The county is averaging over 20 new COVID cases a day, around what it was in February when the new case trend was going down.

With 20 new diagnosed cases on average, there are probably several times that out in the wild that are undiagnosed.

Some of these are breakthrough cases.

It shouldn’t be surprising that there are fully vaccinated people who get COVID – they are in the other 10% or less.  It doesn’t mean the vaccine doesn’t work.  These cases are noteworthy because they are rare.

So far as how we’re coping with it—life goes on. We’re vaccinated, but, for the most part, staying home and, when in town, we’re masking and social distancing. The curve is from Pope County, Arkansas coronavirus cases and deaths at USAFacts.

SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, also known as lineage B.1.617.2, is a variant of lineage B.1.617 of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It was first detected in India in late 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) named it the Delta variant on 31 May 2021.

It has mutations in the gene encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein causing… substitutions… which are known to affect transmissibility of the virus as well as whether it can be neutralised by antibodies for previously circulating variants of the COVID-19 virus. Public Health England (PHE) in May 2021 observed secondary attack rates to be 51–67% higher than the alpha variant.

COVID-19 vaccines are effective in preventing severe disease or hospitalization from infection with the variant, although some evidence suggests vaccinated people are more likely to develop symptoms from Delta than other variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Variant of Concern

On 7 May 2021, PHE changed their classification of lineage B.1.617.2 from a variant under investigation (VUI) to a variant of concern (VOC) based on an assessment of transmissibility being at least equivalent to the Alpha variant; the UK’s SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) subsequently estimated a “realistic” possibility of being 50% more transmissible. On 11 May 2021, the WHO also classified this lineage VOC, and said that it showed evidence of higher transmissibility and reduced neutralisation. On 15 June 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared Delta a variant of concern.

The variant is thought to be partly responsible for India’s second wave of the pandemic beginning in February 2021. It later contributed to a third wave in Fiji, the United Kingdom and South Africa, and the WHO warned in July 2021 it could have a similar effect elsewhere in Europe and Africa. By late July it had also driven an increase in daily infections in parts of Asia, the United States and Australia.

As of 20 July 2021, this variant had spread to 124 countries, and WHO had indicated that it was becoming the dominant strain, if not one already.

[Read more on the Delta variant at Wikipedia.]

This showy sunflower is a volunteer¹ addition to the vegetation in our yard.  We recently spotted it at the edge of the woods from our kitchen window.  The image is from my phone’s camera.²

Helianthus divaricatus³

Helianthus divaricatus, commonly known as the rough sunflower, woodland sunflower, or rough woodland sunflower, is a North American species perennial herb in the composite family. It is native to central and eastern North America, from Ontario and Quebec in the north, south to Florida and Louisiana and west to Oklahoma and Iowa.

Helanthus divaricatus commonly occurs in dry, relatively open sites. The showy yellow flowers emerge in summer through early fall.

The woodland sunflower is similar to Helianthus hirsutus, but its stem is rough. It is up to 1.5 m tall with short stalked, lanceolate to oval leaves, 1–8 cm wide with toothed margins. Its flowers have 8 to 15 rays, each 1.5 to 3 cm (0.6-1.2 inches) long, surrounding an orange or yellowish brown central disk.

1. Volunteer plants are those that come up in the garden with no effort on your part. They germinate from seeds dropped by flowers in previous years or seeds can arrive stuck to the fur and skin of small animals. Birds that visit your garden bring seeds contained in berries and fruit that they ate at their last stop.
   • Carroll, J. (2021, March 5). What Is A Volunteer Plant: Learn About Volunteer Plants In Gardens. Retrieved July 27, 2021, from https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/propagation/propgen/volunteer-plants-in-gardens.htm
2. iPhone 11 back dual wide camera; ƒ/1.8, 4.2 mm, 1/839, ISO 32
3. Wikipedia, Helianthus divaricatus. (last revised 2021, March 21). Retrieved July 27, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helianthus_divaricatus

Clinical trials for the first two US COVID vaccines showed that both were were over 90% effective at preventing COVID.  It shouldn’t be surprising that there are fully vaccinated people who get COVID – they are in the other 10% or less.  It doesn’t mean the vaccine doesn’t work.  These cases are noteworthy because they are rare.¹

