Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.

Someone suggested making a moving to Roanoke guide to help newcomers with general questions, so I decided to take a stab at it. I'll edit and refine this over time, so please comment or PM if you have suggestions.
This is a mix between past threads, external resources and my own hot takes. Here is a link to any and all "moving to Roanoke" threads from the search results. In an effort to narrow it down, I've pulled some of the best discussions and inserted them into the guide below.

Housing

Moving resouces from city website
Roanoke has many bedroom communities, so you can either live within the city or in a surrounding county and still have a short commute depending on traffic. I will mostly focus on city living, but here are some other nearby communities to consider, of varying distances: Salem, Roanoke County, Franklin County, Botetourt County, Montgomery County.
The city itself is basically divided into four quadrants, vertically by the interstate and horizontally by railroad tracks. This is most commonly how people refer to general locations. Roanoke remains a segregated city, both racially and socioeconomically, and each quadrant has very different demographics (more on that below.)
Is it safe to live in x neighborhood?
This is difficult to answer because everyone has a different definition of "safe." Even crime maps aren't a perfect tool because they can be misleading. The best advice anyone can offer is to visit said neighborhood both day and night and see for yourself. If possible, talk with neighbors.
A quick note on crime: By and large, the vast majority of violent crime seems to occur between people who know each other through drugs or gangs. Use common sense, but you aren't going to get murdered just walking through downtown at night.
Which neighborhood is the best?
That's going to completely depend on your budget and what you're looking for. Again, the city is normally talked about in terms of quadrants — NW, NE, SE, SW — but those are broad terms. Actual neighborhoods are much smaller; take a look at this map. In fact, contacting one of the groups listed may be a good way to learn more.
I won't do a full rundown on each quadrant because I haven't lived in all four, so I don't think I could give a fully objective analysis. What I will say is that Southwest, and more specifically, Grandin, is frequently suggested as the best place to live. It's a lovely place. But in doing that, sometimes I worry the implication (inadvertent or not) is that other areas in the city aren't safe, and that's not true. Northwest, for example, is stereotyped as a "rough" part of town because, yes, there are a couple blocks where crime consistently happens. But there are definitely nice, safe neighborhoods in NW Roanoke. Also, let's be honest...saying NW is "rough" is definitely a dog-whistle to some extent — it's the most diverse quadrant of the city.
What's the COL like?
Again, this will depend on what you're looking for, but studio-1 bedrooms can be had in the $400-$800 range, and 2 bedrooms can be found in the $700-$1100 range. Houses can be rented for <$1200, although bigger ones will cost more. Those figures will shift depending on what amenities/size you want. There are many apartment complexes, and it's also very common for houses to be repurposed into apartments. It's harder to give an estimate for buying, because you're looking at a lot more variables, but it's very feasible to buy a home on a budget. I see many listings below $130K, and occasionally even below $100K. The lower you go, the more likely it'll need TLC, which you may/may not want to do.
I have pets, will that be an issue?
The consensus seems to be that there are plenty of landlords who accept pets (usually with a nonrefundable deposit and sometimes monthly pet rent), but that it can be more difficult if you have many pets and/or a large dog.
Housing/culture/general moving to Roanoke reddit links
What do you love/hate about the city and surrounding area? (culture)
Roanoke's local culture for a possible transplant (culture/diversity/general)
Can y'all tell me which of these neighborhoods are good or which ones to avoid? (housing)

• And a specific comment that discusses the nuances of neighborhoods

Housing/general comment from longtime Roanoke resident
Considering Moving to Roanoke (culture/general)
How accepting of the lgbtq+ community is Roanoke? (culture/general)
Moving To Roanoke (culture/housing)
Property rental companies to support? Avoid? (housing)
Trustworthy landlords (housing)
Moving to Roanoke soon, where do the Black people live? (diversity/housing)
Opinions on home buying in the Valley? (housing)
Help me move to Virginia! (housing/jobs)
SoCal transplant (culture)

Jobs

OK, you've found a place to live. Now you need a job. What do people do around here?
Roanoke used to be a railroad town, and some might tell you we still are. But as the Norfolk and Southern jobs have disappeared, the city's been reimagined into a center for both medicine and the outdoors. For anyone interested in a bit of Roanoke's history, this Politico read is interesting.
Carilion Clinic is the largest employer in the Roanoke Valley, providing health care to folks across western Virginia. There's also LewisGale, which is for-profit. Needless to say, there are plenty of jobs if you work in the health care sector. Of course, they also need people of all skillsets, from IT to security to administrative work.
In addition, there's a fair amount of retail and restaurant work to be had, although maybe less so with the pandemic still in swing. There are also IT/software development jobs independent of the health care sector; I believe this is a growing field around here. A word on internet: If you're working remotely, pandemic or not, be aware that certain places outside of the city still struggle with broadband.
Job links
Software Engineer ISO Job in Roanoke
Who is hiring? What’s the job market like?
Healthcare job market
Looking for a new job
Trying to gauge the job market in my field
Any Ideas RE: Teacher Hiring

Weather

You're ready to move to Roanoke, but you're from [insert far away state] and have no idea what to expect.
Fear not, weary traveler. We get four distinct seasons. A lot of people swear up and down that the pollen is awful in the spring, although Wikipedia disputes whether that is factually true. In the summer, unfortunately, it does get hot and muggy and pretty buggy. Beware of ticks, especially when hiking. The leaves get crisp and crunchy in the fall, and I strongly encourage you take a trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway. And winter, well, here's an example as of this writing: It snowed 4-6" last weekend, and that was the most we received in two years!
The last BIG storm was December 2018, when we received 18 inches. We do get snow nearly every year, but certainly not enough to warrant snow tires. Often it'll only be a dusting to 2". Usually schools will close at least a couple times a year, but if you're from the Northeast or Midwest, you'll be strongly disappointed in what warrants a closure.
Temperatures
This can fluctuate depending on your elevation; plan for it to be a least a few degrees cooler — if not more — when going up to the mountains. During the summer, we're usually in the upper 70s to low 90s, and lately it seems like 90-degree days are more common. Occasionally we'll break 100. Winter: We're usually somewhere in the mid 30s to low 50s during the day, although we also get our fair share of teens and 20s.

Things to do

If you are coming from a big city, Roanoke may seem small, but I personally find there's plenty to do. And we're not far from other places when you want to venture out for a day or weekend trip.
Outdoors
One of the biggest draws to Roanoke.
We have a large greenway system for running/walking/biking, and many neighborhoods are also walkable/bikable. Well-known bodies of water include the Roanoke River, James River, Pigg River, Carvins Cove, Smith Mountain Lake and Claytor Lake. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs through Roanoke, and the Appalachian Trail also crosses through. We also have a few nearby state parks.
I could write a lot about the outdoors. This is a very abbreviated version. Suffice to say we've got you covered when it comes to hiking, biking, running, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, swimming — you name it. I think the best I can offer is the Roanoke Outside Foundation's website, which has a massive amount of information.
I'll also put a plug in for the state parks' website, which is somewhat clunky but has good info. You can get an annual pass for $75 (and discounts/freebies for certain groups).
Distance to...
Shenandoah National Park: 1 hr 30
Charlottesville: 2 hrs
Greensboro: 2 hrs
Raleigh, NC: 3 hrs
Richmond: 3 hrs
Asheville, NC: 3 hrs 45
Washington DC: 4 hrs
Virginia Beach: 4 hrs
OK, so what's even closer?
If you want to get out of the immediate Roanoke area but want to be somewhat nearby, I recommend the following, in no particular order: Floyd (a true must-visit), Blacksburg, Smith Mountain Lake, Rocky Mount, Lynchburg, Farmville, Danville.
What else is there to do that's not travel or outdoors-related?
First and foremost, here is a massive to-do list megathread, which also includes resturants. It's 5 years old, so I guarantee several places on that list are now closed (rip), and new places that have since opened.
A few in particular that I'll highlight:

• B&D Comics
• Star City Games (Largest Magic the Gathering shop in the world)
• Blade Gaming
• Mishap Games
• Roanoke Pinball Museum
• The Harvester
• Dr. Pepper Park
• The Jefferson Center
• Roanoke Star (World's largest freestanding illuminated man-made star! We like large things, apparently)
• Harrison Museum of African American Culture
• Virginia Museum of Transportation
• History Museum of Western Virginia/O. Winston Link Museum
• Taubman Museum of Art

