I am Curious/Yellow

This map is going to be filled in by next week, but it is good for those people scrapbooking COVID-19 and explains why the U.S. is incapable of defeating a little dungball of garbage genetic material.  We are too spoiled, too selfish to cover our mouths, and spend way too much time in the air attempting to fill our empty lives with distant, shiny memories.

Go ahead and add Utah and Missouri to a list that up until a few minutes ago included only California, Minnesota, New York, Hawaii, Colorado, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey.  Update:  Now add Georgia and Louisiana.  Saturday update:  Now add the states of Washington, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.  Monday:  Now add Mississippi.  Tuesday:  A dash of Texas.  A splash of Florida.  And a soupçon of Illinois.  Wednesday:  A-A-A-Arizona where the O comes sweeping' down the drain.  Thursday:  A little bit of Michigan in my life.  And now here is Virginia by my side.  I know you'll like some Iowa in your drink.  We're up to 25 states right now, I think.  Friday:  It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on North Carolina.  S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y Night.  I-i-i-i-idaho, Rho-rho-rhode Island, let 'em know.  Coda:  At the good ole' rock and roll, don't forget Ohio on  Saturday night, Saturday night.  Whoopsie doopsie made an oopsie women get in free in Tennessee on Saturday night, Saturday ni-i-i-i-hite.  That's it for Saturday ni-hite.

On Monday, December 13, we caught the NM & O (New Mexico and Ohio), while just another Manic Monday means taking the morning train to Washington, D.C., working from 9 to 5 on a report that an early Maryland infection predated by three days the identification of Omicron as a known variant of concern.  Translation:  Cat was already outadabag.  This is 32 states plus the District of Columbia, and those states that haven't found any Omicron yet - Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Nevada, Oregon, Kentucky, South Carolina, Indiana, and Delaware - just aren't trying very hard.  Final clean-up:  New Hampshire reported its first Omicron-positive case on Monday, December 13.  Alaska reported its first Omicron-positive case on Monday, December 13.  Oregon reported its first positive on Tuesday, December 14.  Nevada reported its first positive on Tuesday, December 14.  South Carolina reported its first positive on Wednesday, December 15.  Kansas reported its first potential positive on Wednesday, December 15.  This leaves 12 states left to report Omicron-positive cases, meaning 12 states (Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Alabama, Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Delaware) too backwards or inept to properly amplify or sequence Omicron from the human body.  Because if Alaska has it, folks, ya goddam know Kentucky and Indiana and West Virginia have it.  Final final clean-up:  On Thursday, December 16, West Virginia and Alabama powered up the generators/hamster wheels and finally discovered they had Omicron.  Thanks for playing, West Virginia and Alabama.  The final bottom ten in the challenge to uncover circulating Omicron strains (which very much are now without doubt in circulation in each of these states) are Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Indiana, and Delaware.  I swear I will stop updating this after tonight, December 17:  Delaware announced today it just uncovered FOUR cases of Omicron in the Blue Hen State.  Way to go, Delaware, why diagnose an index case when you can just wait a few weeks and document community spread at the same time?  Kill two hens with one stone, so to speak.  And Maine also finally found Omicron in something other than a lobster trap stenciled with the warning "be careful of the pinchy parts".  So we are down to the Lateful Eight (which incidentally is the number of letters in Omicron, if you are the Wyoming spelling bee champion): Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Vermont, Kentucky, and Indiana.  But wait there's more - Breaking news coming across the wire suggests Wyoming had already diagnosed its first case yesterday, December 16, but waited until minutes ago to report Omicron was detected in a UW student living off campus (whatever that means, drive your cattle a few miles from Laramie and you are already in Baggs).  Did the Boomerang have to run and get more letters for its teletype machine.  So if true, and it wasn't instead a case of cowpox contracted by a milkmaid, we are down to the Magnficent (ly slow) Seven: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma. Vermont and Hold the phone, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear just announced they were tired of being in the lead of every bad economic, penological, and sociological metric, and found a case in Ohio, which they figure blew over from Kentucky.  The list has been pared to the Deep (ly flawed) Six:  Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Indiana.  And since Vermont already reported finding Omicron in Burlington wastewater (although that could represent some itinerant Massachusetts campers using the Burlington public restrooms, since the population of itinerant Massachusetts campers is actually larger than the entire population of Vermont), let's be generous and pare things down to the Fab (ulously third world) Five: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Indiana.  In other words, by December 17, 2022, you could have counted the states living along the river Denial, who closed their eyes and plugged their Pipetmen to circulating Omicron, on one hand.  Unless you actual lived in one of those states, where hunting accidents and knife-sharpening mishaps left you without a full complement of fingers.

Oh, and if you thought "Colorado" meant far-away Denver, think again.  A case has just been identified on Estes Park's doorstep, only a 30-minute car-ride away.  In fact, if you think it is not already here, you are probably too slow to have read this far without tired lips.