#every week there is a new death toll of covid

[theculturedmarxist]

Although many Canadians act as though the pandemic has ended, the airborne virus that causes COVID-19 continues to evolve at an amazing pace with devastating consequences for both individuals and the public at large.

The pandemic may no longer be a major conflagration but it still kills about 140 Canadians a week while morphing into a steady viral blaze sustained by dirty air, waning immunity and overt political indifference.

What was once a giant wave of acute illness has become a series of often unpredictable wavelets driven by ever-changing variants that can cause chronic illness. Long COVID, a disabling health event that can affect multiple organs and destabilize the immune system, now affects millions and continues to claim new victims.

A 2023 Danish study recently confirmed that about 50 per cent of those diagnosed with long COVID fail to improve 18 months after infection regardless of the variant.

Long COVID has taken a huge toll among health-care workers. Anywhere from six to 10 per cent of Quebec’s health-care workforce, for example, has been derailed by long COVID.

Seventy-one per cent of health-care workers impaired by long COVID reported that their state of health now interferes with their ability to function. Another 16 per cent said that they are often unable to work. Multiply this data across the country and then ask: How sustainable is this trend?

The cost of living in a ‘viral soup’

While the media focus concern on the potential next big nasty viral wave, evolutionary biologist T. Ryan Gregory says that threat seems less likely than before, but the current reality is nothing like normal.

“We are not dealing with Omicron-like waves but a viral soup,” Gregory told The Tyee. “We are seeing a near-constant high level of hospitalizations that falls just below overwhelming them but is nonetheless unsustainable. More health-care workers are getting sick and that just adds to the strain on the whole system.”

What worries Gregory, an expert on the evolution of COVID variants at the University of Guelph, “are the long-term effects of multiple infections and the sustained pressure on the health-care system and well-being.”

Yet the current impact of COVID — measurably higher than at some previous points during the pandemic — remains largely ignored or poorly reported.

Tara Moriarty, a University of Toronto infectious disease expert and co-founder of COVID 19 Resources Canada, recently tallied the imperfect data, and it is bracing. She calculates that about one in every 23 Canadians is now infected with COVID. We are not at the low point of the pandemic in Canada. To the contrary, compared with a previous time during the pandemic, infections are 25 times higher and the rate of long COVID is 19 times higher. Meanwhile the hospitalization rate is 13 times higher and deaths are 25 times higher.

In the middle of October, Moriarty calculated that COVID patients occupied about nine per cent of intensive care beds and 21 per cent of hospital beds across the country. (The average hospitalization rate during the pandemic has been seven per cent.) The estimated cost of this sustained viral assault is $274 million a week.

Governments peddling denial

Most governments seem intent on diminishing or hiding these realities. They avoid any talk about the effectiveness of masking in public places or the value of improved ventilation and filtration in schools and workplaces. It’s a demonstrated fact that the virus travels through the air in tiny smoke-like aerosols that can infect people at much greater distances than six feet, but the natural responses to this reality are not encouraged by our leaders.

Alberta, for example, now pretends that COVID is just another mild respiratory disease and reports its doings along with influenza and RSV activity.

Despite this push for “normalization,” only one disease stands out as a routine killer and dominant occupant of hospital beds on the province’s “respiratory virus dashboard.” And that’s COVID. COVID also dominates outbreaks in Alberta’s hospitals and long-term care facilities where masking and attention to ventilation have become haphazard practices.

Lumping COVID in with other respiratory diseases is also patently misleading. A recent Swiss study compared hospitalized patients infected with COVID and those infected with the flu. Those with COVID had a 1.5-fold higher risk of dying in hospital up to 30 days after infection than patients infected by influenza A. The death rate was even higher for unvaccinated people.

A 2023 Swedish study also found the death rate from Omicron greatly surpassed that of influenza patients.

And next comes the increased risk of cardiovascular problems. Medical researchers have long observed strokes and acute myocardial infarctions in patients after respiratory infections, such as influenza. But COVID breaks the mould here. Compared with patients with the flu, the risk of stroke is more than sevenfold higher in COVID-19 patients.

This is likely tied to the fact that COVID can inflame the vascular system through which the body’s blood travels. New non-peer-reviewed evidence suggests that even a mild infection can temporarily damage endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels.

COVID may begin with the symptoms of a cold or flu for most people, but it often ends as thrombotic or vascular disease in a small percentage for reasons researchers don’t clearly understand. The virus can therefore infect multiple organs from the brain to the kidneys.

Immune systems and long COVID

COVID can also unsettle the immune system by damaging T-cell response, as recent studies have illustrated.

These findings make all the more illogical the current, widespread blasé attitude towards the ever-evolving virus.

Let’s begin with diabetes, which itself stresses the immune system and makes it less effective.

Early in the pandemic, researchers suspected there might be a connection between having COVID and later developing diabetes. Now it’s confirmed. Earlier this year the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai organization in Los Angeles found that a COVID infection dramatically increases the risk for developing Type 2 diabetes and that this risk continues with Omicron variants.

“The trends and patterns that we see in the data suggest that COVID-19 infection could be acting in certain settings like a disease accelerator, amplifying risk for a diagnosis that individuals might have otherwise received later in life,” noted Susan Cheng, a senior author of the study and a professor of cardiology.

Another study found that the incidence of diabetes in Black and Hispanic youth has increased by 62 per cent since the pandemic. The authors noted that COVID can bind to receptors in the pancreas, resulting in damaged cells.

A Canadian study also found steep increases in diabetes after COVID infections. University of British Columbia researchers examined a large population of British Columbians (more than 600,000) and discovered that people infected with COVID had a 17 to 22 per cent higher risk of developing diabetes within a year compared with uninfected people.

Concluded the researchers: “SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a higher risk of diabetes and may have contributed to a three per cent to five per cent excess burden of diabetes at a population level.”

Related research has also demonstrated that COVID infection can trigger or lead to a variety of autoimmune disorders.

One recent Lancet study that looked at nearly a million people who were unvaccinated between 2020 and 2021 found that COVID cases experienced much higher incidence of autoimmune disease than non-infected people.

These autoimmune conditions included rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, vasculitis (inflamed and swollen blood vessels), inflammatory bowel disease and Type 1 diabetes mellitus.

A similar German study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, evaluated a cohort of 640,701 unvaccinated individuals with PCR-confirmed COVID infection during 2020 for the risk of autoimmune conditions. The researchers identified “a 42.6 per cent higher likelihood of acquiring an autoimmune condition three to 15 months after infection” compared with a group of 1,560,357 individuals who weren’t infected.

The researchers also found that a COVID infection “increased the risk of developing another autoimmune disease by 23 per cent” in individuals with pre-existing immune conditions.

The autoimmune studies confirm that COVID can be a significant immune deregulator. The Yale University immunologist Akiko Iwasaki, who has dedicated her lab to studying long COVID, notes that “there's misfiring of the immune response happening in the severe COVID patients that lead to pathology and lethality.” Even a mild infection can lead to this misfiring and long COVID, and this group tends to be women between the ages of 30 and 50.

Reinfection is no trifle

The autoimmune studies, of course, don’t tell us anything about the current crop of variants and what autoimmune or cardiovascular diseases they might trigger in the future. But the precautionary principle would suggest avoiding infection.

The highly regarded U.S. epidemiologist Ziyad Al-Aly, who also studies long COVID, has been very clear about the hazardous consequences of reinfection in terms of chronic disease such as diabetes, brain inflammation and heart disease: “Two infections are worse than one and three are worse than two.”

His most recent research shows that people with mild infections are still at risk for chronic disease two years after the fact. Patients who were hospitalized with COVID were at even greater risk for chronic complications.

“The concern here is that this pandemic will generate a wave of chronic disease that we did not have before the pandemic,” Al-Aly, chief of research and development at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, recently told Euronews Next.

“Even when the pandemic abates and is in the rear-view mirror, we will be left with it after the fact in the form of a chronic disease that for some people may last for a long time or even a lifetime,” added Al-Aly.

The Tyee has repeatedly reported evidence that immunity to COVID from natural infection or vaccination is not long-lasting because of the nature of the virus.

The research now confirms that infections can even leave some people more vulnerable to reinfection. A startling Canadian study published this year looked at 750 vaccinated elders at long-term care facilities where COVID deaths continue to be high. They found infection with Omicron in its first wave actually made these inmates more susceptible to reinfection in subsequent waves. Counterintuitively, these people were more prone to reinfection than patients who had never experienced COVID.

“Our current vaccine schedules are based on the assumption that having had an infection provides some level of protection to future infections, but our study shows that may not be true for all variants in all people,” noted Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist and one of the study’s authors.

What our health leaders should be saying

The implications of these findings are plain enough. The pandemic has a long tail, and it can be found in a growing population of people experiencing chronic disease. Therefore, limiting transmission is still the most important public health goal.

