Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

A guy here at work died from COVID last week.  I don't particularly know him but he was from the same country village as me and a little older. We exchanged emails intermittently when I was doing projects in his area.  He was 52 FWIW. 

I still don't know a single person that has died from it.  I don't know a single person that's been hospitalized.  It astonishes me that some of you know multiple people that have died or been hospitalized.

I still don't know a single person that has died from it.  I don't know a single person that's been hospitalized.  It astonishes me that some of you know multiple people that have died or been hospitalized.

Yeah, it's kinda crazy.  I mean I've lived in the same small community my whole life (except the A&M years of course), have a very large family as a result of being here since the 1800's, and we do run a business here that has been operating since the 70's.  Even when I ask people I work with not many people know anybody that died from COVID.  

To be fair, I didn't really know this guy.  I exchanged emails a few times, and he's from my town and I know some of his family.  Like I said, I only knew him in passing.  

I didn't really know the guy who lives in the house behind our pasture where we keep our cows, but we waved at each other while I was mowing and he was mowing. I work with his son in law.  

Of course there is my dad and then my aunt's long time BF. Two close family members right there.  

Then there is a cousin who I really didn't know that well either but I have met him a few times. 

The guy at the feed store who was in his 50's, and then a preacher here in town.  Knew them both in passing.  

My cousins brother who I really didn't know.  

A lady who is friends with my mom, her son's wife.  I know the son, I don't know the wife (she's the one that died). 

There's a few more but I can't remember them all right now.  This last guy makes the 13th person that I *know* that has died from covid.  

I guess more than anything else it puts these numbers into perspective for me.  Maybe for you, you don't really know many people who have died, they're just faceless numbers.  But for me I can see and feel the impact.  

Two more people I work with, whom I personally know very well, were hospitalized.  One guy nearly died, and will have lung damage the rest of his life.  

The other was in the hospital a few days and seemed to recovered OK.  

Another guy I was working for a few weeks ago told me he had it and was hospitalized for a week but recovered OK. This guy was very fit, mid 50's.  

I think there are also strong effects from the amount of time spent inside vs. outside.  It's clear at this point the virus spreads much more easily inside.

Over the summer, southerners spent a lot of their leisure time inside to beat the heat.  Over the coming months, they'll be spending more time outside.

The trend in the north and midwest is the opposite.

The strong potential for Covid cases to spike across the northern states throughout the coming Fall, as occurred last year due to your points stated, is my guess as to what’s behind the surprising sudden push for Booster Shot approvals. Booster Shot approvals were first aimed for 8-month recesses before getting considered for even shorter 5-month intervals, all with a September 20th deadline. This all coming as a reaction to the vaccine efficacy wearing off almost too soon to maybe even be termed a vaccine. A coming Fall spike across the heavily populated Great Lakes and Eastern Seaboard states, especially among their higher vaccinated populations, will break the promises and threaten the trust that a number of involved agencies have worked overtime to foster. Forcing through Booster approvals is the hurry-up offense of attempting to ensure some level of national immunity.

“The question of whether America's immunity is waning has become an urgent question in recent months with the rise of the delta variant and large pockets of the country still unvaccinated. [And the] latest analysis, released Monday by the CDC, found troubling signals on the ability of vaccines to prevent infections and to keep older people out of the hospital. Whereas the vaccines were 90% effective in June at preventing hospitalization in people ages 75-plus, that number fell to around 80% in July.”



https://twitter.com/Nightline/status/1433108190837841923

I know people who have been hospitalized, but none who have died.  But at my son's baseball practice last week, the other assistant casually dropped that two of his friends had died from it in the past month.  One was 32 with no medical conditions.  The manner in which he said it made me think those weren't his first two.