A new study of health care workers in India – not yet peer-reviewed² – shows that of 28,342 vaccinated workers, only 5% developed symptomatic infections, only 83 required hospitalization, and none have yet died.³

In another study, also not yet peer-reviewed, during the study period Delta variants caused 58% of all COVID cases.  There were a “significantly higher rate of breakthrough cases (19.7% compared to 5.8% for all other variants). Importantly, only 6.5% of all COVID-19 cases occurred in fully immunized individuals, and relatively few of these patients required hospitalization. Our genomic and epidemiologic data emphasize that vaccines used in the United States are highly effective in decreasing severe COVID-19 disease, hospitalizations, and deaths.”⁴

Vaccines are the most effective weapon against the pandemic, but they only work if we use them.⁵

1. Baker, S. (Axios 2021, July 22). COVID cases ARE Surging, and it’s not because of “breakthrough” infections. Retrieved July 27, 2021, from https://www.axios.com/covid-pandemic-cases-unvaccinated-vaccines-3d5ac3b0-78fb-473b-ae0b-0f8382d0501b.html
2. Peer review is a lengthy process to certify the results of published scientific work.  COVID is a fast-moving, evolving pandemic, and referencing works not yet peer-reviewed is common.  However, when referencing such works, their peer-review status should be noted.
3. Baker.
4. Musser, James M., Paul A. Christensen, Randall J. Olsen, S. Wesley Long, Sishir Subedi, James J. Davis, Parsa Hodjat, Debbie R. Walley, Jacob C. Kinskey, and Jimmy Gollihar. “Delta Variants OF SARS-COV-2 Cause Significantly INCREASED Vaccine Breakthrough COVID-19 Cases in Houston, Texas.” medRxiv. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, January 1, 2021. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.19.21260808v1.
5. ibid.

It’s nearly the end of July. Normally by this time of the year in west-central Arkansas, vegetation is starting to brown from the summer heat and lower rainfall. No so, this year. This year it is very lush and green.

I first visited this part of Arkansas in another July 41 years ago when I drove down from my in-laws up in northwest Arkansas for a job interview.

That summer was brutal for Arkansas and much of the rest of the country.  Little Rock had 20 consecutive days of 100° or higher.  Beedeville got up to 112° and Alicia hit 113°.  Little Rock hit 108° on the 13th, 14th, and 16th – I think we must’ve driven through there on our way from Pensacola to Pea Ridge on one of those days in in our Dodge Colt that didn’t have air conditioning.  Everything was drying up.  It was the driest and hottest summer in Little Rock since the weather station was established in 1879.  Normal rainfall between June 21 and September 22 is 9.5 inches, but that year, it was only 9.5 inches.

Rainfall this year has been above normal.  Over three days last week, we had 3.5 inches after a couple of dry weeks.  Karen hasn’t needed to water the garden as much as some years.

It’s been a little over 3 years since we had over 100°F days.  The current trend is towards more normal temperatures, which means it’s heating up.  We’ve got a heat advisory today.

Hopefully, though the hotter days won’t last long.

After all, September is just a little over a month away.

Note: My only participation in this recipe—or any others—is partaking in the results. These were GREAT!

This recipe is now on Karen’s blog where she has a number of other great recipes.

From Karen’s recipe:

1/2 cup softened stick of butter or margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large mashed ripe bananas
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons ground flax seed (optional)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
1 cup wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 cup mini chocolate chips (I use dark)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 and greased a muffin tin that makes 6 large muffins
Beat together first 7 ingredients until smooth – add in bananas, honey, and eggs beat until smooth.  Add in the dry ingredients and the yogurt and mix until smooth – stir in nuts and chips.  Spoon into the muffin cups – bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes (two were already eaten when I thought to get a photo)

While I was at the barbershop getting my hair cut today, an older gentleman was jawing with the barber about turkeys and traveling backroads and this and that.  A man walked by outside they both knew and somehow or another it was mentioned that his brother had died recently and that the only name they could remember him being called was “Gus.”

