The News and the puzzle.

 I live in a vaccine of my own making. I rarely leave the house and have even fewer conversations in person. I do read a lot of news articles. The articles focus on one thing. My mind turns that information into a puzzle piece. 

Last week there were articles on the stimulus bill, increase in vaccination rates, the availability to vaccines for every one moving from July to May (in January they were saying September) and Governors of red states dropping mask mandates. The only thing they seem to have in common is the Pandemic, right? But there are a lot more connections. It took a few days for the pieces to fall into place. 

1. It seems that Republicans are tired of the Pandemic. Hey Democrats are tired of it too. 

2. Republicans knew the Democrats were going to pass the stimulus bill without them through a loophole. Yes I’m a liberal and usually vote Democrat but I know they used a loophole. Don’t think Republicans don’t use loopholes - Fillibuster anyone??? 

3. Vaccinations are now a 2 million per day! Way faster than I thought. Every adult can have a vaccination at least by the first week in June.

4. US population is roughly 330 million in change. 28.7 million of that population have received full vaccination (2 shots). A 1 shot vaccine entered the distribution early in the week. Herd immunity occurs at between 70 and 80% of population or roughly 231 million. Meaning 202 million citizens need to be vaccinated. At current vaccination rates that is 101 days. Currently infection rates have plateaued.

5. Governors are dropping mask mandates. I believe Texas ends their Mandate Monday. Alabama’s ends April 9th. Some of it might be tired of reminding citizens to wear mask. Some might be the miss information that mask don’t protect from the virus. Some might be the Governor thinks their state will reach herd immunity sooner. They are probably adding recovered patients into the herd immunity projection.

Now that I’ve laid out how I organized the articles here is my conclusion. The Governors are playing Russian Roulette with their citizens. The Republicans are letting the Democrats and specifically President Biden do the heavy lifting. My opinion is that if there is not another spike in late April early May we will see Republican lawmakers going on the news saying there was no reason for the stimulus. Only time will tell.