Pandemic, Week 95 (Snowvid)

This week the DC area had its first substantial snowfall in years – up to 12 inches in parts – delaying the reopening of schools and stranding hundreds of cars along I-95 for over 24 hours, including Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. President Joe Biden addressed the country on the one-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection where he condemned the violence, called out the "web of lies" and implored the nation to make sure it never happens again. Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry survived an assassination attempt. Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of blood testing start-up Theranos was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors. Actor and activist Sidney Poitier and director Peter Bogdanovich died this week.

The worlds reached 305.8 million cases and 5.5 million deaths this week, of which the US accounted for 60.8 million cases and 859,000 deaths. 246 million Americans (74 percent) have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 208 million (63 percent) are fully vaccinated. The FDA and CDC authorized boosters for children 12 to 15 years old, which means that once both kids have fully recovered from COVID and Nora has reached 5 months from their initial dose, we can finally get the kids boosted. Tennis player Novak Djokovic, who received a medical exemption from COVID vaccination in order to play in the Australian Open, is being refused entry by the Australian government for his failure to demonstrate he couldn't be vaccinated due to medical reasons. The Supreme Court heard arguments challenging the Biden Administration's vaccine mandates for hospital and nursing home workers as well as private-sector employers with 100 or more employees.

We spent the week detoxing and recovering from our long weekend at Katherine's, the kids COVID diagnoses, and what locals are calling "snowvid" or "snowmicron." DCPS pushed back the school start date to January 6th and required that all students upload a negative rapid test result before returning. So we dutifully braved the icy streets to pick up homes tests for the kids (and some mail-in ones for us adults) and commenced with testing Wednesday morning, only to find that while Nora was negative and cleared to return, Owen was still positive and couldn't go back to school until Monday the 9th (which would be 10 days after his positive PCR test). On Thursday, Nora braved a frigid walk to a surprisingly well run re-entry process at school while Owen slept in and did some remote learning, only to have classes cancelled the next day after another 3 inches of snow blanket the area. We spent the unanticipated free-time working on thank-you notes, desiccating marshmallows, taking down the X-Mass decorations, and catching up on The Crown and Dr. Who.

So now we are waiting for the adult test results, hoping Owen's retest is negative, and aspiring to a less COVID-y week.

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