My Summer Vacation: Sunday Posted!

I spent most of the day trying to get Blogger to work again. It would not load at all in the new, improved version; I ended up working in the "legacy" version. But I finally got the post for Sunday sort of finished; I was unable to load a bunch of photos.

I finally caught S'mores using the shark bed! This was one of Xander's favorite places to sleep when I first brought him to Mom & Dad's house. He was familiar with it from home and it was also fairly enclosed so he could hide in there. It also unzips so it could fold flat and easily fit in my suitcase.

There is a storm in the Eastern Pacific that is headed our way; it will not cross in to the Central Pacific area until some time next week. Hurricane Marie is currently about 900 miles southwest of Baja California and moving westerly at about 16 mph. Although it is predicted to become a major hurricane soon, it is also predicted to beginning diminishing before the weekend.

I was going to share some articles with you on Sunday, but since I was having such a diffficult time with Blogger, I moved them to this post. The first was about the use of the shaka & masks.A study by researchers from the UH John A Burns School of Medicine think it can increase mask usage in a non-confrontational manner. They also found that about 75% of people they observed in 2 locations were wearing masks properly; the ones in the dowtown business area had 88% and in Waikiki it was 66%.

We're coming in to the flu season which has a lot of public health officials worried; Dr. Char warns that the upcoming flu season could be one of the worst we3 have seen due to COVID-19. This year's flu season was already predicted to be a bad one, it will be made worse bu pressure from COVID-19 on the medical and hospital care systems. Since both are respiratory diseases, they require much of the same medical equipment for treatment; this would be true even in a normal flu season.

People on Oahu are flocking to the beaches. With the lifting of the stay-at-home order and the implementation of the Reopening Strategy where groups of up to 5 people from the same family unit can congregate on the beach, more families are getting outdoors with their kids! Groups still have to maintain a minimum physical distance of 6 feet from each other and wear masks except while eating or drinking and, of course, wash their hands!

They're still fixing the Safe Travels online quarantine checking system. Apparently it's still not working well. My first experience with Safe Travels was back on April 16th, when I returned from Hawaiʻi Island; I had checked in on line but I wasn't able to print my form so I had to fill out a paper form at Kona Airport before I boarded the plane. The following day I received a reminder email asking me whether I was in self-quarantine, did I have a fever, cough, or difficulty breathing? After answering all those questions, it thanked me, & I logged out. I received a reminder email every morning at 10am for the remainder of the quarantine. Seemed like it was working well.

I returned to Hawaiʻi Island in mid-May, 2 weeks before Uncle Kazu's memorial; I checked in online the night before my flight and also printed a hard copy which I turned in at the Honolulu Airport. While I was doing that the checker said I should apply for an essential worker exemption because of the work I do for Dad as his power of attorney. The following day I did not get an email but I knew the drill, so I went to the Safe Travels website and checked in; it thanked me for completing my quarantine and told me to enjoy the rest of my stay! It was looking at my initial travel information I had entered in April; so I went in to update my travel information and it told me I couldn't leave before I arrived! I ended up calling the Safe Travels info line and was told the app could not handle multiple trips and was being upgraded in order to do so; I was also told a live person would call me for the remainder of my quarantine to follow-up. No one ever called.

My next flight was in mid-June, about a week before the inter-island travel quarantine was lifted. Since I was on Hawaiʻi Island, I opted to just fill out the paperwork at the airport since I had no printer available. When the order lifting the inter-island quarantine was finally released, I found that I could not leave quarantine on the date of the lifting; I had to do the full 14 days. By now I had checked and found the Safe Travels website still did not allow for multiple flights. I did get an essential workers exemption to do things for Dad so I was able to visit him on Fathers Day, but I remained in the house for the rest of the quarantine. No one ever called to check if I was following the quarantine.

On my next 2 trips, to and from Hawaiʻi Island in July, there was no quarantine but I still needed to fill out the paperwork. I did it on the Safe Travels website the night before my flight as directed and this time I was sent a QR code to show at the airport. (You must check-in within 24 hours of your flight and answer questions about fever, cough, difficulty breathing, & COVID-19 test status.) At the Honolulu airport the checker was unable to scan my QR code initially, but she persisted and after about 10 minutes it finally worked. And the QR code worked smoothly at the Kona end , too; so it seemed like at least those bugs were worked out. I did, however, run in to the slowest TSA screener ever when I was returning from Hawaiʻi Island! (And, yes, you did count that correctly; I have done three 14-day inter-island quarantines.)

Speaking of Safe Travels, the LG held a press conference today to talk about the pre-arrival testing program. Looks like the bulk of the program is coming along and will be ready by October 15th. He apparently put the presentation together when he was in quarantine in his son's bedroom. The estimate is that about 8000 people per day will begin arriving; it is also estimated that about 1 in 1000 people will be infected but in the very early stage before they begin shedding virus and can be found via a test. People showing symptoms when they arrive on this end will be retested & quarantined until a negative test comes back. Since planes carry less than 1000 people and people should be wearing their mask on the plane (unless eating or drinking) flying here should be low risk.

The teachers have been upset about the state's desire to open up the public schools next week; private schools opened up for in-person learning last week. The DOE is following the State Department of Health Guidelines; but the union says the state is not following the CDC Guidelines. I have not heard specifics on what the union thinks the DOE is not following; but the CDC Guidelines do clearly say to work with your local health department to figure out how to open safely. And the DOE seems to be doing that.

The number of contact tracers has changed; more are shown as having been hired. Sort of. The 2 official Department of Health websites show different numbers. And we are still not sure where the people are coming from.

This is the original graphic & was posted on 09/30.

This is from the new dashboard & appears to also have been updated 09/30.

There were 108 new COVID-19 cases reported today for a total of 12,515 known cases. There were 3 new deaths reported, bringing the death toll up to 139; all the Hilo cases have not yet been confirmed. The Oʻahu 7-day average is 96 with a 3.9% positivity rate. There are now 2036 active cases; after initially experiencing a large artificial decline on September 26th due to an update in the data entry system, active cases have been steadily increasing.