We know how to do that but are reluctant to employ the tools. Masking in crowded public spaces or poorly ventilated buildings during periods of high infection is a proven viral risk reducer. Cleaning dirty air in workplaces and schools removes the virus and other pollutants such as wildfire smoke and should be an urgent public health crusade.

We might all take inspiration from what happened at one Australian school. Concerned parents studied airflow and then installed HEPA filters with the result that improved air circulation stopped COVID transmission dead.

Rigorous surveillance testing is also essential to inform citizens of the advancing or retreating COVID risks.

Vaccinations play a role because they can significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization, death and long COVID. But current vaccines will not stop transmission. Or end the pandemic.

In a recent study a group of U.S. researchers modelled a variety of paths that COVID might take in the future.

If repeat infections and vaccinations actually work to improve immunity and dent the pandemic over time, then models suggest infections and the incidence of long COVID should decline too.

But as Omicron demonstrated, community immunity is unlikely to be achieved via existing vaccines and especially at a time when vaccine hesitancy is rising.

In one pessimistic scenario the researchers posited that “a first infection may provide partial protection against a second infection” but the combination of new variants and complexities surrounding immune responses “could then increase the susceptibility to tertiary and quaternary infections.”

That means a good proportion of the population could end up with long COVID in the absence of effective public health measures and the development of a durable, transmission-blocking vaccine.

“More pessimistic assumptions on host adaptive immune responses illustrate that the longer-term burden of COVID-19 may be elevated for years to come,” added the researchers.

#covid #covid 19 #pandemic #long covid #public health

[talisidekick]

I need everyone these next few months to be extremely careful with masking up and keeping your distance. COVID-19 cases according to experts are on the rise and there is still transmission of the original strain, meaning while there are varients of COVID-19 that are at best just flu like symptoms, there is the strain that can still kill you. COVID-19 is not gone. And just to showcase:

If I'm reading this graph right, it's cumulative over the previous week. Meaning if you look at say December 31st, thats the number of deaths counted from the last 7 days. Those numbers are people with compromised immune systems, the elderly, infants, and young children.

In february of 2021 the death-toll was staggering at around 140 000 per week in the US, showcasing just how deadly the original strain is, and the counted cases weren't recorded completely meaning for every count on that graph the true count will be higher.

To be relevant to my own country:

371 deaths confirmed for the week leading up to December 24th and 286 deaths confirmed in the week leading up to December 31st. In 2023 and now 2024, our ability to track cases and deaths is diminished because of a public and government willingness to disregard the danger of this virus. Those counts are going to be higher and especially with everyone visiting eachother for the holidays, that number is going to jump in the coming weeks. This is also only the confirmed deaths, not cases of infection.

For those that didn't know, COVID-19 can recombine with other varients if you are infected with two versions of the virus at the same time which can change how the virus behaves. It can aldo do this with other SARS viruses like "Pink-Eye". We've been lucky so far it's not mutated into something much worse. I'm including information from the government of Canada that states this in a screenshot below and I'm leaving the link to the site at the bottom of this post.

Your vaccine is a resistance, not an immunity. It's called a "vaccine" for a reason, not a cure. Please take precautions, don't risk exposing your friends as much as you can, we don't want to get anyone else killed, and don't let yourself be a COVID-19 factory for new varients. Some easy steps you can take:

Mask up.

Socially distance.

Watch your symptoms.

Inform people you were in contact with in the last 2 weeks if you test positive.

Protect yourself and your neighbour. Call the club or business you visited or send them a text or email. Let them know because you don't onow who lives with a family member with a weakened immune system. The more we keep that number down, the safer we can all be.

Links to the resources:

And a reminder to check your waste city's treatment graphs because many cities track COVID-19 through waste water testing. The higher the level, the more are people infected.

#covid19 #covid #social distancing #COVID-19 #covid 19 #holiday season #talisidekick #talisidekick things #health and safety

[warningsine]

The World Health Organization on Friday said it was downgrading COVID-19 and no longer characterizing it as a global health emergency.

The U.N. health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an international crisis on Jan. 30, 2020.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the change during a media briefing held with reporters at the agency's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

But he clarified that this does not mean the pandemic is over.

"It is with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency," he said. "However, that does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat. Last week, COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes -- and that's just the deaths we know about."

The downgrade comes with the pandemic on a "downward trend" for more than a year due to growing immunity among the global population -- both from vaccination and infection -- as well as a decreasing number of deaths, according to Tedros. This has also led to health systems no longer feeling as a much of a burden as they once did.

"This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before," he said.

Tedros recounted the early days of the pandemic, noting that when it first declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency, China reported fewer than 100 cases and no deaths.

He said that 7 million COVID-19 deaths have been reported to WHO, but officials believe the true toll to be at least 20 million. In the U.S., more than 1.1 million deaths have been recorded, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"But COVID-19 has been so much more than a health crisis," Tedros said. "It has caused severe economic upheaval, erasing trillions from GDP, disrupting travel and trade, shuttering businesses and plunging millions into poverty."

He continued, "It has caused severe social upheaval, with borders closed, movement restricted, schools shut and millions of people experiencing loneliness, isolation, anxiety and depression."

And despite the downgrade, there are still thousands of people dying every day as well as being hospitalized due to complications from the virus.

Tedros warned against countries letting their guard down and said they must remain vigilant in case a new highly infectious variant emerges.

"I emphasize that this is not a snap decision. It is a decision that has been considered carefully for some time, planned for, and made on the basis of a careful analysis of the data," he said. "If need be, I will not hesitate to convene another Emergency Committee should COVID-19 once again put our world in peril."

#who #covid 19 #coronavirus #news #health

[beardedmrbean]

North Korea has disclosed more than 230,000 new "fever" cases, widely suspected to be linked to an explosive COVID outbreak, as its leader, Kim Jong Un, refuses outside help despite acknowledging a "severe health crisis" in the country.

Senior officials in the ruling Workers' Party are facing the prospect of discipline, according to the minutes of a recent Politburo meeting chaired by Kim, who brandished words including "immaturity" and "slackness," while criticizing "evils and defects" in the government's response to what observers fear could become a humanitarian disaster.

Pyongyang reported 232,880 new "persons with fever" in the 24 hours up to 6 p.m. local time on May 17, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Wednesday. The total number of fever patients in the past three weeks reached 1,715,950, but more than a million have recovered, the news service said.

North Korea's insufficient testing capacity means it's not likely to determine the true scale of its first acknowledged outbreak of the pandemic. For more than two years, it maintained a widely doubted claim that strict border controls had successfully kept out COVID—a point of personal pride for the 38-year-old supreme leader.

Pyongyang identified the strain of the virus as the highly transmissible Omicron variant. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed this week that North Korea was one of only two member states not to have begun a vaccination program, the other being Eritrea.

Outside experts believe state media is deliberately underreporting the real size of the COVID outbreak in order to avoid public unrest and a hit to Kim's regime stability. This has cast doubt not only on North Korea's fever count—one of the symptoms of the disease—but also its death toll, which KCNA said had risen to 62 as of Tuesday.

As COVID continues to spread throughout the country, where up to half of its 25 million people are thought to be malnourished, observers believe Kim could continue his frequent missile tests as a diversion. At home, meanwhile, the North Korean leader has also been taking aim at top party officials, who have been blamed for letting the virus in.

At a May 17 gathering of the party's Politburo, Kim blasted "immaturity in the state capacity for coping with the crisis," and attributed current hardships to "the non-positive attitude, slackness and non-activity of state leading officials."

"He stressed the need to criticize and analyze in depth the evils and defects revealed in every sector," according to a summary carried by KCNA.

At a WHO press conference on Tuesday, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned" by North Korea's outbreak and the risk of the virus having a serious impact on its unvaccinated and vulnerable population.

The United Nations agency said it had requested data and information from North Korea and has offered support in the form of testing kits, medication and vaccines. It received no response. Both Beijing and Seoul made similar offers this week, but neither reported any reply from Pyongyang.

When WHO-approved vaccines became widely available last year, Kim rejected the chance to begin inoculating North Koreans, opting instead to wait out the pandemic by shutting its borders.

Analysts believe Kim now faces a dilemma: take a hit to his personal legitimacy by accepting help from his neighbors or risk millions of lives by allowing the COVID outbreak to spiral out of control.

#this could be the thing that ends the rule of the kims #but would the replacement be worse #it would 100% be a civil war

[sbgridconsortium]

Second Takes - Andrea Thorn - University of Hamburg

Sharing some of our #SBGrid developer tales from the last year. This one from February 2023.

Andrea Thorn had been a junior group leader for a less than a year when, in early January 2020, researchers in China identified the cause of a mysterious contagious illness with pneumonia-like symptoms. Less than a week later, they released its genetic code, which revealed the novel virus to be a close cousin to the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) that caused an outbreak in 2002-2003.

The rapid scientific response gave Thorn an idea for a talk she was due to give over coffee and cake to colleagues in her building at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg in Germany. She ran the only lab there focused on new computational methods for experimental structural biology. Most scientists in the building were infectious disease specialists.

