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appalachiananarchist · 3 years

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Vaccine associated deaths

A continuation/response to a reply to this post. @winterphile

Death is a complication of any of the adverse events (though realistically probably usually TTP) which I did discuss in the first post. You don’t just drop dead for no reason. But I can certainly go over deaths after the vaccine and talk about those numbers and how to interpret them.

I live in the USA so have mostly been looking at VAERS to track incidence of adverse events after the vaccination. This is because it is going to be among the largest sets of data we have and can give us a better snapshot of what is really being seen and reported on a large scale.

According to VAERS there have been ~7.5K reported deaths after getting a COVID-19 vaccination as of September 2021. Please note what I said, though: a death reported after getting a COVID-19 vaccine. This does not mean a death caused by a COVID vaccine. Those are two separate things. A person could get immunized, the next week develop sepsis from a diabetic wound and die, and a report could still get made to count them toward that total death number. This is because health workers are, per VAERS, encouraged to report “any adverse event that occurs after the administration of a vaccine licensed in the United States, whether it is or is not clear that a vaccine caused the adverse event.” The general population can also make reports to VAERS any time, which further muddies the picture.

In short, I am saying that the VAERS data are simply that: reports that anyone can make. It is really useful data to have, but is ultimately unverified in its raw form. Furthermore, none of it proves causality. All the data says is that person X is now dead, and person X had received a COVID vaccine. Like I said above, the thing that killed person X may or may not have been related to the COVID vaccine. We can't know that just by looking at these numbers, because causality isn't what they are tracking. You can look at raw data and also read their disclaimer on this topic here.

The takeaway message here is that the number of deaths reported after vaccination is a bit lower, based on the data I am using, than you suggested, at about 7.5K at the most recent. But of course this is not insignificant. While some of these deaths are likely related to an adverse event related to vaccination, many of them are inevitably unrelated and would have happened regardless. So the real number of vaccine-associated deaths is going to be lower than that. However, even if I was unrealistically generous and assumed that ALL 7.5K of those people actually died from the COVID-19 vaccine (which I promise you is not the case), when you look at the total number of US vaccine doses given during the time frame that number was drawn from (~380 million vaccines) then that math works out to...~0.002% (rounding up).

That is a really, really small number, and that is probably a hugely falsely inflated number too, because it is based on the unverified raw VAERS data, not follow up with causal links established! So based on the current VAERS data, the true risk of death after COVID-19 vaccine is going to be some number significantly less than 0.002%. A lot of the surgeries we perform or other interventions, including even medications, in medicine have a much higher risk than that, but we still do them when the potential benefit outweighs that very small risk.

The trade off for taking this very small risk is a decreased chance of catching (and thereby spreading) COVID-19 as well as (and more importantly, in my opinion) a decreased chance of getting sick enough to require hospitalization, intubation, or die due to COVID-19 as discussed more extensively in the original post. The other part of the trade off is easing the healthcare system’s burden right now which will help ALL patients, regardless of why they are sick, get the care they need when they come to the hospital. Like I said in the other post, it is a risk-benefit analysis like all things in medicine, and here the vaccine really does seem like the obvious choice. Risk of harm is very low, and risk of benefit for both the individual and the community is pretty high.

I hope that addresses what you were getting at in your question. If not let me know. I will hold off on responding to the latter part of your question until I hear from you again because I've re-read your reply a few times and I am still a little confused by the wording and what exactly you are asking.

#medblr #covid #covid-19 #vaccination #i dont know what you mean by comorbidity rates

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kaorimiyazonotl · 3 years

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Life After 2020

Life as we know it evolved and changed in more ways than one, and that's normal. The word “normal” is a word that people use to describe the usual occurrences of our world. It’s our daily routine. That’s being human. People tend to say that “the world keeps evolving,” and so far it has been evolving very quickly. With each passing day of 2021, people were supposed to be finding ways to recover for the chaotic year of 2020, where everyone suffered greatly in one way or another. This year we’ve been on a tipsy road covered in cracks.

At first it was just another year of masks, social distancing, and online learning for teachers and students. March marked one year. Some people thought 2021 might be the year where everything slowed down and all our worries disappeared. The truth is people’s daily worries don’t go away that easily. We are not cruising through 2021 like we thought we would. Which made me question whether or not the world itself will go back to normal.

People have probably heard that “2020 was such a tough year.” Well, that’s the past, the present is now. According to every news article, television, and social media network 2020 is happening again. Only this time students and teachers haven’t gone back online. The world has been divided like a great battle against one another and it’s been going on for a year and a half. I understand that this is and continues to be a part of our world, but when will we stop wearing masks?

