Roy Exum
Our state health workers in Tennessee have averaged administering over 13,000 doses of COVID vaccine a day in the past week. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the state’s demand for the life-saving drugs – given at no charge to virtually anyone from any state – have dropped a spooky 31 percent in the past week and we need to encourage our non-vaccine folks to please reconsider.
There is a rumor that the coronavirus will have a comeback in the fall and don’t be like the guy from Texas who boasted he was tougher than the disease -- this week he is going through a desperate double-lung transplant after COVID has darn-near decimated him.
The American Medical Association, which is the most prominent of all physician organizations, just did a survey which found 96 percent of America’s doctors are fully vaccinated.
Don’t you wish Tennessee was like that?
Wednesday’s numbers show our state has administered the vaccine to 2.79 million in the Volunteer State but just 34.6 percent of Tennesseans are fully vaccinated. Better, 41 percent have had the first of the two shots but we are a far way from “herd immunity” that will help stifle the still-active virus.
The state average is that 38 percent of Tennessee is fully vaccinated according to a second website and that puts Hamilton County (38 percent) in tenth place as the most vaccinated among the state’s 95 counties. Tops is Loudon County (46 percent) while Davidson County (Nashville) is 43 percent and Knox County is 41 percent. Shelby County (Memphis) is 32 percent
Over the last week, Tennessee has seen an average of 123 confirmed cases and five deaths per day. Tennessee has the 35th most confirmed cases per capita among states and D.C. during the same seven-day period.
Nationally, at least 177.9 million people have received one or both doses of the vaccine in the U.S. This includes more than 150.8 million people who have been fully vaccinated. This means 45.4 percent of the nation is fully vaccinated and 53.6 percent with at least one dose. Thus far, 378.9 million doses have been distributed.
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TONIGHT! THE LAST ‘SUPERMOON’ THIS YEAR AT 8:11 P.M.
The last Supermoon of the year will arise at 8:11 p.m. tonight and, according to NASA, it should be super. The problem is that the moon doesn’t know its name. Historically a moon in June is called the Strawberry moon but it is also called Mead, Honey, Rose, Flower, Hot, Hoe or Planting Moon.
Astronomers will tell you it will begin on the same longitude as the Sun at 2:40 this afternoon but moonrise in the Chattanooga area will begin a few minutes after 8 p.m. and the chances of seeing the Supermoon should be perfect if we have clear skies.
In Europe, the “honey moon” is what the June rising is called – hence June is the sweetest month for marriage - and, since the 1500s, Mead has been a beer-type drink made from fermented honey. (Thank God mead never caught on; it tastes awful, most especially at room temperature.) You can figure out why the other names from here.
Oh, and a “Supermoon” is one when the moon comes closer to earth (within 90 percent of perigee) and seems bigger and brighter.
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CRITICAL THINGS TO THINK ABOUT IN 2021
(NOTE: I did not write this anonymous offering from the Internet that arrived on Monday but I kind of’ wish I had. This speaks for a lot of people.)
I never dreamed that I would have to face the prospect of not living in the United States of America, at least not the one I have known all my life. I have never wished to live anywhere else. This is my home, and I was privileged to be born here. But today I woke up and as I had my morning coffee, I realized that everything is changing for the worse.
No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, no matter how much I pray, something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind!
You can't justify this insanity:
* -- If a guy pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
* -- Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
* -- Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.
* -- It was cool for Joe Biden to "blackmail" the President of Ukraine, but was an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquired about it.
* -- People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their (?) degrees.
* -- Illegal Immigrants with Covid, tuberculosis, and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
* -- Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang member or terrorist who jumps the southern fence is welcome.
* -- If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.
* -- People who say there is no such thing as a gender are demanding a female President.
* -- We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan for us.
* -- Criminals are caught and released to hurt more people but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of their rights.
* -- And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us "racists"?!
Nothing makes sense anymore - no values, no morals, and no civility. We are clearly living in an upside-down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong but killing unborn babies is okay!
Wake up America, the great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, it's taking on water, and is sinking fast. We Americans are drowning. Speak up while you still have breath and a voice for soon you will have neither if you don't!
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My sentiments exactly.
royexum@aol.com