"I needed to explain to them how my work was relevant," she says. Thorn works on ways to better model the atomic structures of RNA and proteins to make them useful for structure-based drug discovery, something that quickly would become more important as researchers rushed to respond to COVID-19.

Molecular models are a foundation of modern drug and vaccine development. They enable scientists to identify how to break the cycle of infection by targeting the right spot in the right protein. But even the most carefully determined structures reported in the most prestigious journals are imperfect interpretations of experimental data, Thorn says. Small errors can have large consequences in the search for a drug with the right fit.

When Thorn was preparing for her talk, no structures from the SARS-CoV-2 virus had been published yet. But more than 100 structures from SARS-CoV-1 were available in the worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB). The structures ranged from a key protease in viral replication to the spike protein needed to attach and enter host cells.

From a random sample of five, Thorn found three SARS structures to illustrate the point of her research: Most protein structures can be improved with additional analysis.

Her talk was well received, germinating the seed of another idea that first seemed outlandishly bold and then became increasingly urgent as COVID-19 spread and the death toll soared. Thorn floated the idea over dinner with her mentor, Arwen Pearson in Hamburg: Analyze and correct all SARS structures. Pearson encouraged her, as did another senior colleague, Elspeth Garman of Oxford University.

In March 2020, as the first SARS-CoV-2 structures were being reported, Thorn first got her own small group on board and within a week pulled together a team of like-minded and mostly junior structural biology developers from all over the globe as the “Coronavirus Structural Task Force”. Many of them were international specialists in their respective fields, she notes.

They met online every weekday and posted daily updates to GitHub for anyone to access. Every Wednesday, when new wwPDB structures were released, their automated pipeline identified new coronavirus structures and assessed the quality of a representative sample of models and experimental data. When they improved a structure, they sent it back to the original authors to update the wwPDB entry, no strings attached.

For their web site (https://insidecorona.net), the group wrote blog posts to share with colleagues the larger story emerging from aggregated data of multiple structures. They wrote explanatory pieces for the public. They posted a 3D printable model of SARS-CoV-2.

Coronavirus Structural Task Force website: https://insidecorona.net. Image credit: Thomas Splettstößer

A year into the pandemic, structural biologists had released a total of 1,146 SARS structures covering 18 proteins from both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. Most were derived by X-ray crystallography (73%) and single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) (24%) (Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, January 2021).

The task force's analytical pipeline deployed software programs from contributors inside and outside the Task Force. Among them were two tools previously developed by Thorn—AUSPEX, used for experimental X-ray data to detect sample measurement and processing problems (Acta Crystallographica, 2017) and, for experimental cryo-EM data, HARUSPEX, a neural network tool to automatically distinguish between nucleic acids and protein and to assign secondary protein structure elements (Angewandte Chemie, International Edition, 2020).

"We didn't do any peer reviewed publication until 2021," Thorn says about the task force. "We just wanted to fight the pandemic. The whole thing was fast. We pushed and pushed and pushed against corona so that drug developers and vaccine developers would have the right data. You know, it's been fantastic. It was born out of spontaneous willingness. I wish science would always be like this."

The task force published a description of its work (Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, May 2021). In 2023, Thorn says a dozen articles are in progress for peer-reviewed journals to summarize the combined information and results of their work, as well as to note questions yet to be answered about SARS-CoV-2. The task force will wind down in summer 2023. Thorn is strategizing on the next steps for a tenured academic position.

Thorn grew up in Germany in an intellectual family. Her father is a chemist, her mother an artist and entrepreneur. She is the third-born child with three brothers.

She calls her path to structural biology straightforward. One of her early science-related memories goes back to age 3, when her father explained surface tension to her with the gravity-defying demonstration of floating a needle on water. "My dad showed that to me with his always huge confidence that I would understand everything," Thorn says.

The family moved four times when Thorn was in elementary school. She supplemented the patchwork early education with natural curiosity. She read voraciously from the family library, made observations with a home microscope, and conducted chemistry experiments on the sly. In her mother's atelier, she also painted on large blank canvases.

In her teens, she and her friends were early adopters of live action role-playing games that have subsequently become popular in Germany. Participants assume the roles of characters and act out scenarios in a collaborative storytelling experience. To prepare for her roles, she researched scenarios ranging from futuristic military campaigns in Libya to glial cell retrieval from patients. "I read up to 600 pages a day when I was a teenager," she says.

In school, Thorn's studies became concentrated in chemistry and art. She continued first to a bachelor's degree and a master's degree, a prerequisite for her PhD.

She excelled in the lab and in computational chemistry, but her breakthrough lessons came after she failed quantum chemistry. She sought a tutor in the solid-state physics department, where her academic track record was unknown. A professor she consulted for a referral, Helmuth Zimmermann, volunteered to oversee weekly tutoring for Thorn and other classmates who needed help.

"Arguably those tutoring sessions did more for my education than everything else that semester," she says. "I'd never used maths before to describe things in nature in that way and fell in love with that."

One day, in response to Thorn's curiosity, the professor explained his research, which was measuring crystals to determine the structure of molecules. "I was hooked, because that meant the maths that I just learned could be applied far beyond class," she says. "It meant you could use them to find out the structure of crystal lattices and, with the structure of crystal lattices, the structure of molecules."

She skipped her prescribed medicinal chemistry classes in favor of crystallography lectures, which were not in her curriculum plan. One day, her crystallography lecturer refused to answer her question about SHELX, a crystal structure refinement program, saying she wasn't smart enough to understand.

"I was so angry, I printed out the SHELX manual, which is 100 pages, and I read the whole fricking thing." She came to the next class armed with new and more detailed questions. "It turned out he didn't know so much about crystallography," she says.

When it came time to choose a PhD group, Thorn had a list. The list included George Sheldrick at University of Göttingen, who developed SHELX. On the way to a holiday live role-play destination, she stopped by his lab to scout it out informally. Unexpectedly, she had a long conversation with him that ended with an immediate offer of doing her PhD thesis in his group.

She thrived in the high-performing lab and found fellow role-play enthusiasts. When she was teaching her first classes as a PhD student, a friend came to collect her for lunch. He noted her stance in front of the students (who were much older than her) looked like the last weekend's live role play when she had played a commanding leader with feet planted and shoulders squared as she led her warriors into battle.

In 2011, Thorn graduated with her doctorate and four new first-author publications from her thesis. The morning after her defense, she married her childhood sweetheart, a chemist. Within a year, she had secured a prestigious three-year Marie Curie fellowship for independent research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, followed by a brief but productive stint at University of Oxford.

Homesick for Germany and their parents, she returned with high expectations of becoming an assistant professor, something that remains a goal. She secured outside funding and became a group leader at University of Würzburg in 2019 and moved to Universität Hamburg in 2020.

The task force may be winding down, but its value lingers in Thorn's mind as an unmet need in science. She has been thinking about the volume of data being generated by the structural biology community and how to combine the data for more meaningful interpretation and usefulness. She also takes it as an example of what is possible when experts across the globe start to collaborate on an important problem.

"We are generating data like crazy," she says, “beyond the capacity of individuals to assimilate and make sense of details from different techniques across labs. "In Germany, we have this beautiful word, Datennachnutzung. It means you are using experimental data for a second time to find new insights. And that's something we absolutely need to do."

-Carol Cruzan Morton

#sbgrid #structural biology #developer tale #software #covid 19

[captainmdhridoyhossain-blog]

