Off the News: Queen’s feels the COVID pressure

The Queen’s Medical Center-West Oahu, having exceeded its bed capacity, is now dealing with another “internal state of emergency,” as it was in late August due to the delta surge. As a result, some patients are being transferred to the main medical center downtown.

The omicron pandemic wave has not crested, so this pattern could repeat elsewhere. A shortage at blood banks nationally is another scary metric.

As one medical expert put it recently: There is a light at the end of the tunnel with this variant surge, but the tunnel is a real problem.

Girl Scouts supply kennels for birds

If you’ve ever wondered about the impact of Girl Scout Cookie sales — besides to your waistline — here’s one: Local troops 257 and 383 used cookie earnings to donate seabird kennels to Sea Life Park’s Seabird Sanctuary and Seabird Rehabilitation Facility in 2018. Now they get to be guests of honor at Saturday’s blessing of the sanctuary, which has been closed for renovation since September.

The facility offers care and a home to lost or injured wild seabirds, a worthy beneficiary of all those cookie crumbs.