Tag: COVID-19

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Coronavirus Update From New York City: April 8, 2021

First of all, I hope people have had a good Easter, Passover, or whatever holiday you celebrate.

This evening’s post, unfortunately, is starting on a sorrowful note. The reason for that is because I learned this week that a couple of people in a family who live in a house near mine lost their lives to COVID-19. As if I don’t already have enough reminders of how serious this pandemic is, I received yet another reminder this week. I don’t know when the two individuals passed away, but regardless, I keep these two individuals in my own thoughts and prayers.

This news also is a reminder of how fickle the pandemic can be. Nobody in my family has gotten COVID to our knowledge, yet we have people nearby who got COVID, and people nearby who even died of the pandemic. It’s so fickle that at this point I don’t know if it’s the strict following of public health precautions, dumb luck, or some combination of the two that has kept my family COVID-free. Personally, I think that it’s a combination of the two.

The other downer in the past week, albeit a downer in a different way, was the nature of the Easter Sunday holiday for me. Now, I went to church, but it was not like going to church on a regular Easter. I say that because I didn’t sing any hymns last Sunday, while in contrast I would passionately sing hymns on a regular Easter Sunday. I realize that from a COVID transmission standpoint, it was for the best that I didn’t sing, because droplets from your mouth travel much further when you sing than when you speak in a normal tone of voice. Yet, it it was still painfully difficult for me to abstain from singing–so much that I was in tears from resisting that temptation to sing the songs played on my church’s organ. While it was not as difficult as having to do Easter from home last year, it was challenging nevertheless.

The irony is that according to the church calendar of in the Catholic tradition and some other Christian religious traditions, we have just passed through Lent–a season that involves some form of sacrifice for many believers. And yet, even though the church calendar says that this season is over, emotionally and spiritually it feels like I haven’t even exited Lent 2020, even though Lent 2021 has already passed. I say this because the COVID-related sacrifices started in Lent 2020 and for me, at least, they haven’t stopped since then. I guess I can hope that the COVID situation turns around so that it spiritually feels like Easter by late summer? Fingers crossed.

On a different (and better) note, the test positivity rate for COVID in my neighborhood is at 8.2%, which is down from where it was last week. This seems to be bucking the trend (in a good way) compared to many parts of the United States, where COVID is again on the rise to the point that there is debate about whether there is now a fourth wave of the pandemic. This is also bucking the trend compared to the rest of New York City (at least at the moment), where the test positivity rate is stable.

The other positive piece of news is that vaccine distribution seems to be accelerating, to the point that 38% of adults in New York City have received at least one vaccine dose. As vaccine supply continues to expand, and as vaccine eligibility has expanded massively in the past couple of weeks (to the point that all New Yorkers 16 and older are now eligible for a vaccine), I trust that this number will go up even further. It is concerning, though, that there continues to be racial disparities in who is getting vaccinated–Blacks and Latinos are getting vaccinated at much lower rates than whites.

I know my post was a bit of a downer in parts today, but in spite of that, I do retain hope for better days ahead.

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The (COVID) Crisis at the United States–Mexico Border

The surge of migrants coming into the United States has become a game of political maneuvering from both Democrats and Republicans—Democrats blame the Trump administration for the current situation, and Republicans blame the Biden administration for being too “soft” on certain immigration matters.

I’m not even going to begin to sort out where the truth lies on the border situation as a whole. However, what is clear is that there is a crisis when it comes to COIVID at the border.

Certain elements of this crisis are the results of issues that go well beyond the United States-Mexico border. The bulk of the migrants are coming from countries in Central America—namely, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—that had extreme levels of violence and poverty to begin with, and then got slammed by two devastating hurricanes last fall.[1] To say that the situation appears to involve a lot of desperate people fleeing desperate situations might sound like an oversimplification of the current situation, but that is what this situation appears to be the result of—people, many of whom are desperate, fleeing from desperate situations.

That being said, some of the crisis could have been avoided with a more competent response from the Biden administration.

Among the “lowlights” of the administration’s handling of COVID among migrants include:

  • A March 18th article from POLITICO said that Biden administration officials admitted that there was no centralized system for tracking or responding to COVID cases among the migrants.[2]
  • A more recent NBC article said that migrant children are not tested for COVID until they transfer to a facility run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Department of Health and Human Services.[3]
  • The Biden administration outsourced testing and quarantining for many migrants. As a result of this outsourcing, it was “unclear how many have been tested for the virus, how many have tested positive and where infected people are being isolated along the border.”[4]

In reading these pieces, what became evident is that we’ve had two administrations violate the three basic principles involved in handling COVID, when it comes to migrants: testing, tracing, and isolating.

The fact that we are over one year into this pandemic, yet still do not have a competent way of dealing with COVID among migrants is, in my opinion, almost incomprehensibly careless and dangerous from a public health standpoint. Even if you were to believe the Biden administration’s argument that they inherited a mess (and based on the way Trump often handled the pandemic, I would not be the least bit surprised if Biden did inherit a mess), the administration’s response has been woefully short of following the science many on that team say they want to follow.

