Today at the Editor’s glance: Get well soon Brian McMillan and family: We learned from our colleague and friend–and the moral center at the Palm Coast Observer–that, as he revealed more publicly Friday on the radio (ergo this Hippia-like intrusion in his Hipaa) he’d come down with covid. He’d revealed in a previous radio show that he was the happy recipient of the J&J shot, that one-shot deal, making him another one of that lengthening list of breakthrough infections. Since Brian is the patriarch in a family of children that accounts for a not inconsiderable portion of Palm Coast’s population, he is not the only one at home enduring what he and his family, including his wife, should have never been enduring–namely, the sickness, selfishness, indifference, amorality and plain idiocy of those around them who willfully chose to pass on the disease. Because it is a willful act at this point: if you are unvaccinated and unmasked, you are increasing your viralness by untold orders of magnitude. You are weaponizing yourself to be a serial spreader and, at worst, a serial killer. No two ways about it. It may well have happened through one of his young children, but who infected his child? Sure, even the vaccinated are spreaders, as are the masked, but it starts somewhere. Theology loves to discourse on the original Maker. Virology knows about the original destroyer. This county is full of them. The chance that you, spreader, are a vaccinated, masked, washed and distanced paragon of public health conscientiousness is slim. The chance that you are one of those obscene advertisements for Trumpian nihilism, like those Saturday corner cretins in Flagler Beach, is higher. Our dear editor’s infection, and that of his family, is on you, wherever you are. As for the rest of us, we sit, ducks-a-la-rage that we are. Bottom line Brian: get well, and let me know what kind of greeting card you get from Janet McDonald. Flagler County school covid update: Speaking of indifferent spreaders, Flagler schools on Thursday reported 43 new positive cases among students and two among staff. On Friday, the number was up to 47 students and four staff (that’s in addition to, not cumulative), again with every single school netting a share of the total among students, including nine at FPC and seven each at Buddy Taylor Middle and Belle Terre Elementary. The Great Barrington Declaration, that graffiti scratched on the walls of the eighth circle of hell, is having a field day in Flagler schools. Tropical activity: Hurricane Ida is now a nasty, brutish and major hurricane, and it’s heading for the Louisiana coast for a Sunday strike, after crossing the far western edge of Cuba. Right behind it and to the east of the Antilles is another storm that’s given an 80 percent chance of turning into a tropical storm in the next 48 hours–and likely sooner. See all Flagler vaccination and covid testing details below, after the announcement about Carla Cline’s project for hospital workers.
Due to a special event at the Flagler County Fairgrounds this weekend, the Florida Department of Health in Flagler County will offer Covid-19 testing at its main office at 301 Dr. Carter Blvd. in Bunnell.
The modified weekend schedule follows:
Saturday, 9AM to 11AM
Sunday, 9AM to 11AM
Starting Monday, August 30, testing will resume at the Flagler County Fairgrounds (150 Sawgrass Road, Bunnell) weekdays from 8AM to 12 noon and weekends from 9AM to 11AM.
Priority will be given to any students, faculty and school staff of public or private schools in Flagler County, followed by the general public, who need testing appointments by calling 386-437-7350 ext. 0.
All individuals and families should consider the following when testing with DOH-Flagler.
- Testing should take place at least 3 to 5 days after exposure. Testing sooner than this may result in false negatives.
- Plan ahead and expect long lines. Bring snacks and drinks in the car, as well as books or toys to keep kids entertained while waiting for your turn.
- Wear a mask inside the testing facility. Should you test positive, you may be asked to exit the facility and wait for the rest of your party outside to avoid transmission.
- DOH employees and volunteers have been working extended hours to keep pace with the exponential demand for testing and the record-breaking number of positive COVID cases we are experiencing. We are expanding our team to help with testing, contact tracing and case investigation, and appreciate your patience during this challenging time.
- Since it may take some time for case investigators and contact tracers to reach you when/if you or your child tests positive for COVID-19, you should take initiative to protect your loved ones. You or your child will need to isolate for 10 days from the onset of symptoms. Talk with close contacts like family members on your own to ask them to get tested and watch for symptoms.
- If you are identified as a close contact to a person who tests positive, there is a possibility the health department may not connect with you if resources are not available.
- If you have been vaccinated (two weeks after your final dose) you will not need to quarantine if you do not have symptoms.
- If you have symptoms, you should get tested three to five days after exposure.
The weekday testing schedule for August 30 through September 6 follows:
Monday, August 30 8AM to 12 noon Flagler County Fairgrounds
Tuesday, August 31 8AM to 12 noon Flagler County Fairgrounds
Wednesday, September 1 8AM to 12 noon Flagler County Fairgrounds
Thursday, September 2 8AM to 12 noon Flagler County Fairgrounds
Friday, September 3 8AM to 12 noon Flagler County Fairgrounds
Saturday, September 4 9AM to 11AM Flagler County Fairgrounds
Sunday, September 5 9AM to 11AM Flagler County Fairgrounds
Monday, September 6 CLOSED for Labor Day Holiday
As a reminder, the health department does not offer testing for travel verification.
Vaccinations continue to be offered at 301 Dr. Carter Blvd three afternoons a week — Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 6:00PM well into September. Appointments are preferred; Walk-ins are welcome.
The health department is awaiting additional guidance for the administration of booster doses and expects to add vaccinations to its operation at the Flagler County Fairgrounds next month. Details will be shared when plans are finalized. Currently, CVS, Walgreens, Publix and Walmart offer boosters to immuno-compromised individuals.
For more information about Covid-19 vaccination and testing locally, please visit flagler.floridahealth.gov. For testing and vaccine appointments, please call 386-437-7350 ext. 0 weekdays between 8AM and 4:30PM.
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“As for John, he was a man I so esteemed as a colleague and so loved as a friend that his loss is indescribable. He was a prince. I think it not difficult to kiss him goodbye—I can think of no other way of parting from him, although he would, in my case, have been embarrassed. I think him peerless as a writer of his generation; and his gift of communicating—to millions of strangers—his most exalted and desperate emotions was, in his case, fortified by immense and uncommon intelligence and erudition. John, quite alone in the field of aesthetics, remained shrewd. Mercifully, there is no consolation in thinking that his extraordinary brilliance presaged a cruel, untimely, and unnatural death. His common sense would have dismissed that as repulsive and vulgar. One misses his brightness—one misses it painfully—but one remembers that his life was dedicated to the description of enduring—and I definitely do not mean immortal—to enduring strains of sensuality and spiritual revelations.”
–John Cheever on John Updike, from the Journals of John Cheever, after he got the (false) report of Updike’s death in a car crash in 1976, an item published in the Jan. 27, 2009 New Yorker.
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Deborah Coffey says
Prayers for you and your family, Brian. We so appreciate all your efforts to bring us meaningful facts and news. I am feeling all the sentiments written above. They’re trying to kill us; let’s not let them.
Brynn Newton says
Re the Dave Granlund cartoon: President Biden was there.
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — President Biden landed in Delaware on Sunday morning to join the families of the 13 members of the U.S. military who were killed in a bombing last week in Afghanistan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/29/world/asia/kabul-airport-attack-biden.html?referringSource=articleShare