[ad_1] For the second one week in a row, a Utah grownup between the ages of 18 and 24 has died, well being officers say.(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Shane Carter administers a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a drive-thru match arranged by means of the Utah County Well being Division in Spanish Fork on Friday, Sept. 10, 2021.  | Nov. 30, 2021, 8:32 p.m. | Up to date: 8:51 p.m.Editor’s word • The Salt Lake Tribune is offering loose get entry to to vital tales concerning the coronavirus. Join our Most sensible Tales e-newsletter, despatched on your inbox each and every morning. To reinforce journalism like this, please donate or develop into a subscriber.Twenty extra COVID-19 deaths have been reported in Utah previously day, in line with the state well being division, bringing the dying toll to three,528.One of the vital deaths used to be a girl between the ages of 18 and 24 in Salt Lake County — one week after every other girl in that age staff died. Because the pandemic started, there were 20 deaths within the broader 15 to 24 age staff. Well being officers stated the 2 younger girls who lately died have been each no less than 18.Two of the deaths reported Tuesday have been between the ages of 25 and 44, and 3 have been between the ages of 45 and 64.The Utah Division of Well being reported 1,195 new coronavirus circumstances previously day, and the rolling seven-day reasonable of latest sure circumstances stands at 1,127.The choice of kids getting vaccinated continues to climb — 66,782 kids ages 5-11 have got no less than one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine since they turned into eligible; that’s about 18.3% of youngsters that age in Utah, in line with the well being division.In depth care devices within the state stay close to capability. UDOH reported Tuesday that 91.5% of all ICU beds in Utah and 96.3% of ICU beds in higher clinical facilities within the state are occupied. (Hospitals imagine any determine over 85% to be functionally complete). Of all ICU sufferers, 42.9% are being handled for COVID-19.Vaccine doses administered previously day/general doses administered • 14,486/ 4,136,987.Collection of Utahns absolutely vaccinated • 1,806,315 — 55.2% of Utah’s general inhabitants. That is a rise of four,561 previously day.Circumstances reported in previous day • 1,195.Circumstances amongst school-age kids • Youngsters in grades Ok-12 accounted for 253 of the brand new circumstances introduced Tuesday — 21.2% of the entire. There have been 131 circumstances reported in kids elderly 5-10; 53 circumstances in kids 11-13; and 69 circumstances in kids 14-18.Assessments reported in previous day • 7,559 other folks have been examined for the primary time. A complete of 16,349 other folks have been examined.Deaths reported in previous day • 20. (One of the vital deaths passed off prior to Nov. 1, and used to be showed to be the results of COVID-19 after additional trying out.)8 of the deaths passed off in Salt Lake County. Along with the younger girl, the fatalities come with a person 45-64, two males and 3 girls 65-84, and a person 85-plus.Utah County reported 3 deaths — a girl 25-44, a person 45-64, and a person 65-84.Two counties each and every reported two deaths — two males 65-84 in Tooele County, and a person 25-44 and a girl 65-84 in Weber County.Different deaths have been a Beaver County girl 45-64, a Davis County guy 85-plus, an Emery County girl 65-84, a Juab County guy 65-84, and a Washington County girl 65-84.Hospitalizations reported previously day • 511. This is 14 fewer than reported on Monday. Of the ones recently hospitalized, 203 are in extensive care, seven fewer than reported on Monday.Proportion of sure checks • Underneath the state’s unique manner, the velocity is 15.8% previously day. This is upper than the seven-day reasonable of 14.5%.The state’s new manner counts all take a look at effects, together with repeated checks of the similar particular person. Tuesday’s fee used to be 7.3%, not up to the seven-day reasonable of 9.

6%.[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]Possibility ratios • Up to now 4 weeks, unvaccinated Utahns have been 15.thrice much more likely to die of COVID-19 than vaccinated other folks, in line with a Utah Division of Well being research. The unvaccinated additionally have been 10.9 instances much more likely to be hospitalized, and four.2 instances much more likely to check sure for the coronavirus.Totals so far • 595,801 circumstances; 3,528 deaths; 25,914 hospitalizations; 3,967,874 other folks examined. [ad_2] #Utahns #died #COVID19 #together with #younger #grownup #Salt #Lake #County

[britt-thats-it]

Being back on tumblr is so nice. It’s like I never left (except I can’t remember everyone I used to follow/they probs left too).

(feelsies under the cut)

I only left because this couple I almost dated (who took my not dating them very hard) sort of cyber stalked me here. I kept making new accounts and they kept finding them and showing them to everyone in the scene we were all part of and following all the people I was mutuals with and it was… not cool.

Anyway, I’ve been really struggling with grief since quarantine. I had a huge falling out with my sister who I had been living with for the last 4 years. Her lack of recovery was badly interfering with my recovery and I was so deeply triggered by her behavior that I was barely functioning. I was in a constant state of flared up, in so much pain every day, even laying down was uncomfortable. I wasn’t able to eat bc my reflux was going crazy, I was starting to drink too much (something I hadn’t struggled with in years), I wasn’t sleeping. The pressure of being home together all the time took its toll.

Coincidentally, divine timing being what it is, my partner and I were spending hours on the phone every day. Just falling so in love. We’d already been together for almost a year, but her two other relationships falling apart, career change, and my chronic illness and not remembering how to be in a relationship (lol— it had been a LONG time and I was fully down to spend the rest of my life alone) kept us at a bit of a distance. We had been very close friends for a couple years beforehand, so when we took things to a romantic level, the feelings progressed quickly but we just didn’t have much time for each other. Anyway, she invited me to come stay with her. I was only planning on 2 weeks, but I literally never left. Everything just felt so easy and sweet. We handle each other with such care. Over the last 3 years my life has become a kind of stable that I’ve never (I mean NEVER) experienced. I love it and I am so grateful for it.

But I remember from my trauma-filled childhood, the survival mode of the present puts off the feelings for later. It isn’t until you have a calm moment that the feelings about what you just went through hit you.

The last 7 years hit me like an 18 wheeler. Going no contact with my family, living on the road, losing my job and being homeless, moving to nyc on a wing and a prayer, living with my sister and reliving A lot of my childhood through her behaviors, struggling through the capitalist ass New York art scene as an autistic person while also being very poor, working my fucking ass off, *just* about to hit my stride and do this fuckin career thang and boom. Covid.

I made an album, collaborated on a friend’s album, started my podcast and wrote a book. I’m in the middle of making another album. All this while feeling myself really trust someone, really learn what partnership means, really feeling like an adult, but also feeling so so wounded. The grief has been the heaviest thing I’ve ever felt. I lost myself a little bit. Insert bloody goopy chrysalis metaphor here.

I did all this but not joyfully, not really. Something was missing.

I have been trying, in the last few months, to unironically find my bliss again. I lost my sparkle, I lost my drive. I really feel like I experienced my own metaphorical death. I was anxious and raw, I second-guessed every interaction because I felt like I didn’t know how to be a person. I was completely sober!! Just fucking raw dogging life!!! I was scared all the time. I forgot my passions, I forgot my purpose. I still worked on stuff, I still created (a lot that I’m proud of!!) but idk I just wasn’t the same free-spirited confident lil powerhouse I came to know myself to be.

I think I gave too much on other social media. I think I was too vulnerable and too available and it got me into trouble. I think I confused work for life and I soured my own creation process for me. It became too important. Every hobby, every passion became kindling for money making or making “it” or whatever. I forgot how to have fun. I burnt myself out.

I recently started remembering hobbies I had that I never shared with anyone irl. Exercise/weight lifting, which I picked back up again in February, slowly testing the waters to see if my disordered relationship to it would return, it didn’t. Feeling myself getting stronger being exactly what I needed (literally and metaphorically) and all the good stuff that does to my confidence. Playing music just for fun, just sitting down with an instrument and playing 😫 locking myself in a room and flitting around like a mad scientist creating something I love 😫 dancing 😫 meditation 😫 journaling 😫 pulling tarot cards just for me 😫 and finally, longing for connection of some sort; for actual vulnerability and not people just fucking marketing themselves all the time— I remembered how much tumblr helped me. How much it inspired me. How it helped me become the person who made all those scary changes, who learned who I am and learned how to walk away. So much good came from that decade I spent here, so I decided to come back.

It’s exactly what I needed.

#I am finding myself again #life is just a spiral #here we go round again #personal #feelsies

[newstfionline]

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Inside the Medical Examiner’s Office, Where Opioids Fuel Surge in Deaths (NYT) In the operations center of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on a recent Wednesday, a large dashboard showed that 39 people had died unexpectedly across New York City—at home, or accidentally, or violently—over the past 24 hours. That was more than on Sunday, but fewer than the 45 deaths on Monday, almost always the office’s busiest day of the week. Four years ago, numbers that high would have been a disturbing aberration in the city’s regular pulse of life and death. Today, they are the “new normal,” says Dr. Jason Graham, the city’s chief medical examiner. Since 2018, homicides are up. People are dying from health issues that went unaddressed in the pandemic, as well as from COVID-19, and, probably, the still uncertain long-term health effects of the disease. But by far the largest factor in the increased work at the medical examiner’s office—which investigates all the city’s sudden, unusual and suspicious deaths—is a sustained jump in accidental drug overdoses, mostly from the opioid fentanyl. There were nearly 2,700 drug overdose deaths in the city in 2021, the highest total in at least two decades, and 2022’s official toll is expected to be even higher. On average, the city has a fatal drug overdose death every three hours. While official numbers are pending, Graham said, December 2022 will most likely be the worst single month on record.

Biden rallies the West, but what about the rest? (Washington Post) For this week, the geopolitical West can pat itself on the back. As the one-year mark of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine nears, President Biden journeyed to Warsaw from Kyiv and delivered a speech exulting in Ukraine’s defiance and the transatlantic consensus that has sustained it. Putin “thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracies were soft,” Biden said. “And then he met the iron will of America and nations everywhere who refuse to accept a world governed by fear and force.” At the same time, a survey found a different set of attitudes in China, Turkey and India, where pluralities or majorities believe the war in Ukraine should end as soon as possible, even if it means Ukraine must make concessions. In a mark of skepticism toward the lofty rhetoric of Biden and his European counterparts, less than a quarter of those surveyed in China and Turkey believe the West is supporting Ukraine because of the principle of defending its territory or democracy. There is, of course, a long historical track record of Western myopia, misadventure and meddling that drives such views. The report’s authors point to a broader reality not addressed by Biden in Warsaw—the prevalence of a more fragmented, fractured world that is hardly at sync with the geopolitical West. “The West may be more consolidated now, but it is not necessarily more influential in global politics,” they wrote. “The paradox is that this newfound unity is coinciding with the emergence of a post-Western world. The West has not disintegrated, but its consolidation has come at a moment when other powers will not simply do as it wishes.”

