Here comes the sickly sun

I couldn't sleep. Ohh, there's a lame joke there. Too hot. I should have invested in a  bigger fan. I commiserated with friends yesterday about the heat and smoky (I think it should be smokey) skies. They all mentioned some variation of new normal.

I don't like how today is shaping up. I'm tired, and right now it's relatively cool, but the sun is coming up. Time for Seattle's apartments to bake.

I read an interesting article in the New York Times about water in California. I knew that California was experiencing a drought, and that the situation was bad, but I was surprised to learn that some of the wetter, smaller towns are in worse shape (for now) than some of the larger towns and cities in more arid parts of the state. Why? Planning. Think aqueducts, aquifers, and reservoirs.

I think I've spotted a trend in reporting related to children and COVID cases. I keep reading articles indicating that cases and hospitalizations involving young people are increasing. I don't doubt it. But doctors and nurses seem incapable of providing numbers. Bear with me, I'm not about to go on a the lunar landing was faked rant. But when hospital staffs talk about the increase in cases, they speak in relative terms. Here's an example:

And in Alabama, there is an alarming uptick of infants as well as teenagers hospitalized with Covid-19, according to Dr. David Kimberlin, the director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama in Birmingham."We're seeing a lot of children who are very, very sick admitted to our hospital. We have almost twice as many right now as we did at the previous worst part of this pandemic, which was probably in January," Kimberlin told CNN's Erin Burnett Friday. "These children are coming in fighting for breath, fighting for the ability to basically get through this devastating illness, many of them are on ventilators, maybe a quarter or so on ventilators or heart-lung bypass machines," he said.

I don't think it's malicious or conspiratorial, and I'm sure the actual numbers are out there. I wonder, though, if it's partly subconscious. The medical personnel view the numbers as worrying and significant, but in the back of their mind, they know that a reader might see a small number and write it off. Again, I'm not trying to slyly work in some doubt about veracity. I just think it's interesting how journalists convey statistics and numbers.

Pacific Northwest neighbors, I hope you're able to avoid the worst of this weekend's heat!