School District Levy committee
On Zoom because of COVID concerns; lots of good discussion.
Levy Development Committee 2022 (wednet.edu)
COVID – week 95 – January 3 – January 9
Weekend – let’s take a look at local, Washington state data. Oh boy.
Friday – news of possible Covid exposure; so one of the household is off to get a PCR test tomorrow. Another look for rapid, at-home, lateral flow tests – and there are none to be had at any local pharmacy within ~75 miles; what stock comes in is gone within 5 minutes.
Thursday – boosters approved in the US for 12-15 year olds; last in the house scheduled for that. UK NHS declaring critical situations.
Wednesday – every day brings a new eyewatering record, 200k+ cases per day in the UK, 1M in the US, 1 in 15 had Covid in England last week.
Tuesday – over 1 million new cases in the US, 220k new cases in the UK. “Fourth shot gives 5x antibody boost”
Monday – UK NHS trusts buckling under the pressures of staff illness, staff burnout and the numbers of folk being hospitalised. Boosters to be approved in US from mid-week for all over 12.
Continued vast case numbers in the UK; and a large upward pressure on hospitals.
This time last year – looking back at the huge wave in cases, hospitalisations and deaths in the UK. Washington State was starting the planning for mass vaccination sites.
| The Guardian | The Seattle Times | |
| 3 Jan | here | here |
| 4 Jan | here | here |
| 5 Jan | here | here |
| 6 Jan | here | here |
| 7 Jan | here | here |
| 8 Jan | here | here |
| 9 Jan | here |
1921 England & Wales Census
Find My Past have the exclusive release of the 1921 England & Wales Census – and as many know this is a big one.
The 1931 Census was destroyed by fire in 1942, there was no 1941 Census, and the next one to be released will be 1951 in 2051! The 1939 Register is a half-way house, it’s got some great detail (like dates of birth and some married name tracking) – but none of the other information that is useful.
I was concerned about the micro-transaction nature of this – £2.50 per transcript, £3.50 for each image – even for Pro users. I’ll be carefully selecting which records to view; might be just six.
COVID – week 94 – December 27 – January 2
Weekend – Omicron wave in the US looks to be driven by teens and young adults; certainly a large uptick locally. Oh – and that local uptick; a vast number of tests being done, and a corresponding number of positive cases.
Friday – The last day of 2021; the day before year 3 of Covid. US expecting a “Viral Blizzard”, South Africa seeing the start of a rapid burnout and decline of omicron cases. Those UK numbers – the jump yesterday in hospitalisation, the slight jump in deaths. Sign of the next month I fear. The US probably looks similar.
Thursday – University of Washington are overwhelmed with PCR tests; so restrictions going in to only test sympomatic and contact traced people. Short version – pooling becomes less effective when 50% of your tests are positive.
Wednesday – Florida seeing record cases, hospitalisation surge to follow. New Year’s Eve celebrations “should be cancelled”. 183k cases in the UK. By close of week the step jumps from 40k per day, to 85k per day, to 130k up to 180k+ is going to look like a rocket taking off. Exponential growth.
Tuesday – here’s the first part of the pre-Christmas data from the State. Not unsurprising – there’s a massive jump in positive cases; this is most likely on the back of the leap in tests being performed. The ten days before Christmas there was a huge rush to get tested, and there were shortages of home lateral flow tests. Infographic as always from The Seattle Times. King County reports almost 200% jump in positive cases, US health officials are looking at an early January surge. 13% of PCR tests in Seattle were positive.
Monday – reporting figures look partial due to the holiday weekend. UK shows 98k positive cases.
This time last year – “soon this will be a full year of working from home, and school from home”, early vaccine rollouts in the US were “being botched”
| The Guardian | The Seattle Times | |
| 27 Dec | here | here |
| 28 Dec | here | here |
| 29 Dec | here | here |
| 30 Dec | here | here |
| 31 Dec | here | here |
| 1 Jan | here | here |
| 2 Jan | here |
COVID – week 93 – December 20 – December 26
Weekend – Record new cases around the globe, US and UK included, families getting together for Christmas. NSW, Australia Health Minister says “get vaccinated, we’re all going to get omicron”.
Friday – 1.7M new Covid cases in the UK last week.
Thursday – escalating daily cases in the UK. Today – almost 120k. Four vaccinations may be needed to give enough protection.