Food

Last, but certainly not least: Eats in the Star City.
While we are in southwestern Virginia and people like to bemoan our relative lack of food choices compared to big cities, I personally think we have plenty to offer (still on the hunt for the perfect pizza, though.) Roanoke has a large immigrant population, so we do have food from many, many countries. The trick is you have to go beyond downtown, which many people don't. There's a bunch of authentic resturants along Williamson Road, for example, including Mi Tapatia, which is a favorite of many people on this subreddit.
I'll let the lists do the talking. Again, here's that megathread of food + other things to do; disclaimer that some listings might be outdated.
Links below include both food and general activities because a lot of threads don't differentiate.
Things to do/food reddit links
General
Update to things to do in Roanoke (food and activities)
Black Owned Businesses in Roanoke?
Fun things to do in Roanoke
Things to do on a date-night this Friday?
Map: Roanoke things to do/places to eat/etc.
Local Restaurant Recommendations
Local shops and restaurants
List of my favorite restaurants in town
What do you think is the worst barestaurant in Roanoke?
What restaurants/bars have the best happy hours for drinks and appetizers?
Specific cuisine/interests
Gluten-Free -friendly Restaurants
Meat markets/butchers
Any good authentic Chinese in Roanoke/Salem area yet?
Best most authentic tamales in Roanoke?
Authentic Mexican
Why is a pizza so difficult
Roanoke's best pizza. Let the battle begin!
Best place for a late night hotdog downtown?
Good deli places in Roanoke
Best French Fries in Roanoke area?

Misc.

Libraries
Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem and Botetourt County each have their own libraries, but they also share in a library system called "Roanoke Valley Libraries." This means you can use any of them. (The South County one is the fanciest.)
Grocery Stores

• Kroger and Food Lion are most common
  • Reddit's favorites: Bonsack Kroger and Cave Spring Stations Kroger (corner of Colonial/Brambleton)
• Natural/organic/upscale: Roanoke Co+Op, Earth Fare, Fresh Market
• International: J&L Oriental Food Mart, World Wide Food Market, Taipei Supermarket, Oasis World Market (Blacksburg)
• Budget: Aldi
• Wholesale: BJ's and Sam's Club
• Food banks: Feeding Southwest Virginia has partner locations throughout the region

General shopping

• Malls: Valley View in NW Roanoke is where you will find most of your big box stores. Tanglewood in SW Roanoke County is mostly a ghost town, but there are still a couple stores open.
• Near Valley View but not technically part of the mall are other major stores, including Target, Dick's Sporting Goods, Staples, Best Buy, etc.
• There are also a few other shopping centers, including Towers and Towne Square

Movie Theaters

• Regal Valley View Grande — closed during pandemic
• AMC Roanoke — open during pandemic
• AMC Salem — open during pandemic
• Grandin Theatre, historic theater that shows new films and classics — open during pandemic; also selling concessions on Fridays to take home
• Starlite Drive-In Theater (Christiansburg)

Hi /Collapse! I have been working on an ongoing project for 5 years now nick-named “[Signs of collapse]”.
I try my best to not make this series into a rant about every little problem or mishap that’s going on. Even in a sustainable society accidents would happen and natural catastrophes would occur, seasons would vary in intensity from year to year and so on. So what I present here is my best attempt at distilling out anthropogenic anomalies.
I define a “sign of collapse” as a negative market externality that the current socioeconomic system for whatever reason hasn’t dealt with and is now ending up hurting people or the ecosystem. I try to pick studies and news that shows the occurring consequences of the current system’s failure to deal with externalities.
You are not the intended audience for this project, you're already agreeing with everything it presents. I post it here so that you can help me spread it and use/reuse the material elsewhere. Also feel free to solve any or all of the mentioned problems, it's fine if you only pick one.
Previous posts:

• Signs of collapse 2020 Q3
  
• Signs of collapse 2020 Q2
  
• Signs of collapse 2020 Q1
  
• Signs of collapse 2019
  
• Signs of collapse 2018
  
• Signs of collapse 2017
  
• Signs of collapse 2016
  

Signs of Collapse 2020 Summary of the Year

Human well-being & non-specific climate change

• 'Past a point of no return': Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero still won't stop global warming, study says
• 75% of young want to escape South Korean ‘Hell’
• Coronavirus: Hundreds dead in Iran from drinking methanol amid fake reports it cures disease
• ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists
• Violence and looting point to food crisis in S.Africa lockdown
• WATCH: Lebanese citizens vent their ire by TORCHING bank, army vehicle, as at least 1 protester shot dead
• "I'm starving now": World faces unprecedented hunger crisis amid coronavirus pandemic
• 'We don't know how it will end': Hunger stalks amid virus - The Mainichi
• Coronavirus-related hunger in the US spikes, with food programs struggling to keep up
• 15 US states now hit by rare inflammatory syndrome impacting children
• Yemen: ‘Hanging on by a thread’, UN chief requests funding to meet staggering humanitarian crisis
• Leaders to UN: If virus doesn't kill us, climate change will
• Global methane emissions soar to record high
• Top Scientists Just Ruled Out Best-Case Global Warming Scenarios
• Residents still without drinking water more than six months after bushfire emergency
• Thousands in Puerto Rico still without housing since Maria
• Hungry New Yorkers form quarter-mile line for free food in Queens
• Workers Keeping Americans Fed Are Going Hungry in the Heartland
• Reports of bizarre menstrual cycles emerge after tear gas exposure from Seattle protests
• UN warns that world risks becoming 'uninhabitable hell' for millions
• As World Teeters on Brink, Over 250 Scientists and Scholars Warn of Full-Fledged 'Societal Collapse'
• Humanity has killed 75% of all wildlife. Like a tumor that becomes metastatic and spreads through the body, so to do humans pervade through every rock and crevice on earth.
• UN: Food has run out for nearly 100,000 refugees in Ethiopia
• Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks for 1st time
• Ice loss to add 0.4 degrees Celsius to global temperatures: study
• Dreaded Methane Deposits in Arctic Start to Escape; Scientists Warn of Abrupt Climate Change in Future

Economy, Politics & Industry

• Germany has offered companies 'unlimited' loans to stop them from collapsing because of the coronavirus pandemic
• It's not just toilet paper: People line up to buy guns, ammo over coronavirus concerns
• Wife of Spain’s prime minister tests positive for virus
• Canada shuts Parliament, Trudeau in quarantine, no travel
• Coronavirus: Italian army called in as crematorium struggles to cope with deaths
• 'Bolsonaro Out!' From Balconies and Windows, Millions Demand Ouster of Brazilian President Over Handling of Coronavirus
• Tokyo 2020: Olympics to be postponed until 2021, says IOC member
• Coronavirus: Prince Charles tests positive for COVID-19
• Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns
• Boris Johnson Has Tested Positive For The Coronavirus
• Jobless claims soar past 3 million to record high
• Dow drops nearly 3,000 points, as coronavirus collapse continues; worst day since ’87
• Brazilian President Bolsonaro Rejects Calls for Coronavirus Lockdown, Says 'We're All Going to Die One Day'
• IMF officially declares global economic recession
• Hungary Parliament Grants Prime Minister Orban Unlimited Power In Coronavirus Fight
• Coronavirus closes meat plants in Canada and the United States as world’s largest pork producer warns of shortages
• Piglets aborted, chickens gassed as pandemic slams meat sector
• One in five Wendy's is out of beef, analyst says
• 'We may have to ration': US food banks face shortages as demand surges | US news
• Stirrings of unrest around the world could portend turmoil as economies collapse
• Study: 71 percent of jobless Americans didn’t receive March unemployment benefits
• Hungary no longer a democracy: report
• Michigan dam failures force 10,000 to evacuate and could leave one city under 9 feet of water
• China annexes 60 square km of India in Ladakh as simmering tensions erupt between two superpowers
• Trump has officially begun to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization as pandemic spikes
• Coronavirus data has already disappeared after Trump administration shifted control from CDC
• 'Wave of silence' spread around world during coronavirus pandemic | Science
• California severely short on firefighting crews after COVID-19 lockdown at prison camps
• Ontario farmers ‘concerned’ as crops continue to die amid drought: ‘It’s bad’
• ‘I Can’t Keep Doing This:’ Small-Business Owners Are Giving Up
• Yelp data shows 60% of business closures due to the coronavirus pandemic are now permanent
• What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland
• Camouflaged federal agents have descended on Portland. Trump's DHS is out of control
• Trump Plans to Expand the Federal Invasion of American Cities
• Here's Why Cities Won't Be Able to Stop Trump's Secret Police
• Feds Sending Tactical Team to Seattle, Expanding Presence Beyond Portland
• Coronavirus has fuelled authoritarian trends around the world, Australia's Dfat warns
• The Trump campaign is reportedly 'discussing contingency plans to bypass election results'
• What is water theft, and how big a problem is it?
• Still no country doing enough to meet goals of Paris Agreement, says climate report
• Alleged domestic terrorists used armed protests at Michigan capitol for recruitment
• 17 states tell Supreme Court they support Texas bid to reverse Biden win
• QAnon Supporters, Paramilitary Groups Promise ‘Fight' Over Election At Pro-Trump Rally Near Nevada’s Capitol
• Ethiopia's conflict spills over border as thousands flee
• 250 million Indian workers and farmers strike, breaking world record
• ‘Attack of the debt tsunami’: Coronavirus pushes global debt to record high
• U.S. Officially Leaving Paris Climate Agreement