Because of the lack of a centralized, organized, and competent system for preventing as well as dealing with COVID among migrants, we get situations where COVID-positive migrant children are transferred from one facility to another[5] and where some COVID-positive migrants are still allowed to continue with their journey in spite of the positive test.[6] In other words, this failure by the current administration in grappling with COVID concerns at the border has resulted in preventable spread of the virus.

We can debate about the ultimate fates of the people at the border, and there will be debate about what should be the ultimate fates of people at the border; however, one area that should not be ignored during this public health crisis is the need for preventing COVID spread among migrants, and from migrants to others. Given that COVID is a global disease, the United States not doing all it can to prevent spread of the virus among migrants at the United States–Mexico border is a global headache, even if migrants are sent back to where they came from.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55699540

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/biden-administration-covid-southern-border-tracking-477073

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/cbp-not-testing-migrant-children-covid-border-stations-though-many-n1262059

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/biden-administration-covid-southern-border-tracking-477073

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/cbp-not-testing-migrant-children-covid-border-stations-though-many-n1262059

[6] https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/san-antonio/news/2021/03/20/positive-covid-19-tests-continue-to-climb-among-migrants-in-brownsville

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Coronavirus Update From New York City: April 1, 2021

Me after I got my first vaccine shot. This is not the best photo of me in the world, but in my defense, it was misty and windy, plus my glasses were fogged up.

Like with last week’s COVID Diary blog post, I have some big news to share!

The big news this week is that I have received my first COVID vaccine shot.

Literally the morning after I published my previous COVID update post, I was able to secure an appointment to receive my first shot of the Moderna vaccine. That appointment happened last Sunday.

Side effects were overall relatively minimal. My arm felt rather sore last Sunday evening and Sunday night, and felt a little sore last Monday. All that being said, the side effects of the first Moderna shot don’t seem any worse than side effects from many flu shots I’ve had over the years. That being said, I’ve heard that side effects from the second Moderna shot can sometimes leave someone feeling sick for a couple of days. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it though (a bridge I’ll get to on Sunday, April 25th, when I’m scheduled for my second vaccine shot).

Speaking of vaccines, vaccine eligibility is rapidly expanding in New York, to the point that everyone sixteen and older should be eligible for COVID vaccines by next week. Even if I weren’t obese, I’d be becoming eligible soon anyway. However, since I am obese, I was able to get the vaccine at least a couple of weeks before when I would have otherwise received it.

My younger brother is no longer in quarantine at college. He reported to me that the quarantine experience was not as bad as he had feared (I think he was expecting to be completely stuck in his room for a week). More importantly, though, he remains healthy.

The news in my neighborhood, on the other hand, is not quite as good. The test positivity rate is is up above 10% again, to 10.2%. Test positivity seem to have been see-sawing around 10% for the past few weeks–sometimes just above that mark, sometimes just below that mark.

In terms of my travel plans for Easter…I have none. I’m not fully vaccinated, and even if I were fully vaccinated, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States is still recommending against domestic and international travel. I figure that the CDC has taken me this far without getting COVID (or at least COVID symptoms), so I’m not going to stop following their advice now.

That’s my update for this week. I hope others are well and safe, and I wish my readers a Happy Easter, or Passover, or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate!

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Coronavirus Update From New York City: March 25, 2021

I hope everyone is well, regardless of where you are.

In this post, I feel like I have more personal news to share than I’ve had in many of my posts, so buckle up…

First of all, it turns out that I am also eligible for the vaccine now, which I didn’t realize at the time I published last week’s COVID update post. Since my Body Mass Index (BMI) puts me in the “obese” category (albeit not by a ton–if I were 10 or so pounds lighter, I would not be obese based on my BMI), my obesity makes me eligible for the vaccine. It’s somewhat unfortunate my own perception of myself–the perception that I am “a little overweight” as opposed to “obese” (a perception further driven by the fact that I have actually lost a lot of weight during the pandemic)–meant that I didn’t realize I was eligible through being obese until I’ve already been eligible for a month! What’s done is done though, and I am now on the lookout for a vaccine. In the meantime, my advice to others is that even if you don’t think you are obese, check your BMI on the Adult BMI Calculator that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has anyway–you also might be eligible for a vaccine without realizing it.

The second major piece of personal news is that my younger brother is back at college. He had to go home from college like many other students last spring, and since then, he’s had some form of online learning. He is back at his school, albeit with strict COVID precautions (masking, social distancing, being tested twice a week, etc.). While the second half of the second semester of his senior year looks a lot different from what that period of life should look like, I am glad that he can see his friends in a safe manner again. The college my younger brother goes to managed to control the spread of the virus during the first half of the semester (when a different group of students were on campus), so I am hopeful that he and his friends will have a healthy second half of the second semester.

A third, and final, major piece of personal news is that I might be going back to a physical office again in early May. A lot of details still need to be ironed out though, so we’ll need to see what happens. Personally, while my initial feeling was apprehension, I am also hopeful that whenever I come back to the physical office I work at, things will work out well.

