2021 update (9/24)

Wow... I can't believe it's almost been a year since my last post, and well we are still dealing with Covid.

Jan 6th was a riot on the Captial building in Washington DC - CRAZY!

Biden is president. After a very divisive election, and a runoff for senate in GA.

Masks and vaccines still feel political even though they shouldn't be.

I do want to continue this blog because I know I will forget these details, and I also think my kids one day might find it interesting.

So where were we...

There was a big spike after Christmas, but so far the cases at our schools were low, and I was still working from home.

A large portion of the schools were virtual (by choice) and even the high school was doing alternating weeks.

I hardly knew anyone who contracted Covid, until my sister in law got it in March.

Matthew and William each had a quarantine period from School in February (Matthew) and May (William).

Both had their first covid test (in the nose) at a drive thru site, and it was very easy to find testing.

We were all eagerly anticipating the vaccines to be released to the general pubic (health care workers and elderly were first).

A large tornado hit Newnan in March. Building supplies were already expensive and hard to get. Alot of people were displaced and some permanently. Newnan high school got hit very bad and the students couldn't go back to school for the rest of the year. We were very lucky that it was about a mile north of us.

We had three vaccine options (Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson). Pfizer and Moderna are both two shots series using RNA, J&J was one shot.

I was very lucky that Delta hosted one of the state vaccine sites and it's own site for employees.

Chris and I both got our first vaccines in mid-late March. Second dose in April

Our parents also got vaccinated.

We both had minimal side effects (mostly just a sore arm) but many people had a day or so of feeling like they were sick with the flu.

We were so excited to get vaccinated, it felt like finally we were taking back control and could make a difference to end covid. The results for the vaccines were very good - over 90% effective at preventing hospitalization.

In my circle of friends and family, everyone got vaccinated, but Coweta county was below 30% still by the middle of summer.

I continued working from home, everyone finished out school.

Around June the CDC came out and said that fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks, so it was basically a free for all where everyone stopped wearing masks.

June was also the time where I went back to working in the office (3 days a week, no mask required). It really seemed like covid was over. 

Delta offered everyone vaccines, and an extra day of PPT if you needed it to recover from side effects. Then they offered a cash prize drawing (up to $25,000) - unfortunately I wasn't eligible. Then once the vaccine was fully authorized, they mandated it, and began charging anyone who wasn't vaccinated a premium on insurance, and took away pay protection if they contracted covid. As a company I think we're around 80% vaccinated.

Almost all stores were open, but everyone was struggling to find workers. There were no workers to work a lot of customer facing jobs, and a lot of business couldn't fully open. Restaurants were especially hard hit. Some people said it was because of unemployment money, but I think a lot of people found other better jobs, or just decided not to work.

Everyone started back to school amid rising cases in August. Recently we had another huge spike from the Delta Variant, but as of now, cases are trending down. Unfortunately this time I knew more people who got covid (many breakthrough infections) and I know someone who died, and two staff at the boys' school have died in the past month (a teacher and the school resource officer).

A third booster shot is now authorized for Pfizer. (as of this week) Only recommended for elderly and high risk professions. No vaccine yet for children under 12.

The 2020 stock market was crazy after the initial drop in March and a lot of people made a lot of money. It has started cooling off recently. There were several big stories like crypto currency and the game stop stock crazyness.

Here's today stats from the GA DPH site