Ice Packs, Anyone?

The vaccine shipments arrive on Monday morning. So after lunch one of the secretaries came around letting people know that there were ice packs that needed homes. Apparently they are not reused. Here's a photo of a few that I got; I will try to get a photo of the box full of the homeless ice packs next week. 

Lot more where these came from!

I met with Heather first thing this morning; she is Alicia's supervisor and the head of the DOH Vaccine Supply and Distribution Section. It was very enlightening. First of all, she said the LCC POD is capped at 4000 doses per week, or 1000 per day; they also have unused doses from the previous day available to them. So she does not know why people are talking to me about what resources we need to be able to process 2000 forms in a day.

I was also in 2 virtual meetings, the earlier one was with the Internal LCC POD meeting with DOH. The second one was with the HPD Major Event team. The first was via MS Teams, which I overheard someone saying is more compliant with HIPAA rules than Zoom. During this meeting I learned that there is a revised EUA that has been issued for the Moderna vaccine; it can now stay out of refrigeration for 24 hours if the vial is unpunctured and 12 hours if the vial has been punctured. This is good news since it makes it easier to handle and transport. It was also determined that a process was needed for people who have lost their COVID-19 Vaccination Card; it appears people will be directed to the DOH Immunization branch to get a certificate which will be a verified medical record with as much weight as the  vaccine card. Going through the Immunization Branch now will make it easier when all the PODs are closed to have people all going to the same place.

The other was via Cisco Web something or other. My headphones were working well on the 1st call. But on the 2nd the sound was coming out of the speakers, so I quickly sent a message to Mac from IT; he came right up and worked on fixing the problem. Right near the end of the meeting he got it to work properly. But he still can't figure out why it will work well at one meeting then be on different settings on the next meeting and send the sound out through the speakers; it's done this to me on 2 different days now.

Although the morning started out looking like it was going to rain, at least in the beginning of the day; it turned out quite nice.

At 7:01.

Looking at Nā Koolau at 7:05.

When I arrived in the parking lot this morning, I saw a male Kolea in its breeding plumage. It wonʻt be long now before they start their migration to the Arctic. Usually by the end of April all those that will be breeding will have left the islands.

I found a dead roach in my cubicle when I walked in this morning; it was sort of a medium sized one, not much larger than a quarter. I didn't see any others around, dead or alive. The ones that the cats bring in the house are much larger than this one.

The cafeteria was closed today; Gail went to get her COVID-19 shot. I was going to go over to the lunch truck behind Queen's Hospital suggested by someone I ran in to in the elevator. But when I got outside I found it was quite a detour to get to a safe place to cross the street, so I went back and ate the bison bar that I keep in my backpack for emergencies.

I tried to log in to VAMS in the afternoon; I finally found the link sent to me after Alicia made logins for us. But it kept telling me I was not authorized to sign in at the jurisdiction level; it said I needed to sign in as a recipient!

Then I tried signing in on the old MRC login that Audrey created for me; it was working last week. But this week it sent the 2-step verification code to "my" email that . Then it sent a code to the burner phone; which had already been taken out to LCC. Auē! I'll have to try again tomorrow at LCC when the phone is available.

Just before I left work Suzanne sent me a photo of the sunset at her home, Hale Iliahi.

It kinda looks like a volcano erupting!

Kīlauea is still going strong.

There were 95 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total up to 30,228 known cases. There were no new deaths reported so the death toll remains at 467; currently 1313 cases are considered to be active. The 7-day new case average on Oʻahu is 59 with a 2.1% positivity rate. It looks very likely that we will not be able to prevent ourselves from dropping back down to the more restrictive Tier 2.