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COVID-19 Kills Public Transit in Emmet
A hard-won public transportation option in Emmet County will stop at the end of the year after just two years in service.
The board of commissioners voted in August to end EMGO at the end of 2020. Because it was funded through the county’s general fund rather than a millage, it had to compete for funding with other mandated services, said Michael Reaves, county administrator.
The added pressure the pandemic put on the general fund and the economy meant the county could no longer fund public transportation, Reaves said. (The struggle to launch EMGO was profiled in the Northern Express story “The Bus Doesn’t Stop Here,” featured in the Sept. 23, 2017, edition).
The board did vote to greenlight $26,000 to supplement the cost of transport for senior citizens and the disabled.
Reaves told Northern Express in an email that, under a different economic reality, something like EMGO could someday be reconsidered.
“Perhaps in the future, under a different funding mechanism, this may be revisited,” he wrote.
Host a Live Performance Viewing Party in Your Home
Summer’s live entertainment options were limited, but contrary to popular fear, fall’s are far from dead. Already on the schedule: Parallel 45’s “DEJA ZOOM,” in which the professional group of actors will perform, live at 7pm, Sept. 24, the entire alphabet in under an hour — this time, pandemic style: socially distanced and via Zoom. A riff on their hilarious “Alphabet Experience LIVE” show from last winter, this one is also made to crack up kids and adults but requires no awkward apologies to other audience members when your kids decide they need to go potty four times in the single hour. Instead, you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the livestreaming show on your own home computer ($12). Or, go big and host a home viewing party for your whole pod; $100 gets you access to the show, and VIP After Party, and a P45 Mystery Box. Don’t think you’ve got the HDMI-cable chops for a viewing party? Covered: $75 will get you an in-home visit from a tech who’ll set up your TV, audio, or projection screen prior to the performance. Get tickets at www.parallel45.org
Stuff we love Outlets for (Gentle) Aggression
So college football ain’t happening this fall. The NFL preseason is canceled. And the NBA bubble … ? Well, it’s burst all of our dreams for live courtside screams. So where to go to hoot, holler, and high-five your fellow man (or woman) this fall if not your college bleachers or living room? We suggest the War Zone, in Traverse City. For just $5, first-timers who book ahead online (www.thewarzonetc.com) get an openplay session (regularly $15) to get out all their pent-up sports-fan aggression by way of a high-powered nerf “blaster.” Every Saturday, kids age 7–12 get their own session at 4pm–5pm; kids and adults age 13+ play 5:30pm–6:30pm. Birthday parties, leagues, and even monthly memberships are available, too. Since players generally want to avoid getting shot, social distancing is naturally part of the game, but co-owner Matthew Elliott tells us the War Zone works to keep things extra clean with a one-way air-control system, outdoor staging areas, pre-game temperature checks, and the sanitizing of all blasters and common areas between sessions.
STORIES ALL OVER THE PLACE
Learn about growing up gay in Traverse City in CHASTEN BUTTIGIEG’S memoir, I Have Something To Tell You (Sept. 10, 7 p.m.); the latest thriller by RUTH WARE, One by One, set in the French Alps (Sept. 13, 2 p.m. — special time); and a doctoral student exploring the underpinnings of addiction and depression — maladies that have hit her own immigrant family in YAA GYASI’S newest novel, Transcendent Kingdom (Sept. 23, 7 p.m.). All three authors will be bringing their best-selling books to the National Writers Series in September — radically different subjects all with satisfying results. Events are virtual, registration info at NationalWritersSeries.org
Chasten Buttigieg
Ruth Ware
bottoms up Walloon Lake Winery’s Windemere
If there was ever a wine custom-made for a breezy, sunny, late-summer day, Walloon Lake Winery’s Windemere ($20 bottle), a white, three-grape field blend culled from Petoskey’s La Di Dah Vineyard, must be the one. With only a hint of sweetness in its pale-yellow depths, Windemere, named for Ernest Hemingway’s boyhood Walloon Lake home, is refreshingly dry with the tart citrus notes and profoundly fresh white-grape aroma so enriched by Northern Michigan sunshine. The fermented nectar of three cold-hearty, single-vineyard hybrids (Frontenac Gris, Frontenac Blanc, and La Crescent) constitute this light, summery wine, which pairs well with fish, seafood, cheese, charcuterie, and desserts, while also serving as an excellent cooking wine. Find it at Walloon Lake Winery, 3149 Intertown Rd., Petoskey, or order a bottle online ($19.99) at www.walloonlakewinery.com. (231) 622-8645 Northern Express Weekly • sept 07, 2020 • 5
F l a v
TroutTownTavern.com
One taste and you’ll know the difference!
