Congratulations Cohort #4!

I started the morning sitting in on the graduation hoike for Cohort #4 of the UHWO contact tracing training. But this time it was a little different. This is the last group that Dr. Ric & Dr. C will be training; after the previous & the resistance of the Department of Health to hire people that went through the training, this last one was redesigned to provide people working in associated fields to get a better understanding of COVID-19 & its implications. Basically they will be providing information for their organizations about the disease & keeping employees & customers as safe as possible. The premise for the presentations was that they have been invited to submit a grant proposal in support of underserved communities to fight or adjust to the impacts of COVID-19 on the community.

 

Team Mana's proposal is to provide resources to create digital equity. Cohort #4 only met on Saturday morning and Monday evening so they did not have to do a group presentation in the middle of class. This resulted in some technical problems; Team Mana was unable to get their video to play so they had to manually advance the video.

Team Pacific Navigators looked at Internet access and shelter for all.

 

Team Hui o Na Kaiaulu Task Force's proposal centered on health equity and social justice. This team also had some difficulty getting their video to play properly; I was unable to capture much of it. (All teams had some sort of difficulty that needed to be worked put.)

 

The final team, Team COVID ACEs, enlisted the aid of students in a local drama class & their instructor. Their focus was on education & diversifying the economy. One of the students would talk about the issue summarized by the slide that followed; I did not take any screenshots of the students since they are minors. (Permission was given for the video but not this blog.)

One of the things that was discussed today was the vaccines that are coming before the end of the year. There were some great questions that cohorts asked of Dr. Chang who is on the UH faculty. We found out that, currently, the vaccine is known to decrease the severity of symptoms someone will have if they contract the virus; in some cases it may prevent any symptoms. But it is unknown whether a symptomatic person that has been vaccinated can still transmit the virus. Dr. Ric feels that things won't begin to calm down until next fall at the earliest; he also thinks COVID-19 will become like the flu where it is at a low level all the time & ramps up seasonally as the cold weather moves in.

We also learned that the Pfizer vaccine must by transported & stored at extremely low temperatures due to use of messenger RNA, or mRNA, to create the vaccine. The mRNA technology is also the reason why the vaccine was able to be produced so quickly; this is the 1st time it is being used on such a large scale. The vaccine must be thawed before it is mixed with the carrier solution, then all 10 doses in the vial must be administered within 5 or 6 hours. Twenty-one days after the 1st shot, a 2nd dose of the same vaccine must be administered; then 10 to 14 days after that the patient's system has created enough antibodies to confer some level of protection. Although the Moderna vaccine works in a similar manner, the vaccines are not interchangeable; the 2nd dose you get must be the same as the 1st dose. Moderna's vaccine can be safely held at normal freezer temperatures.

 

And one of the Cohort #4 members gave us a link to a very good infographic about exposure and when you should isolate or quarantine and when either is not necessary.

I had lunch when the hoike ended; I had the lamb chili I got at Kokua yesterday along with a salad & a whole wheat roll. I did not have time to workout because I was too tired and I needed a nap! I also skipped making soymilk again; I had to throw out the soybeans I had been soaking. They were very fermented! It's how you start making natto; the fermentation for those begins after they are cooked. 

 

After my nap I went to pick up our CSA box; this is the 7th week out of 8 in our subscription service. The email said we would be getting sassy salad, baby red Russia kale, butterhead lettuce, carrots, daikon, radish, pac choi, curly kale, arugula, basil, and oranges.; and we did! But it was a different kind of daikon than I have had before, they are purple!

As soon as I put away the vegetables, I quickly made a salad for dinner. I wanted to join the Diversity Diner for the annual winter celebrations Zoom.

 

In the Before times, Mary Ellen & Michael hosted the Diversity Diner at their home on the 2nd Saturday of each month. There would be anywhere from a dozen to over 50 people at their house to share in a meal then listen to a speaker or participate in some activity to encourage learning about other cultures as a means of breaking down barriers & creating more understanding & acceptance of differences. After the speaker/activity, dessert is served and conversations can continue or new ones can be had on other subjects. Now it is done over Zoom. But in keeping with the community spirit of the Diner, Mary Ellen started the evening asking each person what they would bring to a winter celebration dinner, wrote down the name of the food, & put the sign in a dish on the dining room table! Here are 2 of the foods. I was eating dinner as I watched the Zoom call.

This was mine; that's 'smoked' turkey, not 'small' turkey. For Kwanzaa.

The Diner community table. (Photo by Mary Ellen)

My dinner; looks kinda like lunch!

Since there are so many celebrations that occur near the end of the year the December Diner tends to be almost the same each year. There are slight differences in the lineup when celebrations based on the lunar calendar occur around this same time. This year Hanukkah started on the evening of the 10th and goes through the 18th; we viewed a video of the history behind Hanukkah. Mary Ellen also lit the 4 candles on the menorah for this evening.

Chronologically, the next celebration is the Solstice which falls on December 21st. The solstice video included both nice photos as well as written text explaining solstice but no voice over. I did not know about the other historical events that happened on the 21st.

Christmas was next; it, of course, falls on December 25th. We watched a video from The History Channel; then LuzMarina shared another video from her native Colombia with us. She also showed some photos of her mother and the Nativity that she would put up every year.

   

The last celebration for this year is Kwanzaa which starts on the 26th and goes through January 1st. The collard greens are what I would make as my contribution to the final day of Kwanzaa when Eleta & I would do our joint January 1st celebrations. I used smoked turkey instead of ham hocks so people of Jewish or Islamic faith could enjoy the collards as well.

As the Diner winds down Mary Ellen, Michael, & Louie say good bye to the guests.

Michael & Louie saying Good Bye. (Photo by Mary Ellen)

The Aix weather app showed some precipitation in Kapaʻau today. But the Tesla app looked like there was much more than just a little rain and cloudiness; I think it must have rained all day! I think this is the lowest production day since I started posting the Tesla power flow graph for the PV system.

Humor time!

Was this Autocorrect? Or Spellchecker Fail?

He should have put "X"s for eyes.

There were 198 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total number up to 19,148. There were 2 new deaths reported today for a total death toll of 271; there are currently 1293 active cases. The 7-day average of new cases on Oʻahu is 74 with a positivity rate of 2.2%. The Mayor says that of the 153 new cases on Oʻahu, many are coming from the Halawa Correctional Facility which reported yesterday that 68 inmates and 21 staff have tested positive. It's hard for me to say how many of the new cases reported today are from Halawa because I can't find enough information in the media today. But if we assume half of those numbers are included in the "new" count, that is 44 or 45 cases, which would be at least 108 new cases. That's still significantly higher than the previous 7 days; in fact, about 2 times higher than most of the past 7 days. Even if all 68 inmates were excluded, the daily count is higher than any of the previous 7 days.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Lisa!