With that, the older gent said, “When my oldest boy, Tommy, started school, he came home all upset after his first day.”

When he was asked why, the boy said, “They won’t call me by my right name.”

“What did they call you?”

“Tommy,” he said.

“That is your real name.”

“My name’s NOT Tommy.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.

“Well, what is it, then?”

“Booger!”

I guess the “cute” little nickname they used for him when he was little stuck.

7/23/21 near
Booger Hollow, Arkansas

As near as I can figure out, I’ve been blogging a little over 15 years.  The first post that I can find, for sure, is dated March 27, 2004 and deals with computer problems and reformatting a hard drive.

My first blogging efforts were on Blogger, but in October 2004, I left and began using WordPress to manage my blogs.  “It’s not that I have anything against blogger overall,” I wrote. “I just wanted the blogs on my own server. Simple as that.”

At the time, I had established 4 blogs:

• North Farnham Freeholder—my personal blog—”a little bit of this and a little bit of that— including some vintage photography and other images, quality on-line sites that I’ve found over the years and more.”  It morphed into Exit78, which now has 2,827 posts. That’s an average of about 13.6 post a month. It also has 45 pages published. (Facebook)
• Out ‘n About—outdoors related postings.  It became Haw Creek Outdoors and is now just Haw Creek. It has 1,653 posts and 52 pages published.  Sadly, some of the pages need some serious updating. (Facebook)
• Chronicles of the American Civil War started out publishing public domain material from the corresponding day of a year during the civil war.
  • It became Daily Observations of the Civil War (DOTCW), with multiple daily posts during the civil war sesquicentennial from before, during, and after the war.  It has 17,536 posts and 15 pages.
  • American Civil War Chronicles (ACWC) used the DOTCW database, adding to it, for the “sesquicentennial plus five years.” It is now going through the civil war again with the previous posts rescheduled for 160 years following the applicable diary or journal entry, news article, images and more.  By April 2025, 160 years after the end of the war, ACWC will probably have published over 25,000 posts.  Currently, in the blog, it is just after the First Battle of Bull Run [Manassas]. [Facebook: American Civil War Chronicles and American Civil War]
• A Selection of Poetry – The Blog—I had created a website called A Selection of Poetry beginning in 2002 that garnered quite a bit of traffic.  I was publishing material from that site in the blog and, for some reason, that stopped in 2007. I actually restarted that blog in 2019, but the restart only has 9 posts.

Over time, I’ve tried different strategies for blogging, mostly around sharing photos, both mine and public domain or creative commons images I’ve found online.  I’ve tried blogging themes like 1000 words (posting images worth 1000 words), travel photos, Art on Sunday and Eyes of the Great Depression.  I’ll still do some of that but, for now, I’m just writing and blogging on topics as they occur to me.  I’ve done several recently on COVID and vaccination. I imagine I’ll do more.  A local casino issue will probably garner more posts as things move along [that topic typically get a lot of visits as I share those posts on a local Facebook group that is intensely interested in getting the casino approved and built].

I’ve interacted with a number of other bloggers over the years.  In 2004, I saved a link list of 14 blogs.  None of the blogs’ links are currently active in their original incarnation.  Several still exist but, except for one who last posted in March 2019, their most recent post was in 2011 or earlier.  Others return 404, 503  or Server Not Found errors, have their URL for sale, or have a URL that has been taken over by someone else.

Though some may think so, blogging isn’t dead. Some of the bloggers I interacted with or followed over the years are still blogging.  Some are now long-time Facebook friends, including a few that haven’t blogged in quite some time.

My wife is one of the most prolific bloggers I know.  Karen blogs nearly every day at Quilts…etc..  Her focus is primarily on her quilting but she includes many other things in her daily chatty post. Having started in 2007, she has averaged just under 29 posts per month and has had 57,202 comments an average of about 11.5 comments per post.

To blog or not to blog?  The answer to that is I think I’ll stick with it at least a while longer.

A local physician told me that he was worried about his grandchildren.  “They can’t get the vaccination,” he said, “and they are unprotected from the virus with school starting up soon.”