Over the summer I went to New Mexico and the word normal popped into my head. I remembered the days where life was at least decent and you could see a smile on someone’s face. But when August came around it was like 2020 all over again, back to wearing masks. A mask covers everything, from smiles to frowns. Nowadays the only way we can tell someone’s expression is by taking our masks off or looking into each others’ eyes.

In the beginning of 2021 things remained practically the same, stores were closing, dine in restaurants weren’t available still and the continuation to keep our masks on once you’ve entered a place were still intact. So nothing new was really happening except what the news was showing us. But progress was happening, just not not big enough to see but small enough to notice. Still as the saying goes “we’re in the same boat” or “you are not alone” everyone had to face the same thing that was happening. It’s very cliche to hear since people have used that saying before, nevertheless it’s true since everyone went through something just as similar.

We probably all were “in the same boat” last year, but everyone’s method of coping is different. People don’t suddenly recover, it’s a step-by-step process that takes a while. That’s just how things are. Still, the question remains: Will life go back to normal? Will we be able to handle the new changes in the world?

First off; there is no such thing as normal, it is just a word used to describe something plain or to describe a person who dresses or acts like everybody else. I’m asking if life will go back to the way it used to be. There are possibilities to anything, about the way we think, might know, and what we’re searching for. So, we might not even know the whole truth to this question.

According to health experts say that for normalcy to return “. . .the country needs to reach herd immunity...The more people are vaccinated, the less likely the virus will spread.” ( What will the end of the COVID pandemic look like? - WHYY). So that could be our saving grace, if that ends up happening. But what if there are people who don’t want to get vaccinated? What will experts say then? People have their own beliefs and some will do what they think is right.

But other people say differently, that the “normal life” isn’t back yet, and it doesn’t appear “normal will be coming back fully this fall,” says writer Jim Geraghty (Is 'Normal' COVID-19 Life for Americans Going to Return by 2022?). Well, it depends on the people and where they stand.

I know that where I stand I have my own beliefs and opinions. I still have much to learn, however, I should at least have the capability of knowing right from wrong. That’s the meaning of existence, people think they know right from wrong based on what they believe in. As teenager’s we think we might know, but we’re still learning. Our parents may tell us what our beliefs are but we choose where we stand between certain beliefs. We also know that because we want freedom we can’t just do as we please.

In the real world, we have tons of responsibilities. If there are teens who are easily influenced, it’s going to be tough for them. Life itself is like taking a big test, it’s to see if young adults are capable of being independent, responsible, and capable of working well with others. From the article What will the end of the COVID pandemic look like? - WHYY, Gretchen Chapman, a psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, thinks that “it’s the responsibility of health experts to guide people about which activities are safe and which aren’t as more and more people are vaccinated.” What exactly do people think that belief or theory will lead to? Why follow sheep when we can be the shepherd?

Throughout school, we were taught to “be a leader, not a follower.” But not everyone is perfect so how do we know? From our perspective of things, we can only tell by what our beliefs are and how strong they are. But health experts also say that “It’s not certain what percentage of the population needs to be vaccinated...But many medical experts estimate that it’s 70% to 80%.” ( What will the end of the COVID pandemic look like? - WHYY) It is uncertain that maybe by fall things should go smoothly if we follow what they think is true.

If things go upwards then by 2022 things “should be normal, or at least whatever qualifies as normal post-pandemic...The virus will still exist, but one possibility is that it will be less likely to make people severely ill and that it will [be] like the flu..but the virus wouldn’t rage out of control again,” Writer Joe Pinsker put in the articleThe Most Likely Timeline for Life to Return to Normal - The Atlantic

So as of next year, there is a hypothetical theory that “normalcy” to the world won’t be showing up until next year? And will the virus be contained this time? Well, this is just a simple theory. As I have said things change all around us, what if it’ll take multiple years to recover? How will we know if what they say isn’t true at all? There are so many unknown questions that everyone has and we don’t even have the answers to most of those questions.

Students at my school have their own beliefs about whether or not the world will go back to normal. Most students had the same answer but everyone I interviewed had a strong opinion on the question asked. Some students said, “look at the facts,” “Once everyone is [or gets] vaccinated things should be okay.” But my most favorite would be from a student who had pointed out that “Once you progress there is no going back.” In my honest opinion it is true, life keeps going forward, yesterday was the past, today is the present and tomorrow is the future.