Former top Mexican official convicted of taking millions in bribes from cartel (Washington Post) A former top law enforcement official who oversaw Mexico’s efforts to combat narcotics trafficking was convicted Tuesday of taking millions in bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel. Genaro García Luna, who headed the equivalent of the FBI in Mexico, was charged in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn in 2019 with acting as an enabler for the cartel, which is notorious for engaging in rampant violence to keep its operation running. After a month-long trial that began in January, a jury found García Luna guilty on all five counts in an indictment that included his alleged involvement in an ongoing criminal enterprise, international cocaine distribution and drug-related conspiracies. He faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for June 27.

London to offer free school meals to all primary pupils for a year (Guardian) Free school meals will be offered to all primary school pupils across London for a year under plans by Sadiq Khan to tackle what he said was a failure by ministers to step up support during the cost of living crisis. The move will come into force from September, saving families about £440 for every child and benefiting 270,000 children, City Hall estimates. The mayor, who himself received free school meals as a boy, said he hoped the move would help “reduce the stigma that can be associated with being singled out as low-income” and boost take-up among families who needed the help most. Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren live in poverty but are not eligible for free school meals because of the government’s “restrictive” eligibility criteria, the mayor’s office said.

Dry canals (Reuters) Normally, stories about Venice discuss the city’s slow descent into the depths of the Laguna Veneta, or its streets flooding due to rising sea levels. However, this year has presented a different issue to the famous Italian island-city—dried-up canals. This winter, Italy has faced weeks of dry weather, cutting water supplies in the country’s lakes and rivers. This unseasonably dry weather has combined with a high-pressure system and ebbing sea currents due to a full moon to dry out Venice’s canals, making it difficult for the city’s famous gondolas and water taxis to operate. According to an Italian environmental group, the Po, Italy’s longest river, currently has 61% less water than normal at this time of year, meaning that the one-third of Italian agriculture that relies upon the river will see reduced yields. The areas around the Po have been in a state of emergency since last July, and are facing their worst drought in 70 years.

Nearly 1 million asylum requests in the EU in 2022 (AP) Nearly 1 million people applied for international protection in the European Union in 2022, according to data published Wednesday, bringing the number of asylum requests to a level not seen since the refugee crisis of 2015-2016. The EU agency for asylum said 966,000 asylum applications were made in the 27 EU countries as well as in Norway and Switzerland last year, up 50% from 2021. That doesn’t include more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees who were granted temporary protection in the EU, a special mechanism activated to avoid collapsing already backlogged asylum systems. The European agency linked the increase to continuing easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions, increasing food insecurity and conflicts in many parts of the world.

Poland is on a quest to have Europe’s strongest military—with U.S. arms (Washington Post) At Poland’s Rzeszow airport, where President Biden’s plane touched down this week on his way to Kyiv, U.S.-made Patriot missile batteries point toward the skies. The first American M1A2 Abrams battle tanks are expected to arrive by train this spring with hundreds of U.S.-manufactured rocket artillery systems to follow. It is part of a mammoth military spending spree spurred by the war in neighboring Ukraine that Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak hopes will build “the largest land force in Europe” and sees Warsaw signing billions in weapons contracts with U.S. suppliers. The buying spree comes as Poland attempts to solidify a position as a leading pillar of European relations with the United States, with the war in Ukraine shifting the balance of political power in Europe farther to the east. That was hammered home this week as Biden—yet to visit Paris or Berlin during his term—made his second visit to Warsaw since the war began.

China’s economic recovery hinges on consumers. They’re not spending. (Washington Post) In Shanghai, the famed shopping streets have yet to return to their pre-pandemic hum. Though the harsh coronavirus restrictions that gripped the country finally ended in December, small businesses in the commercial heart of China are still struggling to find a pulse. Multiple owners of shops nestled between the glittering high-rises, elevated highways and leafy sidewalks surrounding the temple had anticipated a surge in “revenge spending” after the zero-covid policy was suddenly dropped in December in part because of Beijing’s concern over the mounting economic toll. After three years of rolling lockdowns, including a particularly tough one in Shanghai last spring, China is confronting its worst economic indicators in decades. The country’s GDP last year grew just 3 percent, a stark departure from growth of over 8 percent in 2021—and its lowest level since 1976, the year that Mao Zedong’s disastrous Cultural Revolution ended. Experts inside and outside of China say that its $6 trillion consumer market will be central to getting the world’s second-biggest economy back on track, not least because global demand for China’s products remains sluggish. But the pent-up wave of consumer spending that experts predicted would follow the policy’s end has yet to take shape.

10 Palestinians killed, scores hurt in Israel West Bank raid (AP) Israeli forces on Wednesday stormed into a major Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank for a rare daylight arrest raid, triggering a fierce gunbattle that killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded scores of others. It was one of the bloodiest battles in nearly a year of fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and raised the likelihood of further bloodshed. Israeli police said they were on heightened alert, while the Hamas militant group in Gaza said its patience was “running out.” Islamic Jihad, another militant group, vowed to retaliate. The four-hour operation left a broad swath of damage in a centuries-old marketplace in Nablus. In one emotional scene, an overwhelmed medic pronounced a man dead, only to notice the lifeless patient was his father. An amateur video showed two men, apparently unarmed, being shot as they ran in the street. Israel has been carrying out stepped-up arrest raids of wanted militants in the West Bank since a series of deadly Palestinian attacks in Israel last spring.

Saudi Arabia Expands Crackdown on Dissent (NYT) One day in November 2015, Saad Almadi typed out a 14-word post on Twitter about Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince. “Mohammed bin Salman has taken over the economy, defense and everything under the king,” he wrote, replying to a professor who is a fierce critic of the kingdom’s monarchy. A Saudi-American dual citizen living in Florida, Mr. Almadi had little reason to believe his post would attract attention. He was a retired project manager, not an activist, and his words were largely factual—Prince Mohammed had taken control of many of the levers of power since his father became king that year. By 2017, he would push aside a cousin to become heir to the throne. Yet the tweet resurfaced as evidence seven years later when Mr. Almadi, 72, was arrested during a visit to Saudi Arabia. Along with other Twitter posts he wrote that were critical of the Saudi government—and an “insulting picture” of Prince Mohammed saved on his phone—the tweet was cited as proof that he had “adopted a terrorist agenda by defaming symbols of the state” and “supported terrorist ideology,” according to court documents. In October, Mr. Almadi was sentenced to 16 years in prison, lengthened on Feb. 8 to 19 years after he appealed. Saudi Arabia has always been an authoritarian monarchy with limited freedom of speech. But 10 years ago, Mr. Almadi’s Twitter account, which has fewer than 2,000 followers, might have prompted a warning or an interrogation. Under Prince Mohammed, now prime minister, harsher punishments are being meted out to citizens who criticize their government, while the defendants on trial have become increasingly less prominent. “The scope of oppression really is unprecedented,” said Hala Aldosari, a women’s rights activist who left Saudi Arabia in 2014 for a postdoctoral fellowship in the United States and said she never felt safe enough to return.

What’s Over 600 Pounds, Hyper-Intelligent, And Pink All Over? (Guardian) While America’s wild pig problem has been an issue for years, a new challenger is approaching: a Canadian “super pig,” the result of breeding domesticated pigs with wild boars. The super pigs, created in the 1980s by farmers cross-breeding wild boars with domesticated pigs in the hopes of developing local hunting stock, are bigger and more intelligent than normal wild boars or pigs. Their size (one super pig weighed in at 661 lbs) makes them resistant to Canada’s cold winters, and their intelligence has led them to burrow underground to survive cold winter nights, keeping warm in temperatures as low as -30 C. The super pigs, much like normal wild pigs, outcompete native herbivores and carnivores, but do it even better. “Probably as late as maybe 2010 to 2012, there was probably a reasonable chance of finding and removing them,” said Canadian wild pig expert Ryan Brook. “But now, they’re so widespread, and so abundant, that certainly as late as 2018 or 19 I stopped saying that eradication was possible. They’re just so established.”

#headlines #news

[thenighttcat]

Tuesday not-so-blues

It's easy to get depressed on Tuesday. The fortitude which you were determined to show at the start of the week has already been entirely dismantled by Monday, and looking forward to the weekend will only result in greater despair because you haven't even made it past Wednesday

I hope you can see why it's easy to get depressed on Tuesday.

