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canyonwalkerOahu travelog #10
Waikiki, HI - Sat, 25 Dec 2021, 8am
Last night before going to bed I browsed one my favorite news sources for data on the spread of Coronavirus, The New York Times' "Covid in the U.S." page. I went to see how fast case rates are rising across the country and reassure myself that being here in Hawaii remains a relatively safe choice; Hawaii has long been one of the best, if not the best state, for low rates. Its location 2,500 miles across the ocean from the next nearest state gives it a lot of control over screening out visitors who'd arrive infected and spread Covid.
Well, the data showed the national surge continuing to surge. Last Tuesday I objected to the alarmingly popular boast "It's not like March 2020". It was already worse; now it's even... worse-r. Our rates may eclipse last winter's surge... which is really alarming because now we have the vaccine in widespread availability and (yet only) 62% of the entire population fully vaccinated. But while there's a nationwide surge going on Hawaii is getting hit especially hard this time. The new case rate has increased nearly 10x in the past 2 weeks. Hawaii now has higher than the nationwide average case rate, 75 average daily cases per 100k population vs. 59 (source: Times link above, retrieved 25 Dec 2021). Its rate is more than 2x that of California's 33.
The county level figures are even more stark. Honolulu County, which encompasses the island of Oahu, has the highest case rate in the state, 97. Our home county of Santa Clara, meanwhile, remains healthier than California as a whole, with a rate of 20. So while we thought we were going from one safe place to an even safer place on this trip, it turns out we're at a higher risk here than home. A 5x higher risk.
Update: Based on these surging rates we decided to stop eating at indoors restaurants on this trip. We will only do real-outdoors dining at restaurants or buy groceries to take back to our room.
Update 2: A week later, several days after we got home, the surge has continued to worsen. As of Jan. 2 Hawaii is at 163 statewide with Honolulu at 189. Both rates have roughly doubled what I originally wrote this blog. 😳 The nationwide rate has increased, as well, to 121. We're glad we're at home now, where it's easy to limit how often we're within 6' of strangers.
Waikiki, HI - Sat, 25 Dec 2021, 8am
Last night before going to bed I browsed one my favorite news sources for data on the spread of Coronavirus, The New York Times' "Covid in the U.S." page. I went to see how fast case rates are rising across the country and reassure myself that being here in Hawaii remains a relatively safe choice; Hawaii has long been one of the best, if not the best state, for low rates. Its location 2,500 miles across the ocean from the next nearest state gives it a lot of control over screening out visitors who'd arrive infected and spread Covid.
Well, the data showed the national surge continuing to surge. Last Tuesday I objected to the alarmingly popular boast "It's not like March 2020". It was already worse; now it's even... worse-r. Our rates may eclipse last winter's surge... which is really alarming because now we have the vaccine in widespread availability and (yet only) 62% of the entire population fully vaccinated. But while there's a nationwide surge going on Hawaii is getting hit especially hard this time. The new case rate has increased nearly 10x in the past 2 weeks. Hawaii now has higher than the nationwide average case rate, 75 average daily cases per 100k population vs. 59 (source: Times link above, retrieved 25 Dec 2021). Its rate is more than 2x that of California's 33.
The county level figures are even more stark. Honolulu County, which encompasses the island of Oahu, has the highest case rate in the state, 97. Our home county of Santa Clara, meanwhile, remains healthier than California as a whole, with a rate of 20. So while we thought we were going from one safe place to an even safer place on this trip, it turns out we're at a higher risk here than home. A 5x higher risk.
Update: Based on these surging rates we decided to stop eating at indoors restaurants on this trip. We will only do real-outdoors dining at restaurants or buy groceries to take back to our room.
Update 2: A week later, several days after we got home, the surge has continued to worsen. As of Jan. 2 Hawaii is at 163 statewide with Honolulu at 189. Both rates have roughly doubled what I originally wrote this blog. 😳 The nationwide rate has increased, as well, to 121. We're glad we're at home now, where it's easy to limit how often we're within 6' of strangers.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-26 12:52 am (UTC)