A long line for COVID testing in City Heights on Monday, Jan.3.
By Anonymous Blogger
I can relate to the following article by Erik Anderson at KPBS. Within the last week or so, two of my roommates have come down with COVID. Another roommate was sent home from work because of the positives in the house.
That roommate did not have COVID symptoms but in order to get back to work, they had to test negative. Other roommates also wanted to be tested just to be on the safe side.
But, lo and behold, nobody could find those at-home COVID test kits. Several pharmacies were tried. Nothing. One roommate called their primary caregiver to get tested but couldn’t get through. Test sites were swamped and no appointments were available in the very near future. Nobody wanted to stand in a line out in the cold for hours. The roommate who wanted to get back to work felt stymied and very frustrated.
A friend was able to be tested but the test results were not available for days.
Nowhere were COVID tests available for immediate results.
The roommate who wanted to get back to the job did so this morning. The Human Resources office at work said if they were asymptomatic and stayed masked-up, and it had been nearly a week since any exposure, they could return.
Yet the problems for thousands of other San Diego County residents are still there. (Thank you editordude for allowing me this rant.)
San Diego County residents scramble to get COVID-19 tests
By Erik Anderson / KPBS / Jan. 3, 2022
There were long lines Monday morning at a San Diego COVID-19 testing station in City Heights as people waited to get tests in the midst of the latest surge of infections.
Many of those waiting expressed post-holiday concern about being in contact with people who might have been infected.
“We were able to hang out with some family that got together with a bigger family,” said Yara Pineda, a Hillcrest resident.
Pineda waited in a long line that stretched for blocks from the City Heights Recreation Center because she wanted to find out if the latest wave of COVID infections have touched her.
Pineda wanted to get tested to make sure it’s OK to be with her 4-year-old child, who is too young to be vaccinated.
“I have two doses,” Pineda said. “I’m waiting for the booster. So after this passes after I get my results I’m actually looking forward to getting the booster shot.”
There were a lot of people trying to get tested in part because at-home testing kits were nearly impossible to find late last week, and the county shut down in-person testing over the weekend as demand for tests rose sharply.
The county’s decision to close testing stations during a surge had San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher on the defensive.
He said county health care workers needed a break from a pandemic that has lasted a lot longer than people expected.
“Health care workers have gone through a lot,” Fletcher said. “So the ability to give them a day or two to be with their families given that the county only administers about ten percent of the total tests. Let’s put this in context now. It’s about ten percent of the total regional amount. To give them a day or two to be with their families I think was the right thing to do.”
County officials say there will be 84 in-person testing events this week, run by the county and its partners. The news is a mixed blessing for some.
“It worries me a lot standing in line. Being around all these people, it worries me a lot,” said North Park’s Janet Robinson. She just wants to make sure she and her grandchildren are safe.
“I had my hood up,” Robinson said. “My glasses on. I’m scared. I had some chills. This is scary.”
San Diego County’s COVID-19 infection rate of 65 cases per 100,000 people is currently running higher than the state average of 46 cases per 100,000.
The number of coronavirus patients in San Diego County hospitals continued to climb at a pace not seen since August, according to state figures released Monday.
There were 664 people in the county hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Monday, up from 628 on Sunday, 590 on Saturday, 510 on Friday and 475 on Thursday. Of the current patients, 122 were in intensive care, a decrease of two from the previous day. The number of available ICU beds increased by seven to 188.
California has had nearly 5.2 million cases of COVID infections since the pandemic began. The virus has killed more than 75,000 people in the state.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
La Jolla Farmer’s Market had free testing last Sunday, some company going around to events in San Diego.
It’s not just the tests, the Monoclonal Antibodies (of which only 1 of the 3 work against Omicron) is also in major short supply.
Which, for some strange reason, anti-mask/anti-vaccine FREEDUMB Texas Gov Abbot is screaming is all Biden’s fault for the sudden radical surge of infections in that Republican owned & operated state. Funny that DeSantis in Florida is also blaming Biden and the Democrats for the shortages. Which, in another strange coincidence, are two of the seven states that HAVE BEEN CAUGHT HOARDING the antibody shots.
All the while they demand more federal funding from Biden while banning masking and doing everything in their gov’norship power to make this pandemic worse because they turned it into a ‘culture war’ that benefits their ideology! I mean, you just can’t make this stuff up!
Why isn’t Biden blasting these Trump-supporting extremists? Why isn’t he screaming back at these morons that they are making it worse by saying HOW they are making it worse on the evening news (which 80% of the population gets their information from)? Because he wants to find ‘consensus’ or ‘reach across the aisle’ as if any of these Jan. 6th enablers are going to suddenly change their behavior? This is not a good strategy when dealing with intractable enemies.
He’s President, he can get on every damn channel and tell the truth! And he won’t freaking do it. WTF is wrong with the neoliberal Democrats???
Unfortunately Biden has always been in the pocket of the wealthy and buddies with Republicans throughout his entire career. Why am I just NOT surprised?
By the way, the other hoarder states are AL, MS, TN, GA, LA. Not a Democrat in the bunch.