But today it is different. I am on leave. Do you know how amazing it is to be on leave? There is an annoying voice at the back of my brain that tells me that I should probably still check my email, but I am steadily honing the skill of ignoring it and reducing it to a low hum. After all, I'm really not an important figure at the workplace, and no one ever died because the paperwork wasn't done (actually now that I think about it, probably a lot of people died because some forms weren't filled, but metaphorically speaking, the death toll from paper-pushing is definitely way higher).

The bad thing about being on leave is that without a plan you just end up whiling away the time on the Internet doing random shit. But hey, that's the pastime of every twenty-first century creature right? Nothing wrong with joining in on the international pastime.

In other news, I'm trying to be more creative with my cooking. Don't be restricted by recipes and meal-planning, my left brain says, don't be a little uptight bitch. Gotta be more...freewheeling. So I go to the kitchen, grab whatever ingredients there are at hand, and put something together. The problem with such an approach is the extremely high rate of failure, as well as the existential dread of realising that you have no idea what you are doing when you decide to blast a pack of coconut cream into frozen ravioli that was produced in 2020 and expired nearly a year ago. It occurs to me that the ravioli, sitting all this while in a little dank corner of the freezer, has managed to successfully outlast the COVID restrictions. Damn.

As expected, the outcome of my cooking experiment ended in a disaster, but it was a good thing that I had a good episode of ATLA to distract me from whatever shit I was shoveling into my mouth.

[purplepiratefaerywitchthing]

I Clean Houses and Write Stuff (sometimes)

Blog Post #2 1/9/2023

I'm not writing right now, and I'm not okay with it.

Technically you could argue that I haven't written regularly in a long time. It wouldn't be much of an argument, given that it's absolutely true.

Sometime in that 2018-2019 pre-pandemic era I wrote what would be the final draft of the book I've been working on since I was 12 years old. And when I say final I don't mean "complete;" I mean final as in it would finally leave my head so that something new could take its place.

Because 15 years is a long-ass time to be working on a book. Especially when it isn't very good.

And something new did take its place, once my those guys were free of the gothic feary world my angsty teen brain concocted. The Something New would be drafted three times, many hours spent pouring over laptop and notebooks, doing the thing I'd loved doing for so long it was beyond a hobby, it was part of who I was, like being right-handed or strawberry blonde. The third draft of this Somethibf was even something that would be one step closer to "finished," maybe even publishable...

But then, it was March of 2020. The weird "Chinese virus" we'd kept hearing rumbles about in the news would reach the shores of the US. Suddenly you could die by breathing the air outside your front door, and every media outlet had a field day with headlines listing death tolls, hospitalozation numbers, and repeating the phrase "nothing will ever be the same again" over and over and over.

I didn't sleep for three months.

I cried -sobbed- and screamed for several weeks straight.

I suffered a back spasm that was so painful I physically couldn't lay flat on the floor, my spine seemingly permanently arched. I was able to get that to let go after hours of yoga videos, but then it moved to my foot and I could barely walk. I stopped being able to eat real food because everything made me sick, and would in turn get dangerously close to becoming pre-diabetic because you aren't actually supposed to live off of cheap protein bars.

And during it all, all I could do was read the news.

And read the news.

And read the news.

That story that I spent so much time with was gone, dead and buried with the first 100,000 people in the US to die of COVID-19 no thanks to our screaming lunatic of a 45th president who was elected into office the year I graduated from college. (Talk about a slap to the face to those looking to enter the world and make something of themselves, especially if you were a woman, queer, Black, an immigrant, trans, pretty much anyone not a straight white male.)

I could barely focus on the books in front of me - I read entire novels that I'd forget the second I closed the back cover. Soon I stopped reading books all together.

A small bright spot emerged when a story idea came me, one that had been rolling about the back of my head for some time. I hammered out a draft in record time in the Fall of 2020 and then... That was gone, too, regardless of how I tried to go back to it, how I tried to work on it, edit it, turn it into something for the world.

"Maybe making more money will help," I thought as I picked up more hours at my then-job.

"Maybe having my own space will help," I thought as we emptied our savings account and liquidated every asset we had so we could buy the house of a dreams in September of 2021, big enough for all our animals and for me and my husband Tim to have our own office spaces. Mine was even painted a delightful shade of purple, complete with overflowing bookshelves and a massive window overlooking the street below behind which my mint green sauder desk sits, waiting.

I don't think I've spent more than 24 hours in here, my office, this space that we purchased with everything we had so it could be mine. We've been here for 16 months now.

Mind you, buying the house was not the plan. At least not yet. Ever since the credit cards got taken care of from pandemic aid (the one good thing that came out of those dark months of death, tears, fear and grief), we'd been planning to move out west, somewhere in Colorado where we could see the mountains and be in a not-red state (news flash: Ohio sucks). But then we found our now house, a beautiful thing that's a hundred-and-some years old with real wood trim, badly finished rooms and generations of stories right in what's become our favorite, artsy district of Cleveland. Lots of mental creative energy has been spent planning: how do we make this ancient place that's been through so much ours? How do we heal it, fix it, honor it's history while bringing it to our modern era?

It's stressful as all hell, not to mention expensive and time consuming, but I've loved it. We have it all planned out; wooden countertops in the kitchen, black tile in the bathrooms, an attic library, a basement game room, a second shower.

I try to tell myself that I haven't been writing because that part of my brain that longs to make things has been making our house our house. Constantly working, picking, problem solving the way it does when I'm drafting.

Part of me believes me.

Part of me wonders if I will ever write again.

After all, writing up until the pandemic was such a part of who I am, it was hard to call it a hobby.

But, is it still?

I don't know.

I don't like not knowing.

***

Flash forward to now, 2023. I've stepped away from the ever demanding customer service desk I've been chained to since I was 17 and am now working for myself, quietly cleaning houses, alone with my music, my thoughts, and the home owner's pets.

It's good work; I'm making more money, and have a lot more time now.

But do I have Grass is Always Greener Syndrome, too?

Am I just thinking, "maybe this atmospheric change will fix my internal problems, because I don't even know where to begin on those?"

It makes me sigh heavily. Perhaps that's why I spend my free time sitting in the living room under a blanket watching true crime docs on Hulu.

#writeblr #writing #writing community #blog post #personal #post-pandemic life #not writing #bloggers of tumblr #blogs of tumblr #pandemic #2023 #mental health #I Clean Houses and Write Stuff Blog

[screenshots123]

China has outlined the way it counts Covid-19 deaths amid scepticism about the real impact of the disease.

It says the figure includes only those who die from respiratory illnesses, such as pneumonia.

Officially, there were only five Covid deaths on Tuesday, two on Monday - and none in the previous two weeks.

The counting method goes against World Health Organization (WHO) guidance - resulting in a figure that is way below the death toll in many other countries.

The WHO says countries use different processes to test and report Covid-19 deaths making comparisons between nations difficult.

It is why many countries record Covid-19 deaths as excess mortality - how many more people died than would normally be expected based on death figures before the pandemic hit.

These calculations also take into account deaths which were not directly because of Covid but were caused by its knock-on effects - including people being unable to access hospitals for the care they require.

By contrast, China has strict criteria for confirming Covid-19 cases, which include evidence in patients of lung damage caused by the virus. This must be confirmed in a scan.

But, the country is currently experiencing a surge in cases since the lifting of its most severe restrictions earlier this month.

Official figures show a relatively low number of new daily cases and deaths. This has led to fears the numbers are an underestimate due to a recent reduction in Covid testing.

In a bid to address the concerns the State Council held a news conference on Tuesday.

Infectious disease expert Prof Wang Gui-qiang clarified that only pneumonia and respiratory failure caused by the coronavirus were counted as Covid deaths.

Deaths caused by underlying diseases are not included in the official count, state-owned China News Service reported.

Strict lockdowns are said to account for China's official death toll staying so low since the start of the pandemic - the official figure is just over 5,200.

This is equal to only three Covid deaths in every million in China, compared with 3,000 per million in the US and 2,400 per million in the UK.

[garudabluffs]

Is the Pandemic Over? Public Health Advocates Decry Biden’s Claim as Thousands Still Dying from COVID  September 20, 2022

President Biden declared that “the pandemic is over” during an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday, despite data collected by Johns Hopkins showing COVID-19 killed 13,000 people across the U.S. over the past month as 2.2 million new infections were reported. “I think it’s very premature to say that we see the end is in sight with this pandemic,” says Steven Thrasher, author of “The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide.” He adds that the sentiment from the nation’s leader is dangerous because it discourages people from wearing masks and seeking booster vaccinations, which are still vital to prevent the virus’s spread.

Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves tweeted, “Sorry folks. Mr. Biden is dead-wrong. 500 people dying per day. 2nd leading cause of death in US. We’re top in mortality among G7. Life expectancy down. He thinks this is good politics. It may be but it’s predicated on accepting the suffering of millions of Americans,” Dr. Gonsalves said.