Police riots in the US

• Shooting of Breonna Taylor
• ‘I Can’t Breathe!’: Video Of Fatal Arrest Shows Minneapolis Officer Kneeling On George Floyd’s Neck For Several Minutes
• The Police Are Rioting. We Need to Talk About It.
• Watch Police Instigate & Escalate All Across The U.S.
• Police actively seeking out fights compilation
• Tug of war over an umbrella sends police into violent frenzy
• We Crunched the Numbers: Police — Not Protesters — Are Overwhelmingly Responsible for Attacking Journalists
• Minnesota police arrest CNN reporter and camera crew as they report from protests in Minneapolis
• After shouting press multiple times and raising my press card in the air, I was thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed while being held down
• Police Shoot Tear Gas Toward MSNBC Crew, Protesters, 'There Was No Warning Whatsoever' | MSNBC
• LMPD officer fires pepper balls at WAVE 3 News reporter, photographer during Louisville protest
• Minneapolis Police shoot reporter and permanently blind her left eye
• Police attack peaceful protestors & press in Washington D.C.
• 'I’m getting shot': attacks on journalists surge in US protests
• Police targeted journalists covering the George Floyd protests
• Police act nice for the media, then turn on protesters once journalists are gone
• Cops sneak up to confiscate & destroy water and other supplies peaceful protestors are using in Louisville, KY
• Video shows police destroying medical station at North Carolina protest [2] [3]
• Austin Police Shoot Teen in Head with Rubber Bullet at Protest
• Police aims rubber bullets at protester with toddler on shoulders
• Protester lost his eye when a FWPD Officer unnecessarily fired a tear gas canister at his head’
• Woman walking home from grocery shot in head by police
• Man shot by police on I street Sacramento 5/30/2020
• San Diego Police Department shot an unarmed woman in the head.
• Woman shot in head with rubber bullet during protest
• Police fire tear gas canister at unarmed man after macing him
• APD gets water splashed on them and immediately fires into the crowd.
• Homeless man in wheelchair shot in head with rubber bullet
• Seattle PD hit a 21 year old female directly in the chest with a stun grenade.
• Cops Pepper Spray Amputee, Steal His Legs
• a girl here was peacefully protesting, after 15 minutes she was maced and kicked
• Unprovoked police fire pepper pellet at protester
• Police fire at people on their porch after shooting ‘light them up’
• 1 week of brutality in 11 minutes
• 190 clips of Police Brutality in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
• Activists Catalog Nearly 600 Videos of Officer Violence Against Protesters

Biodiversity

• More Than One Billion Animals Killed in Australia Wildfires Called a 'Very Conservative' Estimate
• Up to 23 feet long, the Chinese paddlefish was the giant of the Yangtze. And we killed it
• Wildlife destruction 'not a slippery slope but a series of cliff edges' | Environment
• Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast
• The vultures aren't soaring over Africa – and that's bad news | Environment
• Mass die-offs in marine mammals are accelerating, and climate change will only make it worse
• The pesticide that caused bee colonies to collapse is killing birds now
• 'Staggering loss' of endangered species in Canada
• Survey finds 71 per cent of koala populations died in some NSW fires
• Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US | Environment
• Botswana says toxins in water killed hundreds of elephants
• 40% of world’s plant species at risk of extinction
• 95% of Marine Life on Sea Floor Killed in Kamchatka Eco-Disaster, Scientists Say
• Mass die-off of birds in south-western US 'caused by starvation'

Pests, viruses and bacterial infections

• Locust swarms as big as cities are causing a crisis in Africa as experts warn they could get 400 times bigger
• World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic
• Austria closing schools over coronavirus as border checks take effect
• India quarantines itself from world for a month to fight coronavirus
• Italy closes bars, restaurants and most shops as coronavirus death toll jumps 30%
• Belgium closes schools, bars and restaurants
• Iran has let its covid-19 outbreak get out of hand
• Coronavirus: Spain and France announce sweeping restrictions
• Italians over 80 'will be left to die' as country overwhelmed by coronavirus
• 80% of COVID-19 spreads from people who don't know they are sick
• Coronavirus can survive both hot, humid climates: WHO
• Health official: One person dying every 10 minutes from coronavirus in Iran
• Madagascar confirms first cases of coronavirus
• Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Worse, Neo-Nazis Are Trying to Weaponize Coronavirus India shuts down for 21 days as coronavirus spreads across south Asia
• ‘If the govt doesn’t fix it, we will’: Brazil’s GANGS impose night-time curfews in Rio’s slums
• Coronavirus: At least 59% of cases in Wuhan, China went unreported, study says
• Satellite images show Iran has built mass graves amid coronavirus outbreak
• Intensive care for coronavirus patients now limited to those 'reasonably certain' to survive, NHS London trust admits
• China reports new African swine fever cases in Gansu province
• Ecuador struggles to collect the dead as coronavirus spreads
• Body-bag stocks are running out, suppliers say
• 'The food supply chain is breaking,' Tyson says as plants close
• Russia’s Ambulance Crews Are Running on Empty as They Fight Coronavirus - The Moscow Times
• Coronavirus city branded 'new Wuhan' as corpses pile up in streets
• ‘Murder Hornets’ in the U.S.: The Rush to Stop the Asian Giant Hornet
• Second wave of locusts causing havoc in East Africa
• Worst locust attack in 26 years: All about the latest threat amid Covid-19 outbreak - india news
• Swarms of desert locusts reach Delhi outskirts after Gurugram
• A Deadly Bacteria Kills Olive Trees Across Southern Europe
• Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus
• A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming
• WHO sounds alarm as coronavirus cases rise by one million in five days
• Texas battling influx of coronavirus cases: "Our hospitals look like war zones"
• Fauci says outbreak exploding because US didn't shut down
• Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus
• Doctors Are Calling It Quits Under Stress of the Pandemic
• ‘There’s No Place for Them to Go’: I.C.U. Beds Near Capacity Across U.S.
• Covid Overload: U.S. Hospitals Are Running Out of Beds for Patients
• COVID-19: French president Emmanuel Macron tests positive for coronavirus | World News
• A flesh-eating bacteria lurking in the ocean is killing people in the Carolinas
• Germany: Plagues of field mice are devouring crops on a massive scale
• Climate change is bringing back long-lost forms of food poisoning
• As Europe's governments lose control of Covid, revolt is in the air | Europe

Coral reefs

• Great Barrier Reef hit by third major bleaching event in five years
• The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its corals within 3 decades
• Australia's Great Barrier Reef status lowered to "critical" and deteriorating

Ice and water

• Jakarta floods: cloud seeding planes try to break up heavy rain | Environment
• The Worst Drought in 40 Years Has Turned Bangkok Tap Water Salty
• Polar ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990s
• 'A third of Bangladesh underwater' after heavy rains, floods
• ‘Doomsday glacier’ in Antarctica melting due to warm water channels under surface, scientists discover
• Ice sheets melting at 'worst-case scenario rate', research warns
• Greenland ice sheet reached tipping point 20 years ago, new study finds
• After Covid, China’s Leaders Face New Challenges From Flooding
• India and Bangladesh floods leave more than 1,000 dead
• Arctic Sea Ice Is Failing to Form, Raising a Huge ‘Red Flag’
• Canada's last intact ice shelf broke off. It took our research station with it
• 'The Arctic Ocean Is Dying': Grim Conclusion as Biggest North Pole Mission Returns

Hurricanes, storms and winds

• At $1.6B, Hurricane Laura did more agriculture damage in Louisiana than Katrina and Rita combined
• The 2020 Hurricane Season Breaks Record For Most Named Storms Ever

