Pandemic, Week 70 (Hot Vax Summer)

This week, Texas Democrats flew to DC to avoid giving the Texas legislatures a two-thirds quorum in order to pass voter-restriction legislation (the governor has threaten them with arrest once they return). The EU unveiled plans to reduce greenhouse gas 55 percent by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050. Meanwhile, at least 143 Germans died due to flash flooding this week and Death Valley saw the earth's hottest 24 hours on record with temperatures reaching 128.6 degrees. Britney Spears was granted the right to hire her own lawyer to challenge her conservatorship. Biz Markie died.

The world reached 190.8 million COVID cases this week and 4.1 million deaths, of which the U.S. accounted for 35.0 million cases and 625,000 deaths. 161 million Americans (49 percent of the population) are now fully vaccinated with 186 million Americans (56 percent) having received at least one dose. The rate of vaccinations has slowed, however, and that combined with the spread of the Delta variant has resulted in U.S. infections increasing by 70 percent in just one week.

But not for us. Having gotten a negative test result for Nora days earlier (Owen was exempt because he was vaccinated), we were able to send the kids off to a screen-free week at Camp Letts. The kids assured us they had a blast playing kickball, tennis, some variant of volleyball, zip-lining, canoeing, kayaking and swimming, but we don't have any actual footage of any of that (which is probably why they enjoyed it so much). While they were gone we had the Hyatts, who were doing an east-coast tour, over for a grown-up dinner party, but mostly we cleaned and started packing to leave for Iowa via the Mettenburgs the day after the kids returned.

When we last visited the Mettenburgs we managed to infect them with lice (we also stole their coats – still not clear how we managed that one – and got stuck in their driveway. We're actually not sure why they would ever want us back...), so to ensure we didn't spread anything worse after a week at camp (lest we give them the worst birthday presents ever), we had both kids tested before heading to Pittsburgh and are relieved to announce they were both COVID free. 

Hopefully we can say the same when we get back from Iowa...

(To see all of this week's pictures, click here.)