Every student compared how the world was and what it could or could not turn out to be by relating it to history. It “repeats itself..things that have stopped for a while they always have a way to resume back to normal. Like when the black plague happened [or] when the Spanish flu [happened]..it never went away [but] it took so long for life to go back to normal.”

Particularly speaking, there is a possibility that it may take years or more for life to return to normal. Normalcy does take a while to recover, it may take more than just months and like people always say “life isn't easy.” But those are students who referred life back to history and stated that it took years for them to handle the situation.

Students who said yes to the world returning to normal, most of them all replied the same. “People will get vaccinated,” “We should be vaccinated,” “the more people get vaccinated” or “Because we already have a vaccine.” They think that being vaccinated will turn things around, that’s what they hope for, they believe if people get the vaccine we should go back to normal. But you can’t force people to do what you think is right. That’s not how the world works, we are all entitled to our own opinion.

A student whose a junior, had said “I think covid, being here won't change anything even if people do get vaccinated.” That might be true some students said that covid will be around for a long time now and it’s not going to go away, not that easily. “We barely go back down and go back up.” If the roller coaster continues there’s no telling if what the students have said is true. It may take years to get back on track. Normalcy is just a word used to describe anything, but there is no such thing as normal, to begin with. I think that there is a fifty-fifty percent chance that there will be major changes in the future. There are a ton of possibilities to anything and everything.

#life decisions #summer 2021

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followthebluebell · 4 years

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FIP: Feline Infectious Peritonitis

Sprinkles contemplates some birds. We’re re-doing the catios right now, so they’re all closed off. I think she’s looking forward to being outdoors again.

I’m putting a cut here because this is a LENGTHY READ and, in case of further developments, I’d like to be able to easily update this article.

In October 2019, she was diagnosed with ocular FIP (Feline infectious peritonitis), which is a mutation of feline coronavirus (FCoV, which is very distinct from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19). FCoV is ubiquitous in the cat population: almost every cat has it or is exposed to various strains of it. Most cats get over it just fine with only mild diarrhea. In a small percentage of cats (we’re uncertain on the percentage, which I’ll get into later, but it’s theoretically somewhere between 5-10%), it goes fuckwhack apeshit and mutates into FIP.

We don’t know why it spontaneously mutates. There seems to be a genetic component to it. It’s believed to be more common in purebred cats, but we’re really not sure--- since FIP is a diagnosis by exclusion, there often is a hefty vet bill attached to the diagnosis and a person who can afford to buy a purebred cat from a cattery is more likely to be able to afford that bill. It MAY be triggered by stress. It’s much more common in younger cats, often appearing in kittens ranging from 4 months to 4 years. This doesn’t mean older cats are safe; I know of at least one case in a 12 year old cat.

Sprinkles was diagnosed at 3 and a half months. She didn’t have a particularly stressful event before developing symptoms. She’s not a purebred. I don’t know anything about her genetic history, so I can’t cross that off the list.

Mickey, my second FIP kitten, was diagnosed at 4 months. I know slightly more about his health records but it’s still scant. He arrived with an unusual skin ailment: sarcoptic mange. Hypothetically, this could indicate an already delicate immune system that left him vulnerable to this sort of FCoV mutation.

FIP is deadly and remains, to this day, the most horrifying disease I’ve ever personally encountered. Thankfully, FIP itself is NOT contagious. FCoV is highly contagious but, as previously mentioned, it’s fairly common in the cat population. There was a study done to see if separating kittens from their mother at 7 weeks (approximately the period when a mother’s antibodies begin to wear off and the kittens have to begin producing their own) would prevent cats from catching FCoV from her. This was effective but the social drawbacks are too heavy a cost for it to be considered regularly.

There is a vaccine for FCoV but it’s largely ineffective and most vets don’t recommend it.

FIP comes in two primary forms: wet (effusive) and dry (non-effusive). Usually, FCoV exists only in the gastrointestinal system. It’s really the only place it can replicate itself with ease. Once the virus mutates, it can’t replicate itself as well, but it CAN infect macrophages. Macrophages are highly mobile white blood cells. They go pretty much everywhere, and ones infected with FIPV (Feline Infectious Peritonitis Virus) will carry the virus along for the ride.

The early symptoms are vague. These cats are lethargic, listless, have low or no appetite, weight loss, and a fluctuating fever. The first symptom I caught in Sprinkles was complete avoidance: she was actively avoiding other kittens and other kittens were avoiding her. Mickey’s only symptoms were lethargy and diarrhea. I only got suspicious about possible FIP because the other kittens in his playgroup didn’t have any diarrhea at all.