STEVEN THRASHER: “I was really disappointed and disheartened to hear what the president said, declaring that the pandemic was over. Clearly, the pandemic is not over. Between 400 to 500 people have been dying every day in the United States. We’re just observing 9/11 a week ago. More people were killed in the last week from COVID-19 than were on 9/11.”

“So, it was narrow-sighted for the president to say that the pandemic was now over, and inaccurate, and really insulting to the millions of people who are sick and dying.But kind of at a technical level, the thing that I found most surprising is this administration has overly relied upon vaccines as the way to address the pandemic. And vaccines are fantastic. They’ve saved millions of lives. But they have to be used in concert with other things, that the administration has pretty much given up on entirely. And so, it was really surprising, given that we now have this bivalent booster available, that could really match the current circulating strain of COVID-19, and there could be nothing worse to be done to dissuade people from getting that vaccine than to say that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to worry about anything anymore.”

“So, people can wear masks, and people should wear masks. And there’s nothing that’s more difficult in getting people to do it than if the president of the United States says that there’s no need to do so anymore. I really dislike that he sort of said it passively, as if, you know, people just aren’t wearing masks, as if he’s not a leader who could be wearing masks. He’s walking around the Detroit Auto Show without a mask himself. And his administration has tried to do certain things that have been stymied by the courts. Their original order to have people wear masks on public transportation was challenged and struck down by one federal judge, but they didn’t ask for an emergency injunction. They have not fought to keep those things in place. They have not modeled that kind of behavior themselves.And even under all of this, many of us, myself included, are in institutions and spaces where we’re trying to get people to wear masks, we’re trying to have mask mandates on our campuses or at academic conferences or events that we’re part of. And it makes it almost impossible to do so, to convince organizers that we should take the step, if the president of the United States himself is saying that we don’t need these masks and that they can’t do anything to help.” + “We need to, as aggressively as possible, try to use masks in situations where we can.”

“You know, there was a huge rate of incarceration under President Obama, under President Trump and now under President Biden. And when you look at the border, I think The New York Times just reported last night or this morning that we had the first year where 2 million people have been detained for immigration and border enforcement, and jails and prisons around incarcerating people who are legally seeking asylum and trying to get out of dangerous situations, and then putting them into conditions in which viruses move very freely and then are then going to move through their communities, that’s one of the engines that is really driving this pandemic.”

“And so, yes, you know, we want children to be together as safely as possible. That’s why we need to mask and ventilate and get vaccination as often as possible. But there are ways that children need to be protected from the death of a loved one and the death of themselves. COVID has been, you know, a very big killer of children, among the things that actually kill children. And so, we can’t just talk about lockdowns or think about the harm that comes from lockdowns, but also admit that this is a virus that could potentially have lifelong effects for children, and we need to have a sense of humility as we study that, and decrease transmission as much as possible. And we also need to make sure that they, their teachers, their janitors, their parents and grandparents are safe, because you need to be able to raise them. And all of the people in the children’s lives need to have enough food and housing security to be able to raise them in a way that’s going to allow them to flourish. We can’t just focus only on school — we can’t just focus on the potential of school closures. And we must look at everything it takes to keep children safe around this virus and in the totality of their lives.”

LISTEN READ MORE Transcript https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/20/steven_trasher_pandemic_is_not_over

There Is Nothing Normal about One Million People Dead from COVID   February 10, 2022 

“Is it rational to ignore high community viral loads in American society and to not do more to lower them so that fewer people are exposed, become sick, transmit onward and possibly die?”

 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-nothing-normal-about-one-million-people-dead-from-covid1/

Biden declares the end of the pandemic, confusing many Americans                                                      September 20, 2022

Confusion abounds after a "60 Minutes" episode aired this Sunday in which President Biden declared that the pandemic was over, adding that COVID was still a problem. Many are now asking what this means moving forward. The statement comes as figures show that the latest booster is not being picked up as much as had been hoped, particularly among young people.

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, joins Here & Now's Robin Young to talk all things COVID and boosters.

LISTEN 4:39  https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/09/20/biden-end-of-the-pandemic

#pandemic over-rated Coronavirus Covid-18

[joseywritesng]

Long COVID's grip is likely to tighten as infections continue

Long COVID’s grip is likely to tighten as infections continue

August 10, 2022 – COVID-19 is far from finished in the United States, with more than 111,000 new cases a day in the second week of August, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 625 deaths are reported every day. And as that toll mounts, experts worry about a second wave of illness from long-term COVID, a condition that has been around between 7.7 million and 23 million Americansaccording to…

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#coronavirus #COVID-19 #long covid #pandemic #second wave #vaccines

[health28]

Long COVID’s Grip Will Likely Tighten as Infections Continue

Long COVID’s Grip Will Likely Tighten as Infections Continue

Aug. 10, 2022 – COVID-19 is far from done in the United States, with more than 111,000 new cases being recorded a day in the second week of August, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 625 deaths being reported every day. And as that toll grows, experts are worried about a second wave of illnesses from long COVID, a condition that already has affected between 7.7 million and 23 million…

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[heatherhasbetterthingstodo]

Letter 17 of 22

January 29, 2022

Dear Premier Stefanson,

It has been sixteen (16) days since I sent correspondence with feedback that was expressly solicited when you said on January 12th that you "will be taking advice from other Manitobans…moving forward." I have yet to receive any acknowledgement that my advice going to be taken into consideration (or that it's even been received); therefore, this email - with additional commentary - will be re-sent to you and a few other key decision-makers every day until policy changes in Manitoba to adequately address my concerns and/or you respond to me personally.

If you're choosing to read this one, may I draw your attention to the CBC article from today entitled, "If Omicron is mild, why are so many people dying in Ontario?" There's some important information in there, especially since deaths from Covid in Manitoba are also not falling (as Bartley Kives also pointed out recently). From the report, here are a couple notable quotes: "We're seeing scales of infection that we have not seen in the entire epidemic to date," Moriarty said in an interview. "There are going to be a lot of deaths, even if the virus is half as severe [as previous variants]." And there's this one: "It all leads to the possibility that the actual number of COVID-19 deaths in Ontario's current wave could eventually exceed the numbers in either the first or second waves." You might want to read it in its entirety before making any premature reopening decisions this coming week. Because as Dr. Matear aptly pointed out in yesterday's press conference, it's going to be a while yet before circumstances will be "normal" again. And we ought to act accordingly.

Sincerely, X

------

Dear Premier Stefanson et al,

Greetings from Southern Manitoba. In light of the comments made at yesterday's press conference (i.e. January 12, 2022) - where it was specifically stated that the provincial government "will be taking advice from other Manitobans as well moving forward" - I would like to take this statement seriously/literally and provide you with some feedback from a deeply concerned resident of the Rural Municipality of Hanover. While the term "stakeholders" was likely used to refer primarily to business owners, I think it's vital to point out what should be obvious: all residents/citizens collectively are the most significant stakeholders in Manitoba, and if these voices - like my own - are not being listened to, what this conveys is that there is some serious misgovernance taking place (which undermines the democratic purpose/process of politicians acting on behalf of those who they are supposed to represent). Obviously, I don't expect a response, since it's clear that leaders in the current administration aren't even willing to answer direct questions from official members of the press. But if any confidence in this current government has any hope of being restored, I would appreciate if this correspondence was at the very least passed along to the people to whom it's addressed. Accordingly, at this time I would like to name four different issues: suppressing public health recommendations, the provincial response level, forced back to school, and expanding the proof of vaccination.

First, it was painfully obvious at yesterday's press conference that the government was indeed advised by its own public health division that stricter measures were needed in order to protect all Manitobans. Instead, what we saw was a blatant disregard of such recommendations in favour of a what was termed a "balanced" approach, which is clearly no longer concerned at all with "containing" the spread of Covid-19 but resigned to allow the entire population to contract the virus that some of us have been trying extremely hard to fight against these past two years. We're only in this position now - of supposedly needing to accept that "Covid is here to stay" - because the provincial response to the pandemic has ever tended to be reactive (as opposed to proactive) and has not listened to expertise from medical professionals soon enough to "mitigate" the collateral damage of human lives that we've seen. Granted - this is a worldwide problem and not a shortcoming that's specific to Manitoba; however, this does not release us from the responsibility to do our utmost to keep people safe - no matter the cost. Sure, listen to multiple sources. But if it's a veritable issue of life/death or health/illness, this alone trumps any political, economic, or religious interests. Therefore, if public health and/or medical experts are telling the government anything that has relevance to decisions that are being made at the provincial level, this ought to be transparently disclosed and must factor into policies that are enacted to protect the well-being of those who call Manitoba home.

