The Endless COVID Winter

Another cold day in the East, another week of problems getting COVID under control.  As more variants of the original virus put the effectiveness of some vaccines in doubt, the weather is conspiring to keep a lot of Americans from getting the vaccine - too many snowstorms keeping us at home!  Mass vaccination centers like this one (below) in Amarillo, Texas have enough problems without all that getting in the way of attempts to get everyone inoculated (and remember, Texas has nasty ice storms!).

In the Northeast, this winter was expected to be a repeat of the the Northeastern winter of 2019-20 - cold snaps here and there with mild weather during spells of precipitation, hence, no snow.  Nothing could have prepared me for what a relentless winter this would be in the Northeast, with one snowstorm after another.  To add insult to injury, the Arctic cold has kept us indoors more often, facilitating the spread of the original COVID virus and all of its various spinoffs.  The mild weather expected this winter in the Northeast was supposed to allow us to spend more time outside, where there is less chance of spreading the COVID bug.

Oh yeah, I ought to remind you that the Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting a hurricane threat for my area six months from now, right at about the time we should finally be getting this virus under control. But then this same almanac predicted a dry, quiet February for this area, so I hope it's as right about this August as it was about this February.  Meanwhile, as I watch everything that makes life worth living slip away, it's amazing that, with all of these words I have to keep typing - "virus," "vaccine," "vaccination," "variant" - the letter "v" on my keyboard isn't completely worn out.