Heat waves, forest fires and tree loss

• Canberra's air quality is 'the worst in the world' as bushfire smoke shrouds capital
• ‘It’s Going to Be a Blast Furnace’: Australia Fires Intensify
• Tens of thousands stranded while attempting to flee Australia fires – Cashless economy collapses as ATMs fail, supermarket looted – “We have no capacity to contain these fires”
• May 2020 tied for hottest on record for the globe
• The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance
• Arctic records its hottest temperature ever
• There Have Never Been This Many Fires in the Northern Arctic
• Last month was the world’s third-hottest July on record | Living
• About 11,000 lightning bolts strike California, igniting hundreds of fires in a state facing multiple crises
• The worst fire season ever. Again.
• Tens of thousands of fires are pushing the Amazon to a tipping point
• Brazil's Amazon rainforest suffers worst fires in a decade
• Wildfires tear through drought-racked Paraguay amid record heat
• California wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history
• 100,000 under evacuation orders as strong winds fan California wildfire - About 1 million people in the dark as state cuts power to prevent new blazes
• Tens of thousands without power, hundreds evacuated as new fires erupt in California
• September was world's hottest on record
• Australia's Bushfire Season Is Back, With a Whole New Set of Complications
• Paraguay declares state of emergency as forest fires rage
• Colorado wildfires show "climate change is here and now"
• The world's largest wetlands are on fire. That's a disaster for all of us

Pollution

• Plastic dust is blowing into U.S. national parks—more than 1000 tons each year
• Plants absorb nanoplastics through the roots, which block proper absorption of water, hinder growth, and harm seedling development. Worse, plastic alters the RNA sequence, hurting the plant’s ability to resist disease.
• Ozone Destruction Hasn't Gone Away -- It's Merely Hidden Away
• Study finds 14 million metric tons of microplastics on the seafloor
• The number of global methane hot spots has soared this year despite the economic slowdown
• The Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Has Grown Much Deeper And Wider in 2020

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update January 8, 2021
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Watch here:

• Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
• Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

• 296,167 Cases (+4,750), 2,856 Deaths (+13)
• New cases by county: 758x Jefferson, 302x Fayette, 181x Oldham, 171x Kenton, 170x Warren, 152x Morgan, 145x Daviess, 145x Hardin, 111x Boone, 94x Campbell, 91x Laurel, 88x Boyle, 81x Christian, 73x Graves, 72x Madison, 68x Scott, 65x Bullitt, 62x Boyd, 62x Nelson, 54x McCracken, 53x Carroll, 49x Pike, 48x Knox, 46x Jessamine, 44x Marshall, 44x Montgomery, 42x Franklin, 42x Henderson, 41x Floyd, 40x Hopkins, 39x Pulaski, 38x Barren, 35x Harlan, 35x Shelby, 34x Bell, 33x Meade, 32x Whitley, 31x Calloway, 31x Clay, 31x Letcher, 30x Clark, 30x Harrison, 30x Logan, 28x Greenup, 28x Muhlenberg, 27x Webster, 26x Ohio, 25x Mercer, 24x Lincoln, 24x Metcalfe, 24x Perry, 22x Anderson, 22x Bath, 22x Rockcastle, 21x Rowan, 20x Grayson, 19x Garrard, 19x Woodford, 18x Allen, 18x Clinton, 18x Simpson, 17x Wayne, 16x Trimble, 15x Hancock, 15x McCreary, 15x McLean, 15x Powell, 14x Leslie, 14x Marion, 14x Monroe, 13x Breckinridge, 13x Butler, 13x Jackson, 13x Johnson, 13x Larue, 13x Robertson, 13x Taylor, 12x Spencer, 12x Todd, 12x Trigg, 11x Bourbon, 11x Breathitt, 11x Carlisle, 10x Grant, 10x Henry, 10x Mason, 9x Adair, 9x Edmonson, 9x Gallatin, 9x Hart, 9x Knott, 9x Lawrence, 9x Pendleton, 9x Union, 8x Bracken, 8x Fleming, 8x Nicholas, 8x Owen, 7x Ballard, 7x Cumberland, 7x Owsley, 7x Washington, 6x Lewis, 6x Livingston, 6x Martin, 6x Russell, 5x Caldwell, 5x Magoffin, 5x Wolfe, 4x Estill, 4x Menifee, 3x Carter, 3x Casey, 3x Elliott, 3x Green, 2x Fulton, 2x Lyon, 1x Hickman, 1x Lee
• New deaths by county: 81 F Bath, 81 F Christian, 88 F Fayette, 55 F Grayson, 78 M Grayson, 64 F Marshall, 90 F Marshall, 79 M Marshall, 89 F Mason, 60 M Mason, 90 M Mercer, 93 M Muhlenberg, 83 F Wayne
• So, the new White House report that has come to Kentucky, I want to go over a number of statements, that we are seeing an increase in both new cases and an increase in our positivity rate. And at this surge that we're in right now is at least twice the rate, the seriousness, of the previous surges that we have seen. This is our most dangerous time, this is not the time to take away our ability to fight this virus.<...> The White House is now telling us that the acceleration we are seeing across the country may well be a US variant that has evolved somewhat like the one that you were hearing about in the UK, which may be 50% more transmissible. <...> They're recommending the creation of high throughput vaccination sites.<...>I believe Louisville is beta testing one at the moment, where we can get 1000s of people through every day in a site that can operate, day after day after day until the day we defeat this virus. We're going to want to make sure that when we're operationalizing this, it is regional and so every region of the state has real access and ability to get this vaccine. <...>This last one is obviously the most concerning-- our positivity rate is significantly increasing.
• So beginning on Monday, January 11th, in the Covington West IRS parking lot, the federal government, in partnership with us, is going to be providing additional testing for residents of Northern Kentucky. You can register at: http://doIneedaCOVID19test.com/.
• Today, the total doses administered here in Kentucky: 107,799. So on Monday we were at about 66,000. These numbers don't include half of yesterday or today. More than 47,385 vaccinations, in the last three days now.
• The slide that describes all of the folks that the CDC has defined as essential workers is on the left side of your slide and on the right side are those health conditions that the CDC is defined as being proven to elevate your risk for severe disease for COVID. Those are taken directly from CDC materials without editing. And what we would ask any vaccine administration site to do is to follow those if an individual says “I'm in those categories”, then we would honor the person's request and we would offer them the access to the vaccine if we have the doses to give.<...>We understand that there is a need to make it more clear for people who want and need the vaccine, where they go to get the vaccine. This is part of the challenge in building an entirely new network to deliver novel and innovative vaccines that we previously didn't have. So this is our first attempt, it will get better from here. This is the first attempt on our website under the healthcare tab, only for healthcare personnel, please, this is not for the general public. This is for health care personnel only for the next few weeks, please. I've said all along it would take all of January to reach most of healthcare personnel. If later today you go on the website https://kycovid19.ky.gov, and you look under the health care tab, there will be a new map, and that map when you click the link, you can find locations. If you find one nearest to you, and you sign up I don't know whether it will be within the next week or two weeks but they will take your name and they will allow you to register and you can get scheduled for your vaccine. <...> I am certainly, at least peripherally aware, of the activities of the legislature and I would just caution all Kentuckians, please this is a time for you to exercise your civic duty and to be informed.You can find the text of every one of these bills online at the legislative resource commission. You can find the text online. I urge you, I urge you when you see in the newspaper discussion about healthcare related and public health related bills to go and read those bills. I think if you read some of them you would share my concern. For some of those to be passed, we would have absolutely, I'm absolutely confident, had much worse outcomes at this point. I wouldn't be standing here with the governor, we would be announcing much higher death tolls, we would have had the same or worse economic harm, and arguably it could have been worse.
• <Adam Mather went over long term care vaccination progress>
• So, what efforts have you made, if any, to get the Republicans to revise their bills aimed at reducing your emergency powers and is there really any hope of that happening? -- Well, certainly those debates have been going on and we'll have an opportunity after seeing what does or doesn't pass. We have not been invited to testify on bills that tear powers away from the governor. So it really raises the question of “Did you want consultation, or just control?”. The bills that we're talking about are unconstitutional as well.
• We have a decent stretch of no holidays where we'll have these get-togethers and whatnot, like Christmas and New Year's and even Thanksgiving just a month and a little over a month ago. If the positivity rates continue to stay as high as they are, what's the threshold to where you will look to, you know, shut down restaurants again, shut down bars? You know, obviously this high rate here is unsustainable if we want to control this virus at all. So just wondering what you and the staff will look at in terms of more restrictions and more shutdowns that sort of thing? -- I appreciate the question. Before the internet goes crazy. Let me just make sure I say we don't have any plans at this moment, for any of those steps. It is still very new in the data, the data looked really good a week ago going in a better direction. So we need more time to see it, we need to see where it's going and to talk to experts like Dr Stack and on the federal side, about what they believe could be causes, whether it's a mutated strand, whether it's these private get-togethers.
• Slides from Update

