April 1, 2022
UPDATE / CORRECTION, April 2: It appear that at least part of the local case surge discussed below is from a batch of previously unreported tests administered in January. I’ve changed the text to reflect this info and added a link with details. I apologize for passing along any incorrect information.
According to the brand new COVID.gov website, within ten miles of my house there are sixteen pharmacies that’ll give me a Covid test AND treatment with pills if it’s positive. My wife and I can also check ourselves with the free rapid tests sent by the federal government. We’ll probably pop down to the corner drugstore for our second boosters, hopefully without the side effects reported by a friend, who said he felt “like Will Smith slapped me all over.”
Am I a carefree camper? Have we reached this hazy new normal that people keep talking about, where the virus is a routine nuisance and a matter of personal responsibility?
Cue the fire alarm. That yellow patch amid the green in north Georgia represents a chunk of metro Atlanta, where “community levels” of Covid have jumped from low to medium. The next stop is red, which means “high.”
Some of the increase in cases may be caused by a backlog of unreported ones that the state just dumped onto the rolls, but it’s still worrisome, at least to me. For weeks , the experts have been predicting a second Omicron surge from the BA.2 variant.
After two years, I’m not the least bit surprised. I just hate being the bell cow for another wave, especially since most of the country has tuned out the bells altogether.
Some say they’re tired of criticizing others’ Covid decisions. Not me. As John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, once said, “Anger is an energy.” I’m holding onto mine. I don’t blast it around recklessly, but it’s staying in the tool box with the tests and the N-95. Take care and be safe.
Dave's Diaries 
Am flying. I read in one space that Ireland and the UK are thick with the new variant. In the space I occupy, I can travel as I will; no one cares if I have had four shots and can prove it. No one has wanted to see anything other than my passport and ticket. So into the danger zone we go. It is as if somehow saving our own lives and stopping the spread was, well, a bit too much bother.
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