Quote70% of Marin's COVID-19 cases are attributable to the Delta variant according to Dr. Willis with hospitalizations right now invariably among unvaccinated people.

https://abc7news.com/what-delta-variant-means-for-unvaccinated-gavin-newsom-california-mask-mandate-social-distancing-coronavirus/10869615/

It is now obvious that the delta variant can slip through the cracks.  Since I am squarely in the vulnerable group --but not ready to give up travel or restaurant meals-- I've resorted to time-shifting & being choosy about venues to avoid the usual crowded times/places.  At the local mex restaurant last week at 3pm, I only had brief contact with one person.

>time-shifting & being choosy about venues

Time to put a dining table in the Sprinter?

Here in Cape Town my wife and I have resorted to eating out at certain times of the day to avoid crowds - luckily our two or three favourite restaurants have taken the whole social distancing advice to heart and have almost 'reinvented' their dining room layout, but still with the same awesome menus.

>time-shifting & being choosy about venues

We have few venues to choose from around here, but we time-shifted even before covid. We would try to get in and out before the main lunch crowds arrived because my husband's hearing fares better with less background noise.

>Sprinter

I deeply dislike eating take-out.  (And the Sprinter's plates expired & battery died during the lockdown.)

>favorite restaurant

Seafood is a problem on my dialysis diet.  I've *finally* found a small restaurant^{(seats 50)} in a nearby very rural town that does a fantastic prep job and will grill shrimp, scallops, & oysters with no seasoning.  At 4:pm the customers start arriving. By 5pm it is packed.  Vax rates for adults in this very red county was 27% last I checked --and not a mask in sight.  This one is going to be a challenge.

>27% last I checked --and not a mask in sight

That's the bit that is baffling to me.  If one wants to avoid the vaccine you would think that that person would do everything they could to reduce their chances of exposure.   I have a dumb cousin (by marriage) who is afraid of getting the jab; he has bought into all the conspiracy theories, yet he'll do nothing to protect himself.  On top of that he goes and visits his elderly grandmother on occasion.

>baffling

Half of Unvaccinated Americans Not Concerned About Delta Variant, Poll Finds

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210719/half-unvaccinated-americans-not-concerned-delta-variant-poll

Just found out my BIL has Covid. They just moved back here from England 6 weeks ago and based on past conversations I am 95% sure they aren't vaccinated. We haven't talked a ton about Covid but I think when I talked about some of the restrictions here he kind of scoffed at them. Guessing he got it from a co-worker. And now of course my wife and I are psyching ourselves out and wondering if we are sick. We haven't had a ton of contact with him in the past week so we are probably fine but it is always scary when someone you know and have had contact with gets sick.

>BIL

Keep us posted, Doc.  But everything I've seen so far just points to cold-like symptoms for the vaccinated.

Here are the Covid symptoms to watch for if you are fully vaccinated
https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2021/07/here-are-the-covid-symptoms-to-watch-for-if-you-are-fully-vaccinated.html

Somewhat OT...

>>symptoms

A friend and his family are part of a blood study where they have blood drawn every so often to test for antibodies. It turned out that his daughter (early 20s) got Covid twice without knowing it. The first time she had a small antibody response and a much bigger one the second time, but never any symptoms and did not pass it to her parents or sister (though her sister, who is in her last year of medical school, managed to get Covid all on her own... no surprise there).

And, as I was writing that a friend who has been feeling ill texted me this (with names removed):

Quote
I didn't think much of it, but then X and Y, both fully vaxxed with Pfizer, and another friend in Georgia fully vaxxed with Moderna, all had breakthrough COVID cases (fever, lost their taste, etc) so I'm slightly concerned and got us tested today.

Vietnam locks down capital Hanoi for 15 days as cases rise - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/vietnam-locks-down-capital-hanoi-for-15-days-as-cases-rise/2021/07/23/c0644d3a-ec2e-11eb-a2ba-3be31d349258_story.html

Meanwhile, in France 114,000 people demonstrated last weekend against vaccine passports, many wearing yellow stars, equating vaccine passports with the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear under Nazi rule.

https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2021/07/19/le-port-de-l-etoile-jaune-lors-des-manifestations-contre-le-passe-sanitaire-suscite-l-indignation_6088738_823448.html

And... everything we know about the effectiveness of lockdowns.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness-much-more

This one quote is interesting...

QuoteGoolsbee and Syverson study the US situation and find that "while overall consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, legal restrictions explain only 7 of that. Individual choices were far more important and seem tied to fears of infection."

But there are big variations by region and country and specific policies and all that.

The author also wrote a "What I learned while writing the lockdown post"
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/things-i-learned-writing-the-lockdown

It has some interesting comments about getting more done by pulling from the side in a policy tug-a-war