And this is where we see a split in the forms of FIP.

Effusive FIP is characterized by the accumulation of fluid within the abdomen and is more common. It happens very quickly. Cats with effusive FIP develop breathing problems rapidly. The fluid drawn from the abdomen is usually straw-yellow. Effusive FIP is said to be more common, although only one of the 5 cases I’ve seen in the last few years was wet FIP.

Thankfully, effusive FIP has a few distinct traits that makes it easier to diagnose. It’s important to remember that FIP itself is generally a diagnosis by exclusion.

Measuring the protein in the effusion is a good first step. If it’s less than 35g/l, FIP is generally ruled out.

The albumin to globulin ratio is considered next, via a blood test. If it’s less than 0.4, FIP should be considered.

Finally, examining the cells in the effusion is valuable. If they’re primarily lymphocytes, FIP is excluded.

Non-effusive FIP is more difficult to spot, because the symptoms are so varied. Granulomas (inflammatory cells) form in various organs, which produces an extreme variety of symptoms. The most commonly affected symptoms are the ocular and neurological symptoms.

Ocular FIP happens when the virus crosses the blood-ocular barrier and is characterized by slightly opaque white films on one or both eyes; these don’t cover the entire eye. They’re often just a small section. This was the first distinct symptom I saw in Sprinkles. It’s considered a distinct enough sign that her ophthalmologist was able to tell me that she was 99% certain it was FIP.

Neurological FIP is my own personal hell. The virus crossed the blood-brain barrier and infects the brain. The first symptom is usually a limp or a slight tremble in the head. The paralysis often begins in the hind limbs and it travels upwards. The cat eventually loses all mobility. If the cat is lucky, they’ll begin to have seizures instead and die soon afterwards. Like I said, it remains the single-most awful thing I’ve ever seen.

Non-effusive FIP is harder to diagnose than effusive FIP, especially if the cat fails to develop ocular or neurological symptoms. In these cases, the only symptoms the cat has are fevers, diarrhea, and other non-specific issues.

Once again, the best bet is to consider the albumin to globulin ratio. The same rule of ‘if it’s under 0.4, FIP should be considered’ holds true.

Unfortunately, checking for antibodies is fairly useless. A positive FCoV test just means the cat has been exposed to FCoV.

FIP is deadly. While there are some isolated cases of cats seemingly recovering from it, I think it’s more likely that those were simply misdiagnosed cases. As I’ve said before, FIP is a diagnosis by exclusion, so a misdiagnosis can happen fairly easily. A cat with wet FIP is gone in days. A cat who’s unlucky enough to develop neurological FIP may linger for weeks until they die of starvation, oxygen deprivation as the lungs themselves are paralyzed, or dehydration. Ocular FIP generally spreads into the brain, causing seizures.

Sprinkles is very, VERY lucky. I had been following the study very closely and I had an acquaintance who recently started treating her foster cat for FIP. I was able to get into contact with some folks and obtain experimental treatment for my kittens.

GS-441525

In February 2019, there was a very promising study on a specific drug called GS-441524. Most of the cats involved with the study made a full recovery. The company (Gilead-Sciences) behind the drug wasn’t interested in getting it FDA approved for cats out of concern that it would affect its approval for human use. See, if it’s used officially for cats, Gilead-Sciences would be obligated to report any negative side-effects and that could impact getting it approved for human use down the line. “One of the rules in drug development is ‘never perform a test you don’t have to, if the results could be problematic,” isn’t an uncommon saying. It’s one of the reasons why I fell out of research and development myself.

I had some pull and was able to get experimental access to this drug for Sprinkles and, later, Mickey.

Both kittens went through three months of daily injections and a further 3 months of observations before they were deemed FIP-free. After seeing 3 other cats die from it, it’s been a blessing to see them recover. They’re both especially lucky that they finished their treatment cycle JUST before COVID-19 hit American shores since I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue using a very promising antiviral in cats when it would likely be needed by humans.

It’s definitely not a perfect system. Three months of daily injections (or pills) is not ideal for the average owner for several reasons. In addition to the difficulty of injecting a cat with an EXTREMELY painful drug daily, it also requires a lot of math; the dosage has to be adjusted daily to take weight gain into consideration. Even the concentration has to be adjusted at times. I haven’t used the pills at all, but I know a lot of people have had problems with cats biting through the pills. In addition, the pills seem less effective against neurological or ocular FIP.