Full Notes

• Good afternoon everybody. We are coming to you from a different time, but this has been a different week. A different week, in that we had the state of the Commonwealth and state of the budget, but also a different week because we witnessed a domestic terror attack on our US Capitol, that has now led to the death of one of the Capitol Police officers. To that family, we are thinking and praying for you. To those terrorists, no, never again, what you're doing is not patriotic. You are terrorists, it cannot be allowed. Every elected official, every leader that's out there, has a duty, a duty to this country, a duty to their faith and values. We are all responsible for our words. We cannot fann the flames and condemn the fire. Our country, we all care so much about, but what we saw on Wednesday and what we've seen in other states and even what we saw here, not too long ago on our Capitol grounds-- those are attacks on our country intended to intimidate and create terror. We will not be intimidated, we will not back down. So no more supporting these groups. No more blatant hate and disrespect in the way that we speak as leaders-- that cannot be allowed. No more questioning the people's elections. Now ought to be the moment, and the point, where we restore our democracy, where we remember that being Americans is more important than being Democrats and Republicans. Your most important team is this country and don't think you're for this country if you've just attacked our US Capitol.
• So today's briefing is primarily about COVID but then we will take questions on anything ranging from a domestic terror attack to legislation that's going through our general assembly right now. We will talk about the piece that's related to COVID on that to any other questions that folks may have. We are at a really tough point, once again, in our war against COVID-19. We have successfully stopped three waves of this virus, but we are now seeing a real and significant increase in cases, and our positivity rate from people's gatherings around the holidays. I wish it hadn't happened. And we’ve got to make sure that moving forward we are not gathering in that way and we got to be really careful with as much virus that’s out there and, I'm going to show you some statements that the White House has made in their most recent report to us, but we've got to know now, we wear a mask now to protect ourselves. You have to assume if you're indoors with other people that someone has the virus, and you need to be wearing that mask outside of your own household. It's gotten that significant and these mutated versions appear to be spreading really fast.
• So, the new White House report that has come to Kentucky, I want to go over a number of statements, that we are seeing an increase in both new cases and an increase in our positivity rate. And at this surge that we're in right now is at least twice the rate, the seriousness, of the previous surges that we have seen. This is our most dangerous time, this is not the time to take away our ability to fight this virus. This is the time when, in that period that we're in, that we could lose the most people. That so much of our progress could be torn away; that our sacrifices could be thrown out the window.
• Next piece. The White House is now telling us that the acceleration we are seeing across the country may well be a US variant that has evolved somewhat like the one that you were hearing about in the UK, which may be 50% more transmissible. In other words, we're not only in a dangerous time for the amount of virus out there, but the virus may be more dangerous in terms of its spread than ever before. And while that might not mean that any one case is more serious, there are that many more cases. And we lose 1% of the people that get infected. We will see more death and more devastation.
• The next piece they talk about is that aggressive mitigation must be used to match a more aggressive virus. In other words, states have to have the tools to react and to put in place, when needed, the steps that we know reduce the spread. We've shown the Commonwealth that three straight times. It includes uniform implementation of effective face masking, which we've been able to do through executive order; strict social distancing, and without the ability to enforce that, again, we're going to be in a very concerning place.
• White House is also looking at some of the same vaccination challenges we are, though we've got real good news in that area. They're recommending the creation of high throughput vaccination sites. We're actively working on this right now. I believe Louisville is beta testing one at the moment, where we can get 1000s of people through every day in a site that can operate, day after day after day until the day we defeat this virus. We're going to want to make sure that when we're operationalizing this, it is regional and so every region of the state has real access and ability to get this vaccine. They also are concerned about vaccine hesitancy-- it's real, we're seeing it in some of the staff members in long term care. And so they tell me, and Dr Stack and others, to continue to message about the safety of this vaccine-- 95% effective, and to take it ourselves and to televise it and to show people that it's safe, and we're willing to do it. More than that, I'm willing to have my family vaccinated, my wife Britainy has taken it, I would never, never have recommended that to her if I did not believe that it was fully safe. We have real vaccine hesitancy that we're going to have to push through.
• Again, it is now so prevalent, this virus, and the White House is saying that if you have been around anybody outside the household you live in over the holidays, you need to get tested now. We have over 350 testing sites across Kentucky. You can get on http://kycovid19.ky.gov/ and sign up now. If you visited with friends, if you went to extended family members that don't live in your household, you must get tested. We need you to do it.
• Federal report also went through where we rank on some different things across the country. We are 29th in the highest rate for cases. When you look at our neighbors it's pretty good comparatively and again it's hard to be any better on this list when we have so much virus around us.
• This is the one that we ought to feel very proud of, in one of the most unhealthy states in the country are 41st in new deaths, in new deaths, that's not just overall, this is how well we are taking care of our people. This is what we see in our sacrifice, this is going to be shown through the steps we've taken when we've asked some to sacrifice, even more typically, economically, it's paying off, it's paying off in less death to our people.
• This last one is obviously the most concerning-- our positivity rate is significantly increasing. And that is a real worry that should set off alarms, with all of us. We're now up to 19th in the country, we are increasing when we are previously decreasing, or perhaps even plateauing.
• Alright, in some good news. Northern Kentucky has been hit really hard recently by this virus; Cincinnati, of course, hit worse. In Northern Kentucky, we are now moving a federal surge testing to provide a, I believe, this is the third testing location in Northern Kentucky, the other two run by St. Elizabeth. So beginning on Monday, January 11th, in the Covington West IRS parking lot, the federal government, in partnership with us, is going to be providing additional testing for residents of Northern Kentucky. You can register at: http://doIneedaCOVID19test.com/. So to our officials, our communities, the media up in Northern Kentucky-- please spread this far and wide. It's open, the portal is open now, people can sign up. We want to make sure that it is full beginning on Monday, and that we take advantage of this real help that we are grateful for from the federal government.
• I’m going to move now to vaccines, also some good news. So on Monday, Dr Stack and I talked about how, the speed, that we were vaccinating people in Kentucky wasn't acceptable, that we had to push harder, and that we were going to provide new goals and new guidance to do that. I can tell you since that day, it's picked up measurably. Today, the total doses administered here in Kentucky: 107,799. So on Monday we were at about 66,000. These numbers don't include half of yesterday or today. More than 47,385 vaccinations, in the last three days now. We've got to pick up our pace, even from here, but that shows that providers saw the guidance, that got clarity in that “if we can't find any more people in 1A at the moment, what do we do?” And now they have, I think, the instructions to where we can truly reach that goal: we hope 90% of all doses received, put in somebody's arm in the first week. And this is even more critical with the virus and how it appears across the country to be escalating. Of course, my hope is we're seeing a bump from Christmas that won't continue to grow, but in a minute we'll report that today's our third highest day ever. Of course the last two highest days were the last two days. So cause for concern that we will be watching closely. We're next going to have two reports on our vaccination efforts. Dr Stack is going to talk about our health care worker vaccination efforts and give a resource to those workers that have not received a vaccine yet. And then, Adam Mather from our cabinet for Health and Family Services is going to talk about our long term care program, and we got Dr Stack for the first time in a while, here with us.
• Thank you very much Governor, it's nice to actually be here in person- it's a lot easier to talk to the camera straight. I'm going to show you four slides today. These are going to have to do with vaccine rollout, three of them we have already previously shared with you.
• The first one, are the phases. So on Monday, this past Monday January 4th, Governor Beshear and I announced all four phases for the vaccine rollout in Kentucky.
  • Phase 1A healthcare workers and long term care facility residents.
  • Phase 1B, which is K-12 teachers, our first responders, and people 70 and older. Remember we gave the rationales for these, we need to get our kids back in school- that's absolutely essential. So they can get back to learning, and so parents have their children in a safe environment where they can be out working and doing their jobs, immunizing the adults in the building is a way to open those schools as safely as we possibly can. We also need to get to the individuals who are 70 and older. 75% of the people who have died from COVID-19 in Kentucky, are 70 and older that's another reason why we work so hard to get the long term care facilities. And then the first responders obviously we rely on to keep us safe and protected and help respond in our time of needs. And I think all of us have understood the importance of getting these populations.
  • After that, we announced on Monday phase 1C, which is the rest of 1B, as the CDC defined it, plus parts of the next phase in the CDC plan, that would capture all of the folks who are in the CDC bucket for either essential worker category, and those people at most high risk for severe COVID disease. Anyone with the conditions that the CDC defined on its website, at the time that we published these guidelines these phases, who has health conditions who are proven to result in more severe disease. And that's for anyone 16 and older who has any of those highest risk conditions.