Second, it was a common refrain the last few press conferences that Manitoba has had more strict measures in place than the other provinces across Canada (as some kind of justification/rationalization for not stepping up the current response level). To be perfectly honest, regardless of what our neighbours to the West, East, or South are doing, what matters above all else is to hold to a higher standard than those whose response has been subpar. In other words, the province of Manitoba should be seeking to be a leader nationally and globally in its championing of health and safety (instead of a follower, or a pariah). As it stands, we currently have the worst rate of active Covid-19 cases in Canada (again), and the province's response is to keep the response level at Orange - even though case numbers are worse than they have ever been throughout the entire pandemic. This is completely irresponsible and unacceptable. The province's response level should have been at Red long ago - with stay-at-home orders for all not-yet-vaccinated people (except for essentials), no guests at all for households that have any unvaccinated individuals, no special treatment for religious organizations, expanded and consistent enforcement of public health orders, etc. What's more, what Canada needs is a more unified approach, because what's happened to date - with each province essentially acting in isolation - is not working. Similar to the federal mandate for all civil servants to be vaccinated, a more unified partnership/coordination across provinces and territories to implement public health measure compliance is necessary to have any hope of preventing and containing future waves of the virus.

Third, this rhetoric of schools being "last to close, first to open" has to stop. Obviously no one wants schools to be closed since in-person learning spaces are inarguably preferable to online/virtual formats for most students. The reality of the capitalistic world that we occupy is that most people are reliant on children being in school so that parents/caregivers can work. And yet, by compelling students, staff and teachers to attend classes at an unsafe time during a global epidemic - without ensuring sufficient access to scientifically proven medical-grade masks for all, not substantially upgrading ventilation, not allowing time for students to get their second dose before restarting classes, etc - is nothing less than willing endangerment of human life. My kids, for example, got their first dose of the vaccine on the very first day they were eligible (i.e. November 28th); however, with the 8-week period that they are supposed to wait until their next vaccine appointment, the earliest we could make a booking was January 23rd (which we have done). Based on the "Severe Outcomes by Vaccination Status" graphs shown in the press conference, two doses provides significantly more protection than one (with any number of doses being preferrable to zero). That being said, there is no way that we are sending our children back to school before they have the opportunity to receive their second shot. Fortunately, we have the flexibility to do this as a family. But what about the large number of families who have no other option than to send their children back to school, or for those whose employment is school-based (who themselves have no option to strike because of the collective bargaining agreement)? Thus, it's crucial that the province delays the start of in-class learning until this present wave peaks and/or the province can adequately demonstrate that safety measures have in fact been systematically, expansively and verifiably increased at each school across every school division. Alternatively, distance options should at least be provided for families who have been advised to "look after themselves."

Finally, we already have a reliable system in place to ensure that the most people in public spaces are vaccinated, but it has not be expanded to its full potential. Only a vocal minority of Manitobans have expressed disagreement with proof of vaccination, so this should not prevent its continued use long-term. After all, there should be a lasting benefit for those who have faithfully abided by the province's strong recommendation to be vaccinated (and enduring consequences for obstinance). Also - if the province actually believes in vaccines as an important measure to contend with the Coronavirus (i.e. something "we're going to need to learn to live with…in the longer term"), then Manitoba seriously needs to consider implementing a vaccine mandate for all citizens and permanent residents, as well as requiring vaccines as a condition of attending public schools. Requirement is proven to yield more results than recommendation, and while there will always be those who stand in opposition, the cost-benefit of safeguarding life for all outweighs the preferences of individuals…otherwise, we wouldn't have laws that protect each other from harm.

All this to say, when it's communicated to us that, "it's up to Manitobans to look after themselves," what this signals is resignation and abdicating responsibility. That's not what we need from elected officials. We need you to set an example for us to follow; to inspire us to do better; to make hard decisions that will cost financial and political supporters; to answer questions honestly when asked directly; to keep calm and carry on with all of the things. That is the way out of the pandemic: not giving up.

Sincerely, X

p.s. Next time when N95 or medical grade masks are provided for Manitobans - which we as a family did not receive - please consider doing so at a location where there's more access for everyone, such as a Canada Post office. Not every community has a Liquor Mart, but even the smallest town has a post office (or is proximate to one).

#ms. stefanson's neighbourhood

[captainmdhridoyhossain-blog]

[ad_1] Editor’s notice: The Salt Lake Tribune is offering unfastened get admission to to essential tales concerning the coronavirus. Join our Best Tales publication, despatched on your inbox each and every morning. To fortify journalism like this, please donate or grow to be a subscriber.The Utah Division of Well being on Friday introduced seven extra COVID-19 deaths, bringing the state’s loss of life toll for the reason that pandemic started to three,702.The state crossed the three,000-deaths threshold on Oct. 9, when it reached 3,002 deaths. There were 700 deaths reported since then — a mean of about 10 an afternoon.The Well being Division on Friday additionally reported 1,017 new coronavirus circumstances previously day. The rolling seven-day reasonable for brand spanking new circumstances stands at 1,006 in step with day.However that would quickly exchange. A number one Utah physician warned Friday that the omicron variant of the coronavirus is more likely to convey a “5th wave” of latest coronavirus circumstances within the coming weeks.”In many ways, it’s piggybacking on a fourth wave that by no means receded totally,” Dr. Brandon Webb, infectious sicknesses doctor at Intermountain Healthcare, mentioned throughout a COVID-19 neighborhood briefing over Fb Reside.The ‘Houdini’ of variantsThe omicron variant is extra transmissible, Webb mentioned, calling it the “Houdini of COVID variants” as a result of it could actually get away the frame’s immune responses — won both via prior an infection or the primary doses of the vaccine — and convey extra “step forward” circumstances. Even so, he mentioned, omicron is like delta in that it produces extra serious sickness in those that have no longer been vaccinated. And within the coming weeks, it would quickly surpass delta because the dominant variant of COVID-19.”You probably have no longer but been vaccinated, with omicron at our doorstep, I strongly inspire you to be vaccinated,” Webb mentioned Friday. “Should you’ve had prior an infection, and had been depending on that for shielding you towards additional traces, that not applies to the omicron variant.”He additionally strongly inspired those that had been vaccinated to get a booster dose.With Christmas simply over per week away, Webb instructed that individuals showing signs of a respiration sickness will have to keep house and steer clear of gatherings with family members. He additionally really helpful getting examined early for the coronavirus, as a result of chilly and flu signs overlap with signs of COVID-19.Wholesome vacation revelers will have to nonetheless steer clear of huge indoor teams, take care of social distancing, and put on mask in crowded indoor settings, Webb mentioned. “The equipment within the toolbox which were efficient [before] stay efficient towards omicron,” he mentioned.ICUs stays close to capabilityThe choice of youngsters getting vaccinated continues to climb — 85,916 youngsters ages 5-11 have got no less than one dose since they changed into eligible. That’s 23.6% of children that age in Utah, in line with the Well being Division. And 50,190 of the ones youngsters had been absolutely vaccinated — 13.8% of that age staff.Extensive care devices within the state stay close to capability. UDOH reported Friday that 93.5% of all ICU beds in Utah and 97.1% of ICU beds in better clinical facilities within the state are occupied. (Hospitals believe any determine over 85% to be functionally complete.) Of all ICU sufferers, 37.6% are being handled for COVID-19.Vaccine doses administered previously day/overall doses administered • 13,240 / 4,403,822.Collection of Utahns absolutely vaccinated • 1,875,418 — 57.3% of Utah’s overall inhabitants. That is a rise of two,140 previously day.Circumstances reported previously day • 1,017.Circumstances amongst school-age youngsters • Children in grades Ok-12 accounted for 157 of the brand new circumstances introduced Wednesday — 15.4% of the entire. There have been

89 circumstances reported in youngsters elderly 5-10; 26 circumstances in youngsters 11-13; and 42 circumstances in youngsters 14-18.Assessments reported in previous day • 9,301 other people had been examined for the primary time. A complete of 17.871 other people had been examined.Deaths reported in previous day • Seven.There have been 3 deaths in Salt Lake County — a lady between the ages of 45-64, and two males 85 or older.Davis County reported two deaths — a person and a lady 65-84. There have been additionally two deaths in Utah County — a person and a lady 45-64.Hospitalizations reported previously day • 511. This is 4 greater than reported on Thursday. Of the ones these days hospitalized, 196 are in extensive care, 3 greater than reported on Thursday.Proportion of certain exams • Below the state’s authentic manner, the velocity is 10.9% previously day. This is not up to the seven-day reasonable of 13.2%.The state’s new manner counts all check effects, together with repeated exams of the similar particular person. Friday’s fee was once 5.7%, not up to the seven-day reasonable of 9.1%.[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]Possibility ratios • Prior to now 4 weeks, unvaccinated Utahns had been 15.7 instances much more likely to die of COVID-19 than vaccinated other people, in line with a Utah Division of Well being research. The unvaccinated additionally had been 9.7 instances much more likely to be hospitalized, and three.7 instances much more likely to check certain for the coronavirus.Totals thus far • 617,697 circumstances; 3,704 deaths; 26,941 hospitalizations; 4,121,577 other people examined. [ad_2] #Omicron #surpass #delta #dominant #pressure #convey #wave #circumstances #main #Utah #physician