Well, the good news is that we're back in Honolulu, and all is well.  Started off in New York City. Hotel said there was a set $70 cost of the taxi ride to JFK Airport.  Well, when you add the toll charges and tip, it was up to $90.  That in itself was okay.  So we checked in for our 1PM departure time, which was ticketed more than three months ago.  After we picked up our tickets, we went to the excellent Alaska Airline lounge and was beginning a leisurely breakfast when we found out that we needed to board the plane at 11:05, which was less than half an hour away.  We never got any notice for this change.  We came extra early to be safe, and it turned out that we only barely made this flight. Some photos. Bloody Mary and champagne in Alaska Air lounge. Here is about when we learned we had only a few minutes rather than a couple of hours in the lounge.  Our plane. Goodbye Manhattan from air. Then noticed the plane we were on was the  Boeing 737 MAX  9, the one that lost a door i

While the Omicron variant continues to attack pockets of vulnerability throughout the world, this pandemic is losing momentum, and the peak of new deaths reached exactly a year ago--16,503 on 24January2021--is now down to 7000.  Watch Japan, for example, which is on a definite upswing after doing so well the past two years. To appreciate how important it is to get vaccinated, let's look further in  Switzerland earlier this month in deaths/100,000 : Unvaccinated  11.56 Fully vaccinated, but not boosted  0.89 ( 13 times fewer deaths ) Fully vaccinated and boosted  0.07  ( 165 times fewer deaths ) This  same report  looked into the U.S. early in December  (almost no Omicron ): Unvaccinated:  9.74 Fully vaccinated, but not boosted  0.71  ( 14 times fewer deaths ) Fully vaccinated and boosted  0.10  ( 97.4 times fewer deaths ) Keep in mind that, while contagion is much higher with Omicron, the mortality rate is much lower.  Last week, White House press secretary  Jen Psaki announced :  

From  Worldometer  (new deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9     1093    4732        1185       246          82 July    22     1205    7128        1293      1120         572 Aug    12     1504     6556       1242       835         130 Sept     3      1094    5886        830     1083         174             9      1208    6222        1136      1168          82 Oct      8        957    6420         730       967        160           20       952     6169           662       714       164           21     1225     6849            571       703         85           27     1039      7023          530       519         45 Nov     4      1199      8192          276        511          74             11       1479    10178            564       550         60            12      1190       9659           926       521         65           13      1297       9951            614       539         77           14      1260       8823