Flu Shot Pau

I started out the day by getting the flu shot at Kaiser. When I first returned, I was getting the annual flu shot so that I would not contract it and expose Mom & Dad to it. Now it's to eliminate flu as a potential illness that I might confuse COVID-19 with. After I was done with the shot, I decided to search for chicken poppers.

Is that the flu shot site at the end of the walk? Nope, it was a lunch wagon.

Here's the flu shot site around the corner.

I could not find chicken poppers at Longs in Kahala Mall. But I did find chicken chips; I think they are replacing the chicken poppers; though I did not see any at the Kaimukī. I sent a bag to Kai as soon as I left Longs; the post office is a couple buildings away. I was hoping it would get to him before the sale is over but it won't Hopefully Bear (and my other canine friends) will like them just as much as they liked the chicken poppers. I also went to the one in Kaimiukī to correct the rain check; I had to park in the electric vehicle stall since there were no other stalls.

Judging by the "shelf" tag and what was really hanging there, it looks like poppers are now chips.

I'm not really sure if I can park here if I'm not charging; the Tesla next to me was also not charging.

The post office near Longs. When I arrived the line was several people out the door.

The nasturtiums are still looking good; they didn't suffer too much from the heat yesterday. I took a photo from inside to serve as my "before" photo for when they are growing beautifully and cascading out of the planting trough!

Nasturtiums, before.

Fern, before.

I am still trying to figure out how to eat for the Keto-Carb Cycling. I think I did lunch wrong today. I can have up to 50g carb today, unfortunately I did not read the fine print until tonight; I need to eat the carbs at dinner. I thought I had to eat 50g overall for the day. So I ended up doing a tuna sandwich at lunch. And also for dinner in order to get close to 50g. I think I need to slow down and write out specifics for each day of the week and not just a rough guideline. Auē!

I used sweet chili sauce for lunch today.

Yesterday I used roasted garlic ponzu sauce.

While I was preparing my lunch I noticed on the tuna can that I could figure out where my tuna was caught by going to the Bumblee website and looking up TraceMyCatch. But I needed to find a number or maybe a QR code; so I turned the can over since I didn't see anything on the top. And discovered where my tuna was caught! Vietnam.




I got an email from Kaiser today. There was a link to a video about how to distinguish between the early signs of COVID-19 vs flu vs cold. they had a nice video about the symptoms.

Warning signs for COVID-19, get help immediately. Call 911, tell them you suspect COVID-19.

The new head of the department of health started this morning. And they threw her in to a press conference with the Governor, LG, and Emergency Management director later in the morning. She had the confidence to answer one reporterʻs question about things that started before she was hired with, "This is my first day, I need to find out more about that." A short while later another reporter asked her another question about things that occurred before she arrived. She answered, "Still my first day." I like her!

Dr. Libby Char.

The LG, conducting a press conference from his 9-year old son's bedroom.

I read an article about the sensitivity of the different COVID-19 tests. The FDA has a list of  comparative performance data for over 100 tests currently granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) licenses for COVID-19 tests. The most sensitive NAAT test could detect down to 180 NDU/ml; it uses a nasopharyngeal swab sample. Only 2 of the companies that submitted their data to the FDA used nasal swabs to collect the test sample. Those 2 tests could only detect samples with 7200 and 18,000 NDU/mL. I have no idea which tests were used for the surge testing or which are being used by the State for their usual testing but there is a wide variability in the sensitivity of the tests. If you ask me, I think the worst of the products tested should have their EUAs rescinded! They aren't working well enough to be useful and could be very misleading for both regulators as well as the community.

These are the most sensitive tests reported.

I don't know what brand of test was used for the surge testing but these are 2 nasal swab tests.

An interesting study from the UK suggests that cloth masks are inadvertently allowing people to catch COVID-19 but generally with a less severe outcome. It suggests that they are gaining natural immunity because the masks temper the severity of their illness but the body is still producing antibodies to fight it off.



The mask study article links to a great article about viral load to help explain why you would be more likely to get a milder illness when wearing a mask. Basically, in general you need a certain amount of virus to become infected. With COVID-19 the "viral load at diagnosis" seems to have emerged as a good predictor of outcome (does the patient die or not).


Here's a news piece from Monday that I just saw; it says they are hiring 25 more contact tracers this week. I think that is for the training that began this morning. As far as we know only 2 people from Cohort 1v2 and 3 people from Cohort 2 have been accepted for these 25 positions; all the rest were rejected. We have no idea where or how the 20 other people were trained.


And its not like there were a lot of out-of-work contact tracers sitting around the islands waiting for the call. According to the American Medical Association there were about 2200 contact tracers nationwide prior to COVID-19 or an average of 44 per state; prior to these incoming new hires DOH said they already had 256 working. The AMA estimates at least 100,000 contact tracers are now needed.


There were 102 new COVID-19 cases reported today; bringing the statewide total up to 10,946. There was also 3 deaths reported, bringing that total up to 103; this does not include the deaths at the veterans home in Hilo where about 15 people have died.







Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Linda & Winky!