Wednesday – UK NHS planning for a “super surge”. 106k cases in the UK yesterday. Early reports from Scotland suggest that omicron is serious, but may not have the same level of hospitalisations as delta. That being said; still early; and even a small fraction of positive cases at this number will overwhelm health systems.
Tuesday – UW moves to online learning again in the new year. Negative tests in the house. That’s a relief. 90k+ positive cases in the UK for almost a week. Carefully watching hospitalisation data, which lags by ~15 days.
Graphic from The Guardian.
Monday – heading into Christmas and New Year with raging positive cases, and the potential of a huge funnel leading to hospital collapse. Potential positive exposure in the house; PCR test done, waiting for results. There are no lateral flow tests to be had within 100 miles.
This time last year – “the mutation is everywhere” – the story repeats. The shock of 40k cases daily in the UK.
| The Guardian | The Seattle Times | |
| 20 Dec | here | here |
| 21 Dec | here | here |
| 22 Dec | here | here |
| 23 Dec | here | here |
| 24 Dec | here | here |
| 25 Dec | here | here |
| 26 Dec | here |
Ubiquiti NVR and cameras – solving adoption woes
Finally Ubiquiti got their supply chains started up – and I sprung for the Ubiquiti NVR and a set of cameras.
The cameras look great (I’ll update with some photos later), at first glance looking well made and quite solid.
Getting them “adopted” by the NVR was a real pain. Two were discovered immediately, the other two.. well here’s my reminder post on that.
My troubleshooting list:
- usual POE fun: port status, POE injector status, cable swap.
- is the camera online, IP address?
- port scan of the camera, are tcp22, tcp80 (ssh/web) open?
- web browse to the camera, can you log in?
- physical reset of the cameras (paper clip, 10 seconds, reboot)
- set the upstream NVR manually through the camera config
This was buried on the Ubiquiti support site:
UniFi Protect – Adopt devices – Ubiquiti Support and Help Center
COVID – week 92 – December 13 – December 19
Weekend – UK: “restrictions now, or up to 2M cases per day“, Netherlands: immediate lockdown. Weekly look at Washington State – and it’s still relatively positive. More locally, King County has a slight increasing trend. 76% of all residents are fully vaccinated (that’s from birth), and 86% of 12 and over. In Issaquah it’s over 95%.
In a sign that Omicron is here; lateral flow tests are unavailable in stores. Friends with fever getting tested; concern that the local High School has multiple outbreaks.
Good read on Omicron in Demark. Stark warning from Dr Fauci about hospitalisation numbers. Really it’s a numbers funnel; vast numbers of cases in the top, increased hospitalisations, increased deaths.
Friday – 93k positive cases in the UK today; with a doubling period of around 3 days. “Frightening” and “Tsunami” really don’t do this justice. Really hoping for some better news, but the impact of even a tiny fraction of this case load becoming hospitalised is going to be huge. USA, Germany, UK flagging an overwhelming fifth wave.
Thursday – two massive days of positive cases in the UK. 88k today. Flu, Delta, Omicron. Rising concerns around the globe about rapid Omicron wave, hospitalisations and health system overload.
Wednesday – US looking at “triple whammy” of delta, omicron and flu in mainly unvaccinated areas.
Tuesday – Omicron starting to build up in Washington State. Impact to vaccinated is still unclear. South Africa data shows some hope. Previous infection, with no vaccination, looks to be pretty short lived protection.
Monday – “1 of every 100 older Americans has died of COVID”. 200k Omicron infections per day in UK. Shocking. A year on from the first vaccines.
This time last year – seems familiar: UK in the grip of a more transmissible mutation, runaway cases, first vaccines in the US.
| The Guardian | The Seattle Times | |
| 13 Dec | here | here |
| 14 Dec | here | here |
| 15 Dec | here | here |
| 16 Dec | here | here |
| 17 Dec | here | here |
| 18 Dec | here | here |
| 19 Dec | here |
COVID – week 91 – December 6 – December 12
Weekend – a quick look at the Washington State details – and that flattening of cases looks like an uptick. :\ On the positive side – Western Washington is >70% fully vaccinated. Infographic from the Seattle Times again. In the UK the apparent duplicity of the Government around Christmas parties last year, when everything was fully locked down, has knocked Omicron off the top of the headlines. An additional 75k deaths in England alone forecast by end of Spring 2022.
Friday – UK daily cases still climbing; there is no sharp climb and spike like Winter 2020 – this is 30-60k cases per day, since June. Hospitalisation remains lower than last winter. In Washington State, the case numbers have flattened.
