I think it would actually take a miracle to get a colder than average summer at ORD this year. Not sure when the new 1991-2020 normals go into effect though. If it's not for many months, then we may have departures that end up getting adjusted retroactively.

For some positive spin... From a feel perspective, temps x degrees below average in May are easier to tolerate than the same departure below average in April. Yeah, maybe it's not ideal swimming weather.

I guess the good thing is that if you can manage to get something graded mint/near mint, you can get a ton extra. All this talk about old cards inspired me to pull out that Derek Harper that I mentioned. These look pretty cool in person... very vibrant. It's a parallel set to the base one with each player only having 100 cards. They are prone to chipping/flaking though, so finding one in great condition is even more rare. I bet I could get several hundred for this thing even with the chipping around the border. I just checked ebay for the heck of it and there is a Danny Ferry going for $800. Danny Ferry, lol

Today was technically the highest daily case count in IN in almost 10 weeks, though we've had a few other days since then that were barely below today's number.

I was baseball and basketball. Haven't collected anything since the 90s but still have my more valuable stuff in a safe. Some cards from the 90s have skyrocketed in value compared to 10-20 years ago, mainly some of the inserts but a lot of Kobe stuff has taken off in value too since his death (especially from his rookie season). One thing that stands out is the 97-98 Metal Universe Precious Metal Gems basketball set. Even the shit players go for hundreds of dollars on ebay. I have a red Derek Harper from that set but oh how I would like to go back in time and buy up as many cards as possible from that set.

Interesting point made in this article. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to get an antibody test after the vaccine to make sure the vaccine took, especially if you're older/compromised. This guy had chronic leukemia. 'BREAKTHROUGH' COVID DEATH: FULLY-VACCINATED FLOSSMOOR MAN, 75, DIES FROM VIRUS A MONTH AFTER 2ND VACCINE DOSE CHICAGO (WLS) -- Illinois public health officials began releasing data Wednesday on what it calls "breakthrough" COVID-19 cases, which involve fully-vaccinated people who still get the virus - and sometimes die. A 75-year-old south suburban Flossmoor man is one such case. More than two weeks after his second vaccine dose, Alan Sporn, felt free. "It was a Saturday, and he said instead of getting together for dinner tonight, kids, I'm going to meet you guys for lunch because I'm going out with my friends tonight to celebrate that we made it through this year," said Bonnie Sporn, his daughter. But days later, one of his dinner mates tested positive for COVID-19, and so did Sporn. The 75-year-old grandfather of four died from the virus a month after receiving his second shot. https://abc7chicago.com/amp/breakthrough-covid-after-vaccine-death-il/10558121/

I think it's a perception thing. Unless you always have a bar on the screen that says everyone in attendance has been vaccinated, people may have taken it the wrong way if they saw a packed crowd if all of Congress attended. I do think there has been an abundance of caution in the guidelines, but we are still in this somewhat tricky zone in which a lot of the US population has not been vaccinated and certainly doesn't have the max protection from the vaccines yet.

Certainly noticed that at times in the past, but it seems like a runaway freight train nowadays.

You will be wishing for drought the next time you're dealing with a flooded house.

I made my appointment a few weeks ago for shot #1 and couldn't get in until the middle of May. But I've heard multiple stories from people who just scheduled one in the past week or so and got in within 3-5 days. I bet I could cancel mine, reschedule and get in very quickly. Thinking about doing that but may just wait until my originally scheduled appt. Part of me likes having more people I know in my age group go before me just to see what kind of side effects they may have. Plus I don't feel any more at risk from covid than I did a month ago. People around here are still very good with masking in public even after the state mask mandate ended. Almost nobody I know in my age group has received both doses yet, so it will be interesting to see how the second dose goes for them. I know people from 20-85 years old who have been vaccinated and am sort of keeping a mental database of their side effects. My unofficial observations have been that the younger folks tended to have a bit more side effects but there are exceptions to that and again, almost nobody I know who is around my age has gotten both doses yet.

The measles and mumps comparisons are not applicable at this point. We are not currently seeing thousands of cases of those per day in the US. My point/question had to do with risk situations for vaccinated individuals. We hear the overall ~95% effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines, and I have no reason to doubt that, but is it fair to think that certain situations can make it more likely for a breakthrough infection to occur? Or does every exposure (no matter the amount, duration, etc) act the same way in the body of someone who's vaccinated?

Do circumstances still kinda matter though? Perhaps an outdoor baseball stadium is not a good example, so let's say someone is indoors in a confined and poorly ventilated area and sitting right by a presymptomatic covid person for hours, thus getting exposed to a lot of virus. Wouldn't there be a better chance of the virus breaking through the vaccine protection of the vaccinated individual compared to a shorter exposure or does it just not matter?

The pill in trial from Pfizer sounds promising. Hopefully it pans out. Would be nice to have another tool (and a simple one at that) in combatting the virus to address the breakthrough infections and infections in people who didn't get the vaccine. I'd like to think there would be less hesitancy in popping a pill compared to getting a vaccine. That is a more familiar, every day type of thing to people, even though pills can come with a ton of side effects (cue one of those commercials with a list of every possible side effect lol)

You explained it well. Thanks!

Perhaps 232 million total doses have been administered in the US. No way that 232 million people have received a vaccine.

I think there's some truth to it, particularly with severe weather. Michigan has seen quite a downturn in frequency, especially with tornadoes.