  • When you move to phase 3 and phase 4, at that point we're talking about healthy individuals who do not meet any of the other criteria, and then it's an age based tiering where you go to people between 40 to 59 for phase 2 and then phase 3 would be 16 to 39 years of age. We won't get to the phase 3 as soon as probably until sometime in summer, and phase 4 is not even eligible for the vaccine now because the vaccine is not authorized for anyone under the age of 16.
• The slide that describes all of the folks that the CDC has defined as essential workers is on the left side of your slide and on the right side are those health conditions that the CDC is defined as being proven to elevate your risk for severe disease for COVID. Those are taken directly from CDC materials without editing. And what we would ask any vaccine administration site to do is to follow those if an individual says “I'm in those categories”, then we would honor the person's request and we would offer them the access to the vaccine if we have the doses to give.
• This next one is really important. A shot that sits in a freezer for an extended period of time is no use to anyone. And because it is incredibly difficult to find people who meet very specific, very discrete, descriptions it's hard to locate all of them; and because unfortunately there's a substantial proportion of the population who is opting to wait for the vaccine later or has some concern or hesitancy. It's very difficult because when we allocate certain proportions or numbers of vaccines for specific purposes, not all of the population always accept the vaccine when offered initially. And so for this reason it's absolutely important that while every week a vaccine administration site starts at the top and works from 1A to 1B to 1C, and they go in that order, always trying to reach the highest priority people first, and always promoting to the people in only the open tier, that at the end of the day, every week, we want every administration site to give 90% or more of the vaccine that reaches the state within seven days. So the goal is a willing arm is a ready arm to receive the vaccine. Use the vaccine, give the vaccine, do your very best to target and reach the highest risk individuals as defined in the phasing, but at the end of the day, every week you should use all the vaccine you receive to the best of your ability. And then next week if you get more than we move forward and we keep that process up until we get to everybody who wants to be vaccinated.
• The next slide is my one new slide for this week. We understand that there is a need to make it more clear for people who want and need the vaccine, where they go to get the vaccine. This is part of the challenge in building an entirely new network to deliver novel and innovative vaccines that we previously didn't have. So this is our first attempt, it will get better from here. This is the first attempt on our website under the healthcare tab, only for healthcare personnel, please, this is not for the general public. This is for health care personnel only for the next few weeks, please. I've said all along it would take all of January to reach most of healthcare personnel. If later today you go on the website https://kycovid19.ky.gov, and you look under the health care tab, there will be a new map, and that map when you click the link, you can find locations. If you find one nearest to you, and you sign up I don't know whether it will be within the next week or two weeks but they will take your name and they will allow you to register and you can get scheduled for your vaccine. So we have guaranteed to provide a steady supply of vaccine. It's not as much as I want to supply. We get 53,000 doses a week every week in the state and that's likely to stay that way well into February. It's only so much to go around. But we have committed to supplying these locations with at least some steady reliable supply, so they know how many appointments they can schedule. If you consider yourself healthcare personnel, that does include doctors and nurses, but also social workers and therapists and people who care for vulnerable people and home-based care, hospice workers. It includes dentists and hygienists and psychologists and podiatrists, optometrists. It includes Health Sciences students, Medical Laboratory workers. I'm giving a long list, so that if you think you are a health care personnel. Please identify yourself as such, register, and go get the vaccine. We are trying to prioritize that as much as possible but every site is to use all their vaccine within seven days of getting it, and at least hit 90%. Before I step down, I want to emphasize what the governor said. I think that the rise in our test positivity rate is very concerning. I think we definitively stopped, we halted, the third climb before the holidays. I feel very confident about that and I think the data shows that very soundly. I think unfortunately over those two holidays, back-to-back, what ended up happening is people socialized and they spread disease in ways that are now resulting in an increase in our positivity rate. Our hospitalization data suggests that there could be the beginning of a new increase, we know that hospitalizations probably follow around two weeks or so, or more, after the positivity in the new cases. So we will now see over the next few weeks how bad it gets. I urge you, I urge you: please wear your mask, wash your hands, keep your six foot distance, and please, if you are sick, stay home. Do not go out until you feel better or unless you need to seek medical care, and get tested. If you believe you've been exposed, or think you have COVID please get tested. Be informed and take the necessary steps.
• My final point for today is though I've been pretty overwhelmed with the vaccine rollout, and obviously still overseeing some of these other operations, I am certainly, at least peripherally aware, of the activities of the legislature and I would just caution all Kentuckians, please this is a time for you to exercise your civic duty and to be informed. You can find the text of every one of these bills online at the legislative resource commission. You can find the text online. I urge you, I urge you when you see in the newspaper discussion about healthcare related and public health related bills to go and read those bills. I think if you read some of them you would share my concern. For some of those to be passed, we would have absolutely, I'm absolutely confident, had much worse outcomes at this point. I wouldn't be standing here with the governor, we would be announcing much higher death tolls, we would have had the same or worse economic harm, and arguably it could have been worse. Our hospitals would have been overrun by this point like they were in the spring in some places, the summer in others, and right now in the winter. I'm standing here today, able to tell you we've not had a single hospital collapse or get overrun this entire response because we have responsibly navigated this and worked in partnership with you, the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, to keep yourselves and your neighbors and family and friends and loved ones safe. I urge you to be informed and to express your opinions, so that your opinions are heard. Because if we allow ourselves to be uninformed and not exercise our civic duty, I am concerned that some things could be passed that could make it very very difficult for us to help work together with you to keep everyone safe and get through this intact and in a better condition on the other side. It remains a privilege to serve, and thank you for your patience with the vaccine folks. 53,000 is 53,000 there's only so many ways to divide the doses we get. We're doing the best we can, we will get to everybody but it's going to take some time. So, thank you very much governor.
• Now, last night in the state of the Commonwealth, I talked about the fact that we as a Commonwealth have learned that an effective management, an effective approach, an effective public health approach to this virus is necessary to sustain and rebuild our economy. In fact, just today. I read a news story about how one of Ford's plants, which employs 1000s of people, is having to shut down because the virus swept through one of the auto parts suppliers that it needs. Failure to manage and to have the tools in place for this virus, is going to have significant economic impact and just-- it's going to take us a lot longer to recover; but we'll talk about that a little more in a minute. Next is Adam Mather. He is with our Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and he is one of our point people on the long term care vaccinations. Remember, this is 66% of our deaths, so it's absolutely critical that this piece run smoothly and Adam is working real hard on it, Adam.
• Thank you Governor. I also want to thank you in working with our national partners at CVS and Walgreens, in respect to authorizing and initiating the skilled nursing facility in the assisted living facilities at the same time. That is to be considerably more effective and more efficient at distributing the vaccine to our most vulnerable populations.
• I'll just go over these very quickly and I'm sure there'll be questions at the end and I'll stick around for them to answer. And so when you look at the facilities that have been vaccinated thus far we're sitting around 287, these numbers are from yesterday. There will be, in discussions with CVS and Walgreens, significant ramp ups and a pledge by both partners to be finished by January 25th for skilled nursing facilities. You can see the doses administered are a little less than 24,000, a pretty significant number but we're looking to ramp that up with our national partners over the next couple of weeks. And then residents vaccinated, we are seeing some differences there. Some of that is due to COVID outbreaks in facilities where they've been unable to vaccinate those individuals when they're on site for their clinic, but they are offering three clinics and so they will be able to do that appropriately. And then, as the governor mentioned, staff vaccinations remain a bit of an issue. Some of that caveat some of that is that some of the facilities have decided to split their staff in half in case there are any reactions, or call outs that they have enough staffing. A note with that is we have not seen any significant call outs or reactions from vaccination. And anecdotally nationally they've seen on the second round of clinics that staff are more willing to take the vaccine, so we should see a significant ramp up there, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will see it increase significantly. And with that I will give it back over to you Governor I appreciate all your help on this project.
• Thank you to Adam and I know he's going to stay on the line. Just yesterday Operation Warp Speed had a call with the head officials from the federal government; we had numerous people on it. The head of Walgreens and CVS were on it. It was very positive in that real commitments to do better, not shying away from the fact that we need to speed up, everybody accepting the task ahead of us and that's the most important thing is how do we improve day in and day out.

