Today is Thursday, April 7, 2022. Today a historic moment: the Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. The tally was 53-47, with just three Republicans joining Democrats to vote in her favor. The three repugnicans were Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska all doing the right thing, while many of their colleagues voted nay. This glorious news development was covered in an online CNN article on my smartphone by Claire Foran, Ted Barrett, and Ali Zaslav entitled “Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to be first Black woman to sit on Supreme Court.”

The confirmation represents a significant victory for Democrats – and, boy, did we need one – which they can tout as bipartisan and a way for the President to deliver on a campaign promise at a time when the country faces a number of challenges at home and abroad, including soaring inflation and the crisis in Ukraine. Democrats broke out into loud applause and cheers – Repugnicans certainly didn’t join them – when the vote was gaveled.

Even with Jackson’s confirmation, the ideological balance of the court will not change. Maybe if another conservative jurist were forced to resign, maybe that would tip the balance of the court, but we all know how unlikely this scenario would be. Jackson will be sworn in after Justice Stephen Breyer retires sometime this summer.

Ahead of the final vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the moment a “joyous, momentous, groundbreaking day.” Schumer also pointed out that in the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, there never has been a Black woman holding the title of Justice. He said, “Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the first and I believe the first of more to come.”

Guess who actually held up the vote for this historic nomination? Despised Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only senator who had not voted. The chamber waited for him to arrive and vote before it was gaveled closed. Of course, Paul voted “no.”

The two senators who supported Jackson’s nomination from the opposition, Collins and Murkowski, both expressed concern over what they described as the politicization of the Supreme Court confirmation process. Murkowski said that she rejects “the corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.” So true, Madam!

Her colleague, Susan Collins, concurred with her statement, adding that the Supreme Court confirmation process is broken. In her statement, Collins said, “It used to be common for Senators to give the President, regardless of political party, considerable deference in the choice of a nominee.” The Maine repugnican said that approach “instilled confidence in the independence and the integrity of the judiciary and helped keep the Court above the political fray.” She further added that she would continue to use that approach to vote for future Supreme Court nominees.

All in all, today was a day to celebrate this groundbreaking moment in our nation’s history.

A page one article in The New York Times asks the question, “Should New Yorkers worry again as COVID-19 cases have begun ticking up again in the city.” The article is written by Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Otterman, and the article is entitled “As Cases Climb, New Yorkers Ask If It’s Time to Worry Again.”

The first paragraph notes the number of cases going up in Manhattan, Staten Island, and parts of Brooklyn which could threaten New York City with a fifth wave of coronavirus cases “just weeks after the city lifted many mask and vaccine requirements.”

Currently, the city is registering about 1,500 new cases a day and a positivity rate of nearly 3 percent. These figures represent a doubling of what they were a just month ago. “In Manhattan, where the last wave also first emerged, the positivity rate is above 6 percent in some neighborhoods.” Oye! Here we go again, we could be muttering.

Signs of spread are seen across the region, as actors Matthew Broderick (who’s appearing with his real-life wife, Sarah Jessica Parker in Plaza Suite) and Daniel Craig (who’s appearing in Macbeth with Ruth Negga) have both recently tested positive, as have New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, and at least three members of the New York City Council. Even the city’s new comptroller, Brad Lander, has wisely said, “We may be done with the virus, but the virus isn’t done with us.”

Fueling the spread these days is the Omicron subvariant BA.2, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now estimates makes up 84 percent of cases in the New York region, which is more contagious than its predecessor.

A good sign noted in the article is that this new variant has not shown the same explosive speed as the earlier form of Omicron, which “in late December and early January propelled cases in New York City past 40,000 a day.”

Data shows that new infections have predominantly been among adults under 35, who are less likely to be hospitalized. Only if the subvariant begins to spread widely among older people and in nursing homes, it could have more serious impact. What is comforting is that citywide, 83 percent of people 65 and older are fully vaccinated, and 56 percent have had one booster shot. To that effect, Elliot and I have booked our second booster shot at Rite-Aid this coming Monday in order to augment our protection against this possible threat.

New Yorkers themselves had sharply varied views toward what to do in the present moment. Catherine Jordan, 80, said that the situation is confusing and that she plans to keep going to family, church, and senior center gatherings until someone in her circle gets sick. She said, “If I worry, I wouldn’t come out.”

Another New Yorker, 28-year-old artist and server, Tirsa Delate, who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, described feeling “a sense of vagueness and uncertainty in terms of where we’re at collectively with Covid.” She did express relief that she doesn’t have to wear a mask at work, but added that the city should reinstate mask or vaccine requirements if cases rise to worrisome levels.

Jim Cashman, 47, said he does not eat indoors or go to bars or other stuff he and his family would normally like to do. Cashman is an actor and he mentioned that if he tested positive for the virus, it would mean canceled work, not just for himself, but for coworkers too.

Of those who tested positive for the virus very recently, say, from March 21 to March 27, only 692 people were known to have been previously infected, so the majority of cases were detected in those infected for the first time. One of those persons is Nina Kulkarni, a New York City public school teacher, who tested positive in late March but who avoided getting infected despite teaching classes in-person since the fall of 2020. She has no idea how she was infected, but one thing is true: She had begun to wear her mask a little less often after the city lifted its mask mandate for school staff and students 5 and older on March 7.

Kulkarni called on the city to reinstate the mask mandates in schools, stating that she has seen absences going up in recent days. Even though she confessed to “wanting the masks to come off,” she said it might have been too soon to shed them in the current moment. She admitted, “they [masks] do keep us safe.”

One critic of the current administration’s decision to lift mandates is Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, who said the city’s impulse to lift mask and vaccine requirements while the subvariant was spreading was “cavalier.” He criticized city decision makers for waiting to cross the health care Rubicon only when hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus cases to actually declare a crisis. After that, everything else could be accepted, he said.

Pointing to increasing cases, Mayor Eric Adams did say that he would reinstate mandates if necessary. “We are going to pivot and shift as Covid is pivoting and shifting,” he said.

The actual growth in cases is apparent in Manhattan below 96th Street, while about 40 of the city’s 180 ZIP codes now have positivity rates above 5 percent, including Long Island City, Queens; Greenpoint, Brooklyn; and Pelham Bay in The Bronx.

Despite the growing concern associated with this new subvariant’s spreading throughout the city, one weary New Yorker echoed what many of us are probably feeling about this situation, 29-year-old Steven Lightkeep, a nurse who lives in Hell’s Kitchen, who indicated he was ready to be done with this. “You’re going to get it if you’re going to get it, and if you’re not, you’re not. I’m not going to stop living my life over it.” And there you have the last word on this story.

With that, I end this blog.

All I would recommend then as per this article in The Times is to get a second booster shot if you can. It has now been authorized in the arms of people who got their first boosters at least 4 months ago. We got our first boosters in early November, so we are certainly within the parameter here for getting a second inoculation. I’m also doing it because of my going to my second Turner Classic Movies (TCM) Festival in Hollywood in late April. You can’t be too safe these days, I feel.

Stay safe and be well.