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spectator by Stephen Tuttle
So, now it’s “herd immunity.” That seems to be the latest Trump Administration COVID-19 strategy. At least the steps they’re now taking are pushing in that direction.
Their reluctance to recommend masks and social distancing, their insistence on inperson teaching for schools, their ongoing efforts for states to fully reopen, and now, an effort to restrict testing to only people who have symptoms. All of that helps lead to more infected people, which would, eventually, lead to herd immunity.
The recent addition of Dr. Scott Atlas to the novel coronavirus task force is more evidence of their intent. Dr. Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no background or experience in epidemiology or infectious diseases, has some disdain for the efficacy of masks and has suggested herd immunity as a solution.
Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient per- centage of the population has developed virus anti-bodies, either by being infected or receiving an effective vaccine, so the spread slows and ultimately stops. With few people left to infect, there’s nowhere for it to spread. Different diseases require different levels of herd immunity. Measles, one of the most communicable of all maladies, requires nearly 95 percent herd immunity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most seasonal flu requires about 60 percent. There is no consensus on COVID-19. Some believe herd immunity could be reached with an infection/vaccination rate as low as 20 percent. Others believe, because of the high number of asymptomatic carriers, 80 percent will be necessary. Whatever, the numbers become breathtaking. Let’s split the difference and say 50 percent. That would mean 165.5 million infected Americans. Since about 20 percent of infected pa- tients require hospitalization, that would mean a nightmarish 66.2 million patients. That’s about twice the number of Americans hospitalized annually. We don’t have nearly enough hospital space or medical personnel for any- thing vaguely close to that. Then there are the deaths. With the death rate leveling off at around 1 percent, 1.65 million patients would die, nearly three times the fa- talities in the 1918 flu pandemic. Sweden tried a modified version of this, and it simply has not worked. No mask mandates, no social distancing, and almost noth- ing closed. The result was an infection rate 10 times that of their more restrictive neighbors Norway, Finland, and Denmark combined. They’ve had four times the fatalities of their combined neighbors and have a per capita fatality rate akin to that of Italy. And herd immunity didn’t help their economy because so many people got sick and couldn’t work. It wouldn’t help ours, either. In fact, it would crush our healthcare system; 34 million typical annual hospitalizations plus 65 million or so COVID-19 hospitalizations? It isn’t remotely reasonable.
Herd immunity will only work when there is a safe, effective vaccine administered in sufficient numbers to willing people. Allowing the novel coronavirus to spread intentionally will cripple the economy, the healthcare system, and the country. We don’t have enough hospitals or cemeteries. It’s a deadly bad idea. __________________________________
Time for a brief check on that pesky climate change “hoax.”
The Greenland ice sheet had a terrible 2019. According to the National Snow and Data Center, Greenland lost a whopping 586 billion tons of ice last year, about four times more than average.
Antarctica is melting, too, ably abetted by
warmer seawater undercutting every floating ice shelf. The continent had a day this year when the temperature reached nearly 65 F.
According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, glaciers in 30 countries continue receding approximately .6 to 1.0 mile annually, a dramatic increase in the last 50 years.
Average daily temperatures have increased about 1.8 F in the last century with most of that increase occurring since 1970. According to Climate.gov, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2019 was the second hottest year ever, only slightly cooler than 2016. In fact, 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2005, with 1998 as the only outlier in the 20th Century.
Already hot Phoenix just recorded its hottest July ever, with a daily 24-hour average of 99. It’s had 34 days of temperatures reaching at least 110 degrees and 25 when the overnight low never dipped below 90, both also records.
Permafrost above the Arctic Circle has begun melting — one Siberian town that far north had a temperature of 100 F this summer — releasing methane and who knows what else that has been frozen for millennia.
We have twice as many wildfires burning four times more area and costing five times more than they did a half-century ago. California has had 7,200 wildfires this year, burning 1.6 million acres.
Maybe it’s all just a natural cycle of quirky weather. Scientists don’t think so, but some of us quit listening to them nearly four years ago.