His grandchildren are up in northwest Arkansas—Benton County—where the COVID risk level is very high. About 43.8% have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine but only 35.1% are fully vaccinated. Over the last week, the county has seen an average of 90 new confirmed cases per day. The percentage of positive COVID tests is 10.6% but testing is limited and most cases may go undetected.  With the total number of active cases growing, it is thought that each infected person there is likely infecting an average of 1.4 other people.¹

COVID cases are increasing in nearly all states.  The only way to get ahead of the Delta variant is to vaccinate more people, but the rates of vaccination in most states continue to drop.  In 35 states, cases rose 50% or more last week.  New daily cases in the U.S. have gone from 11,000 last month to an average of 25,000 per day. “We’re losing time here,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CNN. He told MSNBC, “If you’re unvaccinated, this virus is looking for you.” “The Delta variant is spreading, people are dying,” Collins said. “We can’t actually just wait for things to get more rational.” The variant now accounts for 58% of new COVID cases in the U.S.²

The Atlantic³

(In rural Arkansas) They might have the flu, except for the added telltale symptom of this coronavirus: the loss of taste and smell. Many of the patients now are younger than those in previous months; a nurse who works there told me she saw two cases of young children in one day.

PBS News Hour⁴

Casey Johnson has never let a COVID patient die alone.

In her years as a bedside nurse at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Johnson has watched countless patients pass. But the pandemic… brought a wave of death unlike any she’d ever seen.

To those who die in her care, she is a stranger, she said. But she can still offer them comfort. She’s caressed patients’ hands, quietly played “Amazing Grace” from her iPhone, gently bathed tired limbs. She sharpened her sixth sense for when someone was about to die — their breathing more sporadic, their mood more restless before becoming solemn and withdrawn. Those who hadn’t been robbed of their voice by the virus would often tell her “‘Today’s the day,’” or “‘I want to go home.’” She’s never gotten used to the conversations with loved ones who have been left behind, she said, and each time, it “takes a little bit out of you.”

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette⁵

Fifty-seven Arkansas National Guardsmen have tested positive for covid-19 in the past week during a training exercise at Fort Polk in Louisiana.

Soldiers from the 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based out of Camp Robinson, traveled to the U.S. Army base near Leesville, La., for a combat readiness training exercise.

In addition to the 57 who tested positive, another 64 soldiers were put in quarantine. None of the soldiers have been hospitalized, Arkansas National Guard officials said Tuesday.

Like most of the state, most of the soldiers in the Arkansas National Guard are not vaccinated. An estimated 30% to 35% of guardsmen have gotten vaccinations, officials said.

New York Post⁶

Young, unvaccinated patients are begging for the COVID-19 shot as they fight for their lives at an Alabama hospital.

But Dr. Brytney Cobia has to deliver a heartbreaking dose of reality, instead.

“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late,” Cobia, who works at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.

Cobia said she has been forced to turn down the desperate pleas from coronavirus patients about to be placed on ventilators.

“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” she wrote.

1. U.S. COVID risk & Vaccine tracker. (2021, July 21). Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://covidactnow.org/us/arkansas-ar/county/benton_county/?s=20821001
2. Crist, C. (2021, July 16). NIH Chief: U.s. ‘LOSING time’ AGAINST Delta Variant. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210715/nih-chief-says-u-s-losing-time-against-delta-variant
3. Khamsi, R. (2021, July 19). COVID-19’s effects on kids are even stranger than we thought. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/clues-about-mis-c-and-covid-19-kids/619447/
4. Santhanam, L. (2021, July 21). Traumatized Arkansas hospital workers struggle as COVID surges among unvaccinated. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/traumatized-arkansas-hospital-workers-struggle-as-covid-surges-among-unvaccinated
5. Earley, N. (2021, July 21). 57 Arkansas GUARDSMEN test positive for covid-19 at Louisiana fort. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/jul/21/57-arkansas-guardsmen-test-positive-for-covid-19/
6. Salo, J. (2021, July 21). ‘It’s too late’: Doctor forced to turn Down COVID patients begging for vaccine. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://nypost.com/2021/07/21/its-too-late-doctor-forced-to-turn-down-covid-patients-begging-for-vaccine/