Gilead-Sciences has refined GS-441524 into GS-5734 (named Remdesivir), which is supposed to be more efficient. Hypothetically, the addition of the phosphate groups should make it easier for it to get across barriers and be absorbed more easily. Hopefully this will result in a shorter treatment time, although I suspect it will be more expensive than GS-441524. This is already a substantial cost attached to GS-441524, with the treatment of a single cat or kitten over 1,000 USD.

As of writing (April 20, 2020), neither Remdesivir nor GS-441524 are available to the average public legally. Remdesivir has been approved for use in humans with COVID-19 in emergency cases.

#work #cat #FIP #long post

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toshootforthestars · 3 years

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From the report by Beth Mole, posted 19 July 2021:

Fully vaccinated people are largely protected from delta; the current vaccines are still highly effective against developing COVID-19 from delta and other variants of concern. Though a small proportion of people can develop so-called “breakthrough infections,” those infections will mostly be asymptomatic or mild. But, unvaccinated people are completely vulnerable. Moreover, those who have received only one dose of a two-dose vaccine or have only recovered from COVID-19 are not much better off than those who are completely unvaccinated.

But according to new polling data from CBS News, a new wave of vaccinations seems unlikely. Among unvaccinated and partly vaccinated people, only 48% said they are concerned about delta. Among fully vaccinated people, 72% reported being concerned about the variant.

Despite the fact that the current COVID-19 vaccines have proven highly effective and safe, 53% of those who are unvaccinated or partly vaccinated said in the poll that they are concerned about side effects. 50% of the group cited a lack of trust in the government as a reason not to get vaccinated. And 45% said they don’t trust the science. All of these percentages are higher than they have been in earlier polls, indicating that these anti-vaccine sentiments are hardening among the unvaccinated.

Some unvaccinated people who may be more persuadable have said they are waiting for the vaccines to receive full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (currently, they are authorized by the FDA under an emergency use authorization). On Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech said that the FDA had granted them a Priority Review designation for their mRNA vaccine, but they didn’t expect a decision on full approval until January 2022. Currently, vaccine providers are administering only around 520,000 COVID-19 vaccine per day, down from a record of 4.6 million in a day in April.

With over 161 million people vaccinated, only 48.6% of the US population is fully vaccinated.

See also: How much COVID misinformation is on Facebook? Its execs don’t want to know

For years, misinformation has flourished on Facebook. Falsehoods, misrepresentations, and outright lies posted on the site have shaped the discourse on everything from national politics to public health. But despite their role in facilitating communications for billions of people, Facebook executives refused to commit resources to understand the extent to which COVID-19-related misinformation pervaded its platform, according to a report in The New York Times.

Early in the pandemic, a group of data scientists at Facebook met with executives to propose a project that would determine how many users saw misleading or false information about COVID. It wasn’t a small task—they estimated that the process could take up to a year or more to complete—but it would give the company a solid understanding of the extent to which misinformation spread on its platform.

The executives listened to the data scientists’ pitch and then reportedly ghosted them.

The data team’s proposal wasn’t approved, and they were never given an explanation for why it was silently dropped.

The revelations come as Facebook has drawn fire from the White House for its role in the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines that prevent it. “They’re killing people,” President Joe Biden said about the role of social networks in the spread of misinformation. “Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. They’re killing people.”

Biden later walked back his comments slightly, but they revealed the administration’s frustration with social media platforms—and with Facebook in particular—over their response to the pandemic.

For weeks, the White House pressed Facebook for details on how the company is combating COVID vaccine misinformation. The social network offered some details but gave unsatisfying answers to other requests.

Facebook’s unwillingness or inability to understand the scope of COVID misinformation on its platform was apparent in comments it gave to The New York Times, in which it blamed its nescience on the lack of a “standard definition” for pandemic-related misinformation. “The suggestion we haven’t put resources toward combating COVID misinformation and supporting the vaccine rollout is just not supported by the facts,” said Dani Lever, a Facebook spokeswoman.

“With no standard definition for vaccine misinformation, and with both false and even true content (often shared by mainstream media outlets) potentially discouraging vaccine acceptance, we focus on the outcomes—measuring whether people who use Facebook are accepting of COVID-19 vaccines.”

For researchers who study misinformation, that explanation isn’t sufficient. “They need to open up the black box that is their content ranking and content amplification architecture,“ Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told The New York Times. “Take that black box and open it up for audit by independent researchers and government. We don’t know how many Americans have been infected with misinformation.”