Thursday – Booster jabs approved in US for 16+ . UK lockdowns “Plan B” returning.
Wednesday – “Three Pfizer jabs neutralise Omicron; Moderna or Novavax after AstraZenaca provides high immunity” – boosters look to provide protection against the Omicron variant.
UK cases are still climbing, and 50k cases per day; 300k+ per week.
Tuesday – “stealth omicron variant difficult to sequence as omicron by PCR tests” is a concern, I think this means PCR tests show positive, but not which variant. May just be some process iteration and tweaking to improve that. Still hope that current vaccines (and boosters) are effective.
Monday – Omicron all the time in the news. More transmissible, large R0 in unvaccinated.
This time last year – massive cases in Washington, the US and around the globe. 3000+ deaths per day in the US.
| The Guardian | The Seattle Times | |
| 6 Dec | here | here |
| 7 Dec | here | here |
| 8 Dec | here | here |
| 9 Dec | here | here |
| 10 Dec | here | here |
| 11 Dec | here | here |
| 12 Dec | here |
COVID – week 90 – November 29 – December 5
Weekend – A great weekend away in BC, vaccination proof being looked at for all indoor bars and restuarants, masks being worn everywhere. Limited protests.
Weekly data from The Seattle Times shows a worrying uptick in positive cases in the last few days; but that could be related to Thanksgiving travel.
Friday – BC vaccination app is everywhere; proof of vaccination, QR code on phone, links to live “vaccinated or not” backend system. No real protests, and it felt much like Washington State in many respects.
Thursday – for the first time since the start of this pandemic, a trip outside the US. Land travel to British Columbia, Canada. ArriveCAN for entry, proof of vaccination, proof of negative test. Long lines at the border heading into Canada. We were worried that the omicron variant would close the border into Canada, or require additional testing while there, or for return.
Wednesday – Omicron variant was “in Europe, weeks ago”. Positive cases everywhere; including the US.
Tuesday – Boosters may protect against Omicron; they may not; a new vaccine may be needed; new vaccine within 100 days. Much not understood yet. Saw long lines for student booster shots in Capitol Hill, Seattle last night.
Monday – the news is all Omicron variant. South Africa being both vilified and held up as a great model of healthcare. Certainly testing and sequencing got early data out. Still lots of unknown factors. WHO says “very high” global risk.
This time last year – the start of the discussion about vaccinations, and breaking through the antivax rhetoric. WA Notify – the Washington State Notification App launched.
| The Guardian | The Seattle Times | |
| 29 Nov | here | here |
| 30 Nov | here | here |
| 1 Dec | here | here |
| 2 Dec | here | here |
| 3 Dec | here | here |
| 4 Dec | here | here |
| 5 Dec | here |
COVID – week 89 – November 22 – November 28
Weekend – I predict it’s all Omicron until the end of the year. Two cases sequenced in the UK; also Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Hong Kong. R is about 2.
Meanwhile, locally, cases are still trending down; we’re back to August levels of cases and hospitalisation.
Friday – that moved quickly. From sequencing, to reporting, to variant of concern, to travel restrictions in Europe and the US. B.1.1.529 is now the “Omicron variant”. Concerns around transmissibility and evasion of immunity.
Thursday – Thanksgiving here in the US. Thankful for vaccines, boosters and a local view that masked and vaxxed is the route back to some semblance of normal. Rumblings of a new variant from southern Africa (B.1.1.529) – first sequenced mid-November.
Wednesday – that multi-month long run of 30-40k cases in the UK is really concerning. That’s 4.5MM+ people in the UK who have had COVID since July, in a country with almost 70% fully vaccinated. The long term effects are unknown. Pictogram from The Guardian
Tuesday – new COVID cases rose by 32% in children under 18 in the US. Back to school, masks, slow vaccination. It’s the new vector for transmission. CDC/NIH approve vaccinations for kids 5+ now.
Monday – booster shots approved for all US adults.
This time last year – records being broken, the accelerating climb to the winter peak. 20% of tests returning positive in parts of Washington State. Looking back – this really was the worst period locally. Lots of cases, lots of illness, too much hospitalisation and death.
| The Guardian | The Seattle Times | |
| 22 Nov | here | here |
| 23 Nov | here | here |
| 24 Nov | here | here |
| 25 Nov | here | |
| 26 Nov | here | here |
| 27 Nov | here | here |
| 28 Nov | here |
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