(continued in stickied comment)

Hi /FridaysForFuture! I have been working on an ongoing project for 5 years now nick-named “[Signs of collapse]”. We can all see how the natural world that we’re depending on is degrading at an increasing pace while the warnings of the scientific community are ignored. I think in order to reach a world that is truly sustainable and free from fossil fuels, it's imperative that everyone fully understand where we are now and which path we are on. To progress, we have to identify the problems and accept them for what they are if we wish to have any chance addressing them.
I try my best to not make this series into a rant about every little problem or mishap that’s going on. Even in a sustainable society accidents would happen and natural catastrophes would occur, seasons would vary in intensity from year to year and so on. So what I present here is my best attempt at distilling out anthropogenic anomalies.
I define a “sign of collapse” as a negative market externality that the current socioeconomic system for whatever reason hasn’t dealt with and is now ending up hurting people or the ecosystem. I try to pick studies and news that shows the occurring consequences of the current system’s failure to deal with externalities.
Urgent action is needed now and there's close to no upper limit to how radically environmentalist one can reasonably become at the present time. I hope this collection of catastrophes can serve as sharp ammunition in whatever project or strike you participate in.
Feel free to share any of the material or repost this on other suitable subreddits. If you would like to get involved in this project, don’t hesitate to chat me up.
Previous posts:

• Signs of collapse 2020 Q3
  
• Signs of collapse 2020 Q2
  
• Signs of collapse 2020 Q1
  
• Signs of collapse 2019
  
• Signs of collapse 2018
  
• Signs of collapse 2017
  
• Signs of collapse 2016
  

Signs of Collapse 2020 Summary of the Year

Human well-being & non-specific climate change

• 'Past a point of no return': Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero still won't stop global warming, study says
• 75% of young want to escape South Korean ‘Hell’
• Coronavirus: Hundreds dead in Iran from drinking methanol amid fake reports it cures disease
• ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists
• Violence and looting point to food crisis in S.Africa lockdown
• WATCH: Lebanese citizens vent their ire by TORCHING bank, army vehicle, as at least 1 protester shot dead
• "I'm starving now": World faces unprecedented hunger crisis amid coronavirus pandemic
• 'We don't know how it will end': Hunger stalks amid virus - The Mainichi
• Coronavirus-related hunger in the US spikes, with food programs struggling to keep up
• 15 US states now hit by rare inflammatory syndrome impacting children
• Yemen: ‘Hanging on by a thread’, UN chief requests funding to meet staggering humanitarian crisis
• Leaders to UN: If virus doesn't kill us, climate change will
• Global methane emissions soar to record high
• Top Scientists Just Ruled Out Best-Case Global Warming Scenarios
• Residents still without drinking water more than six months after bushfire emergency
• Thousands in Puerto Rico still without housing since Maria
• Hungry New Yorkers form quarter-mile line for free food in Queens
• Workers Keeping Americans Fed Are Going Hungry in the Heartland
• Reports of bizarre menstrual cycles emerge after tear gas exposure from Seattle protests
• UN warns that world risks becoming 'uninhabitable hell' for millions
• As World Teeters on Brink, Over 250 Scientists and Scholars Warn of Full-Fledged 'Societal Collapse'
• Humanity has killed 75% of all wildlife. Like a tumor that becomes metastatic and spreads through the body, so to do humans pervade through every rock and crevice on earth.
• UN: Food has run out for nearly 100,000 refugees in Ethiopia
• Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks for 1st time
• Ice loss to add 0.4 degrees Celsius to global temperatures: study
• Dreaded Methane Deposits in Arctic Start to Escape; Scientists Warn of Abrupt Climate Change in Future

Economy, Politics & Industry

• Germany has offered companies 'unlimited' loans to stop them from collapsing because of the coronavirus pandemic
• It's not just toilet paper: People line up to buy guns, ammo over coronavirus concerns
• Wife of Spain’s prime minister tests positive for virus
• Canada shuts Parliament, Trudeau in quarantine, no travel
• Coronavirus: Italian army called in as crematorium struggles to cope with deaths
• 'Bolsonaro Out!' From Balconies and Windows, Millions Demand Ouster of Brazilian President Over Handling of Coronavirus
• Tokyo 2020: Olympics to be postponed until 2021, says IOC member
• Coronavirus: Prince Charles tests positive for COVID-19
• Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns
• Boris Johnson Has Tested Positive For The Coronavirus
• Jobless claims soar past 3 million to record high
• Dow drops nearly 3,000 points, as coronavirus collapse continues; worst day since ’87
• Brazilian President Bolsonaro Rejects Calls for Coronavirus Lockdown, Says 'We're All Going to Die One Day'
• IMF officially declares global economic recession
• Hungary Parliament Grants Prime Minister Orban Unlimited Power In Coronavirus Fight
• Coronavirus closes meat plants in Canada and the United States as world’s largest pork producer warns of shortages
• Piglets aborted, chickens gassed as pandemic slams meat sector
• One in five Wendy's is out of beef, analyst says
• 'We may have to ration': US food banks face shortages as demand surges | US news
• Stirrings of unrest around the world could portend turmoil as economies collapse
• Study: 71 percent of jobless Americans didn’t receive March unemployment benefits
• Hungary no longer a democracy: report
• Michigan dam failures force 10,000 to evacuate and could leave one city under 9 feet of water
• China annexes 60 square km of India in Ladakh as simmering tensions erupt between two superpowers
• Trump has officially begun to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization as pandemic spikes
• Coronavirus data has already disappeared after Trump administration shifted control from CDC
• 'Wave of silence' spread around world during coronavirus pandemic | Science
• California severely short on firefighting crews after COVID-19 lockdown at prison camps
• Ontario farmers ‘concerned’ as crops continue to die amid drought: ‘It’s bad’
• ‘I Can’t Keep Doing This:’ Small-Business Owners Are Giving Up
• Yelp data shows 60% of business closures due to the coronavirus pandemic are now permanent
• What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland
• Camouflaged federal agents have descended on Portland. Trump's DHS is out of control
• Trump Plans to Expand the Federal Invasion of American Cities
• Here's Why Cities Won't Be Able to Stop Trump's Secret Police
• Feds Sending Tactical Team to Seattle, Expanding Presence Beyond Portland
• Coronavirus has fuelled authoritarian trends around the world, Australia's Dfat warns
• The Trump campaign is reportedly 'discussing contingency plans to bypass election results'
• What is water theft, and how big a problem is it?
• Still no country doing enough to meet goals of Paris Agreement, says climate report
• Alleged domestic terrorists used armed protests at Michigan capitol for recruitment
• 17 states tell Supreme Court they support Texas bid to reverse Biden win
• QAnon Supporters, Paramilitary Groups Promise ‘Fight' Over Election At Pro-Trump Rally Near Nevada’s Capitol
• Ethiopia's conflict spills over border as thousands flee
• 250 million Indian workers and farmers strike, breaking world record
• ‘Attack of the debt tsunami’: Coronavirus pushes global debt to record high
• U.S. Officially Leaving Paris Climate Agreement

