From The Texas Tribune:

[link:https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/17/texas-primary-election-2022-voter-guide/|

These dates are for the primary election:

The last day to register to vote is Jan. 31. The last day to apply for a ballot by mail is Feb. 18. Early voting runs from Feb. 14-25.

When you go to the link, you can fill in your address and it will show the races and candidates.

Just called our county elections office. The application asks for either the license # or the last four of the SS. I had only included the license #. Luckily, she told me that they had both of these numbers listed in the database for me. This is not the case for everyone, so they are requesting that people to do both.

A big thank you to the DU folks who posted this caution last week! I would have not known to follow up on this otherwise.

This is an excerpt from an article from The Guardian that discusses under counted deaths from long term effects of Covid.

Interesting read.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/07/true-number-covid-deaths-us-likely-undercounted-experts|

snip:

“Death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said, among working-age people between 18 and 64. Deaths among older Americans have also increased, with one in 100 Americans over the age of 65 dying.

There have been an estimated 942,431 excess deaths in the US since February 2020, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hispanic, Black and Native American and Alaska Native populations have been disproportionately affected with high death rates, research shows.

Previous crises pale in comparison to the pandemic, Davison said. “A one-in-200-year catastrophe would be a 10% increase over pre-pandemic [levels]. So 40% is just unheard of.”

Today from the Guardian:

Insurrection Index identifies those who acted as accomplices by participating in 6 January attack or spreading Trump’s ‘big lie’

snip:

"The Insurrection Index seeks to identify all those who supported Trump in his bid to hold on to power despite losing the election, in the hope that they can be held accountable and prevented from inflicting further damage to the democratic infrastructure of the country.

All of the more than 1,000 people recorded on the index have been invested with the public’s trust, having been entrusted with official positions and funded with taxpayer dollars. Many are current or former government employees at federal, state or local levels."

snip:

"The individuals recorded on the index who are already in public office include the 147 members of Congress who objected to the certification of the 2020 election result. The list also names many elected officials in state legislatures across the nation, including states like Arizona that were ground zero for Trump’s efforts to steal the election from Biden."

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/05/trump-capitol-attack-democracy-election-insurrection-index|

My county data comes from the CNN Website ([https://www.cnn.com/resources/coronavirus-information]) The source for Florida is [link:https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/|

I have found the CNN site to be an excellent resource. Click on the US map (upper right) and then any state and then you can go to any county.

From a CNN posting about the Olympics:

Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech and an expert in how viruses behave in the air, said that cigarette smoke is a great way to visualize the most up-to-date understanding of how the virus lingers and how easily it can be spread. "Because it comes from our mouths and carries particles that are similar in size and behavior to the virus," she said.

If you imagine an infected person exhaling the virus as smoke and watching that vapor drift easily in the air, it will forever change how you think about protecting yourself and others.
The much more contagious Delta variant, which has grown at least seven-fold in Japan since the start of June, compounds the problem.

"So before, it was like an infected person was smoking one small cigarette at a time, but now it's like they're smoking a few cigarettes at once because we think they shed more virus. More smoke means that more will still be in the room even after the person has left. After the person leaves, the smoke becomes diluted as outdoor air replaces some of the indoor air, but if there was more to begin with, then there will be more 15 minutes after the person leaves," Marr said.

[link:https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/24/health/olympics-during-pandemic-gupta/index.html|

My opinion is that the others who were masked were probably vaccinated, like me. I doubt that many unvaccinated people wear masks to protect themselves. Am I being too cynical?