Me:

This situation is extremely bad!

First off, the individuals that aren’t getting vaccinated just do not care to. They’ve bought hook line and sinker into all the disinfo and misinfo on facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok, reddit, and/or whatever 8chan replacement one choosed. What they see and read reinforces their pre-conceived (and factually incorrect) views that “experts” “really don’t know shit about anything” and thusly are “blowing things way the fuck outta proportion,” etc. Their views are both informed by, and reinforced by:

what they read and see online

what they hear on FM/AM radio

what they watch on broadcast TV

what their friends and communities consume from media

what the prevailing societal and political attitudes in one’s community are

“rugged individualism” and the post-1980 erosion of the social contract

So, if your fb friends are covid truthers, if the on-air personalities you hear on the radio at work are covid truthers, if your neighbors and friends at werk are covid truthers, if the elected leaders are covid truthers, if the snippets of Fox News you get to see randomly are pushing covid truther disinfo, and if those in your inner circle at that 4th of July party you went to are covid truthers, then you yourself, at a minimum from peer pressure, will dismiss the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, scores of hospital operators, plus countless professionals in medicine and epidemiology in your decision not to get vaccinated, nor to mask up indoors in public even when “recommended”.

“I have rights. I know what’s really going on. I’ve got things figured out.” Or, at a minimum, “I don’t give a fuck either way.” “Fuck you.”

Facebook absolutely is responsible for the covid truther disinfo and misinfo being shared on their platform. I believe they are the largest vector of disinformation and misinformation to the public. So many people are chugging the “vaccines are a scam, masks don’t work and I have rights” kool-aid thanks to disinfo introduced and shared widely on facebook

Some other major vectors of disinfo: iHeartMedia - Premiere Networks - iHeartRadio, Entercom/Audacy, Westwood One, One America News, Fox News, Newsmax, Sinclair Broadcast Group, YouTube + Google, TikTok, and Reddit.

“I saw a video on YouTube where the military did a study…” or “I heard a guy on the radio saying mask mandates are part of a plot…” It's all bullshit!

At this point it cannot be anything but an active choice the leadership at these companies consciously make to pipe out total bullshit in a time of crisis. Content from all of the above easily makes its way to facebook, too, unrestricted!

The U.S continues to spiral into this post fact, post truth, anti-intellectual, anti-science neo-fascist hellscape where no lives matter and where mass death is AOK because “none of us get out of this world alive” or some asshat folksy quip that masks as wisdom. Empathy, reasoning, established facts and observable reality have all become political statements… People hear what they want to hear.

IMO this is truly a disastrous situation with no easy way out.

Many, many people will not wear masks again. Many, many people see the survival rate for coronavirus and they surmise wrongly that the risk for them of getting covid is worth it, that the risk for others isn’t remotely their concern, and that the entire situation is overblown. The social contract is in bad shape. Public confidence in the state is almost gone. Covid truthers are everywhere.

Getting a vaccine requires time off from work to travel to a mass vax site that’s still open, time off to recoup post-shot (if necessary), and overcoming fear that the anti-vax disinfo on social media was true after all. Plus overcoming peer pressure from unvaccinated friends and family.

Covid case numbers are likely undercounts. Test kits are still problematic. Persons with no health insurance have no PCP to call when they get sick. Underinsured persons may have to wait weeks for their approved PCP to get around to a telehealth call. Many people are getting sick and not getting tested and they’re not reporting anything to anyone. State officials, wanting to look good, may skew whatever data is reported to them.

COVID-19 is an airborne virus. Most people catch covid from contagious asymptomatic people. Coronavirus has always been a risk for children! Getting vaccinated is part of an overall good strategy to keep COVID-19 at bay. Masks work!!! If indoors, stay in a ventilated room if you’re with other people, and keep doors and windows open for air circulation. Coronavirus is producing extremely serious long-term cognitive and cardiovascular complications for many people who survive it. “Long covid” is real.

We don’t have to live with this! The political and business leadership in much of the United States today have collectively decided there’s nothing that can or should be done in regards to covid-19, no masking requirements, no easy supplies of N95 masks, and no mitigation efforts of any kind. They wrongly conclude that COVID-19, a new virus with so many unknowns, “isn’t that bad” and so the level of permanent damage or death resulting from covid is acceptable.

None of this is acceptable, the amount of permanent damage and death occurring from COVID-19 is far, far too high, and there’s no rational excuse whatsoever to allow this virus to spread across this country unchecked. There’s no reason to allow this virus to spread