Police riots in the US

• Shooting of Breonna Taylor
• ‘I Can’t Breathe!’: Video Of Fatal Arrest Shows Minneapolis Officer Kneeling On George Floyd’s Neck For Several Minutes
• The Police Are Rioting. We Need to Talk About It.
• Watch Police Instigate & Escalate All Across The U.S.
• Police actively seeking out fights compilation
• Tug of war over an umbrella sends police into violent frenzy
• We Crunched the Numbers: Police — Not Protesters — Are Overwhelmingly Responsible for Attacking Journalists
• Minnesota police arrest CNN reporter and camera crew as they report from protests in Minneapolis
• After shouting press multiple times and raising my press card in the air, I was thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed while being held down
• Police Shoot Tear Gas Toward MSNBC Crew, Protesters, 'There Was No Warning Whatsoever' | MSNBC
• LMPD officer fires pepper balls at WAVE 3 News reporter, photographer during Louisville protest
• Minneapolis Police shoot reporter and permanently blind her left eye
• Police attack peaceful protestors & press in Washington D.C.
• 'I’m getting shot': attacks on journalists surge in US protests
• Police targeted journalists covering the George Floyd protests
• Police act nice for the media, then turn on protesters once journalists are gone
• Cops sneak up to confiscate & destroy water and other supplies peaceful protestors are using in Louisville, KY
• Video shows police destroying medical station at North Carolina protest [2] [3]
• Austin Police Shoot Teen in Head with Rubber Bullet at Protest
• Police aims rubber bullets at protester with toddler on shoulders
• Protester lost his eye when a FWPD Officer unnecessarily fired a tear gas canister at his head’
• Woman walking home from grocery shot in head by police
• Man shot by police on I street Sacramento 5/30/2020
• San Diego Police Department shot an unarmed woman in the head.
• Woman shot in head with rubber bullet during protest
• Police fire tear gas canister at unarmed man after macing him
• APD gets water splashed on them and immediately fires into the crowd.
• Homeless man in wheelchair shot in head with rubber bullet
• Seattle PD hit a 21 year old female directly in the chest with a stun grenade.
• Cops Pepper Spray Amputee, Steal His Legs
• a girl here was peacefully protesting, after 15 minutes she was maced and kicked
• Unprovoked police fire pepper pellet at protester
• Police fire at people on their porch after shooting ‘light them up’
• 1 week of brutality in 11 minutes
• 190 clips of Police Brutality in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
• Activists Catalog Nearly 600 Videos of Officer Violence Against Protesters

Biodiversity

• More Than One Billion Animals Killed in Australia Wildfires Called a 'Very Conservative' Estimate
• Up to 23 feet long, the Chinese paddlefish was the giant of the Yangtze. And we killed it
• Wildlife destruction 'not a slippery slope but a series of cliff edges' | Environment
• Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast
• The vultures aren't soaring over Africa – and that's bad news | Environment
• Mass die-offs in marine mammals are accelerating, and climate change will only make it worse
• The pesticide that caused bee colonies to collapse is killing birds now
• 'Staggering loss' of endangered species in Canada
• Survey finds 71 per cent of koala populations died in some NSW fires
• Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US | Environment
• Botswana says toxins in water killed hundreds of elephants
• 40% of world’s plant species at risk of extinction
• 95% of Marine Life on Sea Floor Killed in Kamchatka Eco-Disaster, Scientists Say
• Mass die-off of birds in south-western US 'caused by starvation'

Pests, viruses and bacterial infections

• Locust swarms as big as cities are causing a crisis in Africa as experts warn they could get 400 times bigger
• World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic
• Austria closing schools over coronavirus as border checks take effect
• India quarantines itself from world for a month to fight coronavirus
• Italy closes bars, restaurants and most shops as coronavirus death toll jumps 30%
• Belgium closes schools, bars and restaurants
• Iran has let its covid-19 outbreak get out of hand
• Coronavirus: Spain and France announce sweeping restrictions
• Italians over 80 'will be left to die' as country overwhelmed by coronavirus
• 80% of COVID-19 spreads from people who don't know they are sick
• Coronavirus can survive both hot, humid climates: WHO
• Health official: One person dying every 10 minutes from coronavirus in Iran
• Madagascar confirms first cases of coronavirus
• Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Worse, Neo-Nazis Are Trying to Weaponize Coronavirus India shuts down for 21 days as coronavirus spreads across south Asia
• ‘If the govt doesn’t fix it, we will’: Brazil’s GANGS impose night-time curfews in Rio’s slums
• Coronavirus: At least 59% of cases in Wuhan, China went unreported, study says
• Satellite images show Iran has built mass graves amid coronavirus outbreak
• Intensive care for coronavirus patients now limited to those 'reasonably certain' to survive, NHS London trust admits
• China reports new African swine fever cases in Gansu province
• Ecuador struggles to collect the dead as coronavirus spreads
• Body-bag stocks are running out, suppliers say
• 'The food supply chain is breaking,' Tyson says as plants close
• Russia’s Ambulance Crews Are Running on Empty as They Fight Coronavirus - The Moscow Times
• Coronavirus city branded 'new Wuhan' as corpses pile up in streets
• ‘Murder Hornets’ in the U.S.: The Rush to Stop the Asian Giant Hornet
• Second wave of locusts causing havoc in East Africa
• Worst locust attack in 26 years: All about the latest threat amid Covid-19 outbreak - india news
• Swarms of desert locusts reach Delhi outskirts after Gurugram
• A Deadly Bacteria Kills Olive Trees Across Southern Europe
• Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus
• A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming
• WHO sounds alarm as coronavirus cases rise by one million in five days
• Texas battling influx of coronavirus cases: "Our hospitals look like war zones"
• Fauci says outbreak exploding because US didn't shut down
• Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus
• Doctors Are Calling It Quits Under Stress of the Pandemic
• ‘There’s No Place for Them to Go’: I.C.U. Beds Near Capacity Across U.S.
• Covid Overload: U.S. Hospitals Are Running Out of Beds for Patients
• COVID-19: French president Emmanuel Macron tests positive for coronavirus | World News
• A flesh-eating bacteria lurking in the ocean is killing people in the Carolinas
• Germany: Plagues of field mice are devouring crops on a massive scale
• Climate change is bringing back long-lost forms of food poisoning
• As Europe's governments lose control of Covid, revolt is in the air | Europe

Coral reefs

• Great Barrier Reef hit by third major bleaching event in five years
• The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its corals within 3 decades
• Australia's Great Barrier Reef status lowered to "critical" and deteriorating

Ice and water

• Jakarta floods: cloud seeding planes try to break up heavy rain | Environment
• The Worst Drought in 40 Years Has Turned Bangkok Tap Water Salty
• Polar ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990s
• 'A third of Bangladesh underwater' after heavy rains, floods
• ‘Doomsday glacier’ in Antarctica melting due to warm water channels under surface, scientists discover
• Ice sheets melting at 'worst-case scenario rate', research warns
• Greenland ice sheet reached tipping point 20 years ago, new study finds
• After Covid, China’s Leaders Face New Challenges From Flooding
• India and Bangladesh floods leave more than 1,000 dead
• Arctic Sea Ice Is Failing to Form, Raising a Huge ‘Red Flag’
• Canada's last intact ice shelf broke off. It took our research station with it
• 'The Arctic Ocean Is Dying': Grim Conclusion as Biggest North Pole Mission Returns

Hurricanes, storms and winds

• At $1.6B, Hurricane Laura did more agriculture damage in Louisiana than Katrina and Rita combined
• The 2020 Hurricane Season Breaks Record For Most Named Storms Ever

Heat waves, forest fires and tree loss

• Canberra's air quality is 'the worst in the world' as bushfire smoke shrouds capital
• ‘It’s Going to Be a Blast Furnace’: Australia Fires Intensify
• Tens of thousands stranded while attempting to flee Australia fires – Cashless economy collapses as ATMs fail, supermarket looted – “We have no capacity to contain these fires”
• May 2020 tied for hottest on record for the globe
• The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance
• Arctic records its hottest temperature ever
• There Have Never Been This Many Fires in the Northern Arctic
• Last month was the world’s third-hottest July on record | Living
• About 11,000 lightning bolts strike California, igniting hundreds of fires in a state facing multiple crises
• The worst fire season ever. Again.
• Tens of thousands of fires are pushing the Amazon to a tipping point
• Brazil's Amazon rainforest suffers worst fires in a decade
• Wildfires tear through drought-racked Paraguay amid record heat
• California wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history
• 100,000 under evacuation orders as strong winds fan California wildfire - About 1 million people in the dark as state cuts power to prevent new blazes
• Tens of thousands without power, hundreds evacuated as new fires erupt in California
• September was world's hottest on record
• Australia's Bushfire Season Is Back, With a Whole New Set of Complications
• Paraguay declares state of emergency as forest fires rage
• Colorado wildfires show "climate change is here and now"
• The world's largest wetlands are on fire. That's a disaster for all of us

Pollution

• Plastic dust is blowing into U.S. national parks—more than 1000 tons each year
• Plants absorb nanoplastics through the roots, which block proper absorption of water, hinder growth, and harm seedling development. Worse, plastic alters the RNA sequence, hurting the plant’s ability to resist disease.
• Ozone Destruction Hasn't Gone Away -- It's Merely Hidden Away
• Study finds 14 million metric tons of microplastics on the seafloor
• The number of global methane hot spots has soared this year despite the economic slowdown
• The Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Has Grown Much Deeper And Wider in 2020