In non-personal news, the test positivity rate in my part of New York City has decreased substantially, all the way down to just over 8.5%! For a number of days, I was nervous because we weren’t getting any data reported at all on the test positivity rates, but now those numbers are getting reported and the numbers themselves are promising currently. Of course, that can quickly change with one big ill-advised party in the area, but for now, I’ll be happy with the progress on the test positivity front.

That’s it for me, for now at least. I hope others are well!

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Addressing the Shootings in the Atlanta Area

In my COVID update post last Thursday, I spent the first part of the post talking about the shootings that happened in three Atlanta-area spas. However, I think it is important to dedicate a full post to the shootings, considering some of the discourse that’s existed in the shootings’ aftermath.

First of all, my heart goes out to the families of the victims. No platitudes or words can ever possibly erase the fact that Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue should not have died in shootings.

As of the time I published this post, the exact motive of the shooting remains unknown, but much speculation about the shooting seems to center around ethnicity (most of the people killed were women of Asian descent, four of whom were of Korean descent) and the perpetrator’s alleged sex addiction.

But, regardless of whether the motive is ethnicity-related, sex addiction-related, some combination of the two, or neither one, we need to talk about two of the big issues raised in light of the shooting: anti-Asian hate and sex addiction itself (also known as compulsive sexual behavior[1]).

With regards to anti-Asian hate, while there is still an investigation into how much that was a motive of the shooter, what cannot be denied is that anti-Asian hate crimes have been sharply on the rise in the past year. In 16 of America’s largest cities, the targeting of Asian people has increased by 150% in the past year.[2] Even if the current investigations happen to find that anti-Asian bias wasn’t a motive by the shooter, it does not take away from the fact that anti-Asian speech and violence are a problem in this country, and a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that too many in American society (including the previous President of the United States) have either scapegoated people of Asian descent for COVID or fanned the flames of scapegoating people of Asian descent.[3] Regardless of the shooter’s motive, anti-Asian bias is an issue we need to grapple with.

Speaking of anti-Asian bias, and hate crimes in general, while the statistics indicate that anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise, the reporting of hate crimes in the United States is not what it should be. The reason is that data on hate crimes depends on the voluntary submission of data from local police agencies—something that results in severe undercounting of hate crimes.[4] This is an issue that needs to be discussed more in order to truly understand the extent of anti-Asian bias, which in turn could better inform decisions on how to address said hate. The underreporting of hate crimes frankly requires its own blog post, and I plan on talking about this issue more in next week’s blog post.

As for the issue of sex addiction/compulsive sexual behavior, I am deeply concerned that this shooting will end up stigmatizing people who struggle with compulsive sexual behavior in general. This is an issue some people struggle with, but it is not an issue that necessarily results in someone becoming violent as this shooter became violent. In fact, a doctor interviewed by USA Today who’s been treating people with compulsive sexual behavior for over 30 years says that under 1% of his patients have committed any violent act.[5] In spite of that, the most famous example of someone allegedly battling this sort of issue is this mass shooter, so I am therefore concerned that the shooting could create an issue for people battling compulsive sexual behavior.

Yet, at the same time, there is a history of the notion of sex addiction being used by people, usually white men, to try and absolve themselves for their responsibility with certain actions, especially actions that are misogynistic.[6] As such, while it is completely possible that this sort of issue played a role in the shootings, we should be careful not to automatically assume that issues with compulsive sexual behavior/sex addiction were a motive, in spite of what the shooter has said about a sex addiction playing a role in his motivation for killing people.

There is so much more that could be talked about, but given that investigations are ongoing as of the time I’m publishing this post, I will wait to say too much more until the current investigations run their course. That being said, if there is more that I feel needs to be said once that happens, I will be sure to do so.

[1] Based on the literature I’ve read from both the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes on Health, there seems to be some question about whether compulsive sexual behavior (which does exist) is clinically an addiction: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4677151/. I am not qualified to answer this question, but what I will say is that if the scientific experts at the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes on Health both believe that some people struggle with compulsive sexual behavior, I am also inclined to believe that some people struggle with compulsive sexual behavior. Additionally, since there is some question as to whether compulsive sexual behavior is clinically an addiction, I’m going to call it “compulsive sexual behavior” as much as I can in this blog post.

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-nearly-150-2020-mostly-n-n1260264

[3] I talked about this in my post a couple of weeks ago about scapegoating groups during a crisis: https://blindinjusticeblog.com/2021/03/08/scapegoating-groups-during-a-crisis-is-nothing-new/

[4] https://www.propublica.org/article/police-dont-do-a-good-job-tracking-hate-crimes-a-new-report-calls-on-congress-to-take-action

[5] https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/03/18/atlanta-shooting-sex-addiction-what-it-can-turn-violent/4746720001/

[6] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/how-sex-addiction-has-historically-been-used-absolve-white-men-n1261623