No wonder the Republican minority party is destroying the ability to vote in this country. It’s the only way they will stay in power as they kill off their voting block (97% of the dying are unvaccinated last I read, and most likely are GOP voters).
If the Democrats in power are unwilling, they need to step aside and hand that power to the Progressive side of the party. Trump denied federal help to any Blue state that defied him. Maybe it’s time to do the same to Red states?
sealintheSelkirks
Those of us who voted for Biden are not surprised either. I don’t think anyone really thought he was going to be anything spectacular. As frustrating as it may be, the only goal was to vote the Orange tang guy out. Now we have to deal the fact that the guy we did vote in is kind of lame. At least I’m being honest.
Covid tests, granny flats and Midway redevelopment plans don’t mean caca if there’s a coup; please support American democracy by understanding how a coup could happen and how to prevent it.
And the coming Fascist coup won’t mean poo-poo when what’s left of the Arctic thin ice pack melts off soon one fine summer day and worldwide ocean then land temperatures immediately jump degrees in a very short period of time. Mammals will not survive. The Arctic food web has collapsed and it’s the base for the life of the ocean.
In the meantime, I certainly don’t want to be dragged out of my house by rightwing Trump-voting cops (which most cops seem to be) or violent right wing crazy dickhead militias like that violent psycho Babbitt ex-military cop smashing in my window with her brownshirt mob behind her bent on stringing me up for being…not a Republican Trump voter. Either are quite possible.
Ask the Holocaust survivors; the ones still alive are reliving horrible memories over what they are seeing, and publishing their thoughts in warning to us all. It was the local cops that rounded them up and put them on the trains to the gas chambers, and their neighbors who ran them out of their homes for the cops because it was ‘the law.’ Just doing our job they say. Look up the words of:
Stephen B. Jacobs, Buchenwald Concentration Camp Survivor, at OccupyDemocrats.
The ongoing Fascist coup is most definitely real and damned scary. But let’s not forget that it isn’t just about one party as the neoliberal corporate Dems have been part & parcel to what their wealthy corporate sponsors have always wanted which is Fascist control by, shall we say, less obvious means?
People should also read Mayer’s ‘They Thought They Were Free; The Germans 1933-1945.’ In their own ‘middle-class conservative words’ the interviews were, in present circumstances, extremely disturbing and very familiar. My copy used to be some university textbook…but it probably hasn’t been for decades. Too controversial I would imagine.
This IS happening here right this minute, I absolutely agree. And, like climate, there isn’t anybody that has enough wealth and/or power that will actively shift this reality because THERE IS NO PROFIT along with a distinct chance of a loss of their power if our government suddenly shifts to a more equitable distribution of power.
Fascism IS class warfare and we’re losing. The ignorant in-poverty supporters of this are not ‘deplorables’ but instead are ‘disposables.’ Hitler used the SA effectively as cannon fodder until he didn’t need them anymore. Then he purged them. The US puppeteers pulling their strings will do the same thing to these modern cannon-fodder brownshirts as totalitarians aren’t going to leave rabid dogs running around the yard afterwards to muck things up.
They will need talking heads with pretty faces to soothe the masses back to work for the owners. Tucker Carlson anyone? And you won’t see the Board of Directors of major corporations kicking in doors, they have others quite willingly do that for pay, or ideology, or status, or to thinking maybe they’ll get laid etc etc. Disposables. Babbitt was a disposable, lots more where she came from.
As for the comparison to climate destabilization, both have passed tipping points. I listened to it be explained this way and the similarities were striking:
If you have a drink with a 1 cm square ice cube in it, the drink is near zero C about the same as the ice cube. Put 1 calorie of heat into that ice cube and it will immediately turn into liquid but all will still be the same temp. Put another calorie into it and it will be 88’C when you put it to your lips. Add another calorie…The multi-year ice is gone up there, just like our ‘shared national expectations,’ and what’s left are really thin that barely forms during winter and is literally on the cusp of complete melt off.
It is this close to becoming reality both political and climate. And can you imagine how many calories of heat will be immediately absorbed by the dark blue ocean in one DAY just like the calorie being added to the anger and violence being pushed? Those that will profit, just like the fossil fuel oligarchs on climate, will keep adding that ‘calorie of heat’ into the mix because it profits them. Both have passed tipping points. This going to get uglier.
sealintheSelkirks
Newly elected Trumpie Gov of Virginia cancelled mask mandates (amongst other bad rulings) getting his ass handed to him LOUDLY and PUBLICLY.
This woman rocks! “READ THE ROOM, BUDDY” is great. Two weeks in office and govie just lost his first lawsuit yesterday by a judge who ruled against him in throwing out school mask mandates as schools immediately sued him. Then this woman goes viral!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1489364161440231426
I hope she sues the asshole that put his hands on her…cop or political flunky but is obviously MANHANDLING HER. You can see that from the way her body is being moved even with him blocking the camera angle. That was assault and he was in her face. I do that I get arrested.
Look how she tears away her arm and the look she gives him, and listen carefully for the words she was using on this flunky as the camera pans away! Tongue lashing! We know what kind of cops are chosen to ‘guard’ Fascist politicians…
sealintheSelkirks