WQ Sampling?

Really early this morning I got an automated reminder email that I am helping with water quality sampling on Wednesday; I thought all sampling for this week was cancelled. When I double check later in the morning I found that all except Wednesday had been cancelled. A short while later Marjorie sent out an email about upcoming volunteer opportunities helping with both the water contamination response as well as nā keiki vaccine clinics; I decided not to be involved with the water distribution or the clinics since I am already committed to helping with the water sampling. If they have a need for assistance at drive-through testing or nā kūpuna vaccine clinics, I will consider those since I am already trained for them. Later in the day Marjorie sent a final email confirming that the 12/29 sampling was happening.

The early morning automated reminder.

I skipped the NSW walk this morning. I was feeling a little tired; not sure why. I made a plain proothie instead. (I delay the proothie until after the walking when I do it.) 

I got a text from Sally this morning. They landed safely early this morning; so did all of their luggage. I got the text just as I was finishing reading an article about flight cancellations yesterday. Apparently Alaska, the airline they were originally booked on, cancelled 21% of their flights because of snow at Sea-Tac Airport. My question is, Why is an airline that is based in a tropical climate with no snow at the airport able to safely land at a snowy airport when an airline based in a place known for snow is unable to? 

I also got a text from Heidi about a transport tomorrow. I will be doing the 2nd transport for the day if one is needed.

I kinda went down the rabbit hole watching this video. It is a guy on an excavator recovering an excavator that some else buried up past its treads. It looks like it sank until it hit solid ground. I spent part of my career around excavators & big mud holes & have only seen one excavator that was stuck; mud was near the top of the cab. It was someone digging in a wetland without a permit & was just barely visible from the highway so we were not able to watch how they got it out. This was a fascinating video; it is a little over 40 minutes long but shows an expert at work.

I got a call from Janice this afternoon. We talked about her upcoming visit in 1 week. She says the snow should be gone by then so she should be able to fly out okay. Her hip is also still feeling okay. And the tour at Shangri La is still on. So far, everything is looking good.

For dinner I had the last piece of roast beef leftover from Christmas dinner. I also finished off the last of the macaroni salad. 

The State hearing officer has sided with the Department of Health's emergency order directing the Navy to shut down the Red Hill fuel storage facility & drain the tanks. The hearing officer, said based on testimony given, the Red Hill facility is a "ticking time bomb". I think just as important an issue is that it is situated over a Sole Source Aquifer. 

The eruption at Kilauea volcano appeared to be more active today than it was yesterday. Here is a video posted today of activity a week ago.

At 7:12 a.m.

At 8:06 p.m.

At 7:12 a.m.

At 11:43 a.m.

At 8:06 p.m.

At 7:12 a.m.

At 11:44 a.m.

At 8:06 p.m.

It does not look like there has been any new snow on Mauna Kea. But it does look like a bunch of people have been walking around on the existing snow. It would be funny if one day a snow man appears!

The overnight crew.

The overnight crew has left.

Lots of people during the day today.

Signs of people playing in the snow.

The evening crew.

It does not look like there was any more new snow overnight for Kai & the westerly portions of Snohomish County. However, later in the day it looked like there was some snowfall.

Mainly melted off the freeway.

It must have started snowing after the previous photo & continued to leave this much on the freeway.

The Aix weather app forecast rain all day in Honolulu; it was far from that. For Kapa'au, Aix also forecast rain all day; Big Island Now forecast mostly cloudy with scatterd showers in the morning becoming more likely in the afternoon & a 70% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station recorded 0.06 inches at 7:04 a.m.; I did not check later so I don't know what happened.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:03 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 7:04 a.m.

Waikīkī looking easterly at 7:10 a.m.

The north facing & east facing shorelines had the largest surf today. South & west facing shorelines were relatively flat.

Laniakea (N) at 7:08 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 7:09 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 7:10 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 7:11 a.m.

Hawaiʻi County Mayor Roth has tested positive for COVID-19. Apparently one of his household members whom he was in close contact with has tested positive for COVID-19; he was asymptomatic when he was tested over the weekend but is now showing mild symptoms. He had previously planned to take this week off & will be in quarantine for 10 days, so it sucks to be him on his vacation from work! Then later in the day Big Island Now had another article about the Mayor; he said he suspects he has the Omicron variant. It was also disclosed that it was his son who is home for the holidays who had tested positive; this is the most common scenario of residents becoming infected by travelers flying in to the state. It's not the tourists that are mainly responsible for bringing it in.

I have not heard from Dave about coming in to do contact tracing this week; usually he gets the roster out by Friday night for the following week. I am wondering if everything is okay or if they perhaps had a breakthrough case at the call center so everyone is in quarantine? Hopefully, it is more like all the phones are in use & he has no room for me. Another possibility is that the rapid & very large increase in cases is overwhelming the system & the state has decided to discontinue contact tracing until it is useful.

I also read an article about the accuracy of the at-home test kits.The a-home test kits are responding to antigens that show up in nasal secretions. The 3 most common available ae similar but slightly different in terms of the procedure & each must be followed according to the directions for accurate results. The rapid antigen tests are less sensitive than the PCR (poylmerase chain reaction) tests & can return a false negative in the very early stages of an infection if there is not enough antigen in the nasal secretions; they are generally noted as being 85% accurate. If a person is symptomatic they are much more sensitive as well as during the 1st week of symptoms. If the rapid antigen tests are used serially, they have been found to correctly identify up to 98% of infections. So keep using those rapid antigen tests!

 

There were 1384 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 103,773. Donʻt get excited & think we reached the peak & its now going down; this number is from tests done on Saturday when less testing is done than during the week. There were no new deaths reported so the number of fatalities remains at 1082; currently there are 13,966 cases that are considered active. As of today there have been 2,510,078 doses of vaccine administered, providing 73.9% of the State population with full vaccination & 79.4% with at least one dose. LG Green tweeted that 100 cases are currently hospitalized including 38 who are vaccinated; this means that 62% are unvaccinated. The 7-day new case average for the State is 1398 with a positivity rate of 11.8%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 1214 with a positivity rate of 13.9%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Rosalinda & Evan!