Aloha Stadium Surge Testing

I volunteered with the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) today at the surge testing at Aloha Stadium. I was the runner for the data entry center. It started out poorly, the supervisor who was running the data entry center (it was a medical person, not Alicia from the LCC POD) only showed me 1 of the places where I needed to pick up forms; I found out about an hour later that there were 2 other places. Then they forgot to assign someone to be a runner to take the retest forms out to the medical group they were supposed to go to & the male RN at the tent kept telling me I needed to take them with me. I checked in with the medical supervisor & was told I was not the one to do that, it would be handled; it wasn't. The next time I came by to pick up forms for data entry the male RN started yelling at me; I told him to back off, then got the clinic manager involved. He did not say anything to me after that; he barely even looked at me when I went in to get the other forms. 

I determined that picking up forms once every 10 minutes would usually provide all the data entry clerks at least 1 form for each of the 16 of them; I set my phone to go off every 10 minutes. At one point after lunch the data entry center supervisor told me to go out & get forms since the clerks were sitting around doing nothing; I told her I would but there wouldn't be many because it was only about 5 minutes since I had last collected forms. There were only 6 forms; I made sure she saw me pass out 1 form to each of 6 people while the other 10 still had nothing to do. She stopped telling me when to go out to get forms.

The interior of the data entry tent before they added the lights down the middle.

When I went to bed last night, I was not sure I would be helping at the surge testing today; I had not received a response from Marjorie. So I texted Ciza about 10 pm since I thought Marjorie might be a little busy & I dropped off her radar. I got an email from her early this morning.

The purple line is route of patients getting tested starting from right end.

 

Getting to the stadium was another matter. As I approached the on ramp I crossed the overpass & saw that traffic was backed up to the entrance ramp I was headed for. It was a good thing I gave myself an extra 15 minutes to get there!

On the 6th Avenue overpass, checking out traffic.

On freeway, in traffic.

When I arrived at Aloha Stadium in the morning, I saw a couple of people from the LCC vax POD! The 1st person I saw was Laureen, then Cliff & his wife . About 10 minutes later we saw Monica & Gerald in the registration line! Later I saw Lynnette & Holly, 2 of the Public Health Nurses that were helping run the LCC vax POD clinic for several weeks. And Gloria from DOH was also there! Laureen said when she was there on the weekend there were people talking to people coming to test & offering to sell them test kits for $40 for 2 kits; the surge testing is free but you do have to stand in line.

I got a text from Janice in the morning, just before the gates opened. We texted several times throughout the day.

Similar to the vax POD at Leeward Community College, lunch was provided to people who worked the entire day. Like LCC, if you wanted the vegetarian meal you put a "V" next to your name at the registration table. The difference is that there is no white board that tells you what you get in the regular versus vegetarian meal. Today the vegetarian meal was from Heʻeia Pier General Store & Deli and was a mix of mainly broccoli with some carrots, asparagus, mushrooms, cauliflower, tomato, & about 6 cubes of tofu. It met the definition of vegetarian but I would not order this again.

My phone started dying a couple hours after lunch; it was busy tracking my walking. And I had also spent a lot of my 8 minutes of down time between runs on Duolingo. I could not see the screen & it kept turning itself off about an hour before I left so this map is not quite accurate; the end of my walking time should be closer to 2:30 p.m. I don't know when it stopped logging my actual walking.

Because my phone was dying, I did not see DT's text until I got home & plugged my phone in to start charging. It turns out he was the only teacher who did not choose to test; when he found out they could find a substitute for the afternoon, he took off & went to the airport to get tested. He stayed in his room for the rest of the evening & declined to join us for dinner while he waited for the test result.

We picked Breanna up & took her out to dinner at Himalayan Kitchen. We started with a bread platter & 2 appetizer platters; the spicy wings were a little too spicy for me. For the main meal we ordered Eggplant Korma, Nepali Style Fish Stew, Kathmandu Shrimp Chili, Saag Paneer, Chicken Tikka, & Butter Chicken.

The appetizers, clockwise from top: Himalayan  Bread Basket, Himali Platter, & Himachal Spicy Wings.

Clockwise from lower left: mint sauce, Kathmandu Shrimp Chili, Eggplant Korma, Saag Paneer, Chicken Tikka, Nepali Style Fish Stew, rice, & Butter Chicken.

My plate of dinner.

During dinner, I got a couple of photos from Suzanne. Her daughter-in-law Jackie had another baby a week ago Sunday; Aliana Marie Kealaikaikaokalani. She also sent me a photo of how her next youngest granddaughter Nalani stopped their dog Keoni's tail from wagging!

Aliana Marie Kealaikaikaokalani.

Keoni.

We had gone to dinner a little earlier than originally planned; Breanna wanted to go to Via Gelato for dessert. So we did. Most of us got Fierce Chocolate. The Most Excellent Cook got Tiramisu and Green Tea Oreo. 

The menu for tonight.

Place your order here.

Some of the tonight's flavors available.

After we got back from dinner, DT got his result back. It was negative! So he came out of his room & had some leftovers. Technically, the result is "Not Detected" versus "Detected", but everybody calls it a "negative" test result; including some medical folks.

Later in the evening, I got an email from Marjorie updating the volunteers on the surge testing; they were adding a vaccination station at the testing site. Which makes sense; when someone tests negative, they might be so relieved that they haven't contracted the Delta variant of COVID-19 they would be willing to now get the vaccine. I wonder if they will be having a separate VAMS data entry center? (The testing information is entered in to Maven not VAMS.)

Much later in the evening I got a text from Mary Ellen with a photo from a couple years ago when she & Michael were visiting. Mary Ellen & I went shoe shopping because the sole of my shoe started delaminating. 

A bunch of invasive goats have been removed from Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park. They were given to people who won permits in a lottery; they had to have a trailer & take a minimum of 20 goats.

The Aix weather app forecast rain all day here; in Kaimukī that was not true. But at Aloha Stadium it was more true; it drizzled or rained more of the time during the surge testing than not. For Kapaʻau, the Aix app forecast partly cloudy skies through ab out mid-afternoon, then rain; since I was too busy to do any screen shots I have no idea what happened today. Same with Marysville, Aix forecast light drizzle without accumulation through mid-afternoon, then partly cloudy skies.

 

Kaimukī at 6:12 a.m.

Kaimukī at 7:44 a.m.

Nā Koʻolau at 7:50 a.m.

Hurricane Linda continues to have sustained winds of 105 mph, stronger than anticipated a few days ago. Linda is moving westerly at about 13 mph & is expected to cross over in to the Central Pacific region some time on Thursday. It is expected to pass northerly of the state over the weekend.

Another anti-masker contracted COVID-19. And because he is a high mucky muck he is getting gold standard medical treatment that is not available to the masses. I hope he is not like Trump & thinks getting COVID-19 is not a big deal because of it. Auē! I do give him credit for doing the right thing by being vaccinated; kudos to him for at least doing that. But please also put your mask on & order a mask mandate for Texas!

There were 460 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases to 52,199. There were no new deaths reported so the death toll remains at 552; currently there are 8238 cases that are considered active. As of yesterday, there were 1,808,134 doses of vaccine administered providing 61.5% of the population with full vaccination and 69.4% with at least one dose. Of the 324  COVID-19 patients currently in the hospital, 89% are unvaccinated. The 7-day new case average on Oʻahu is 457 with an 8.5% positivity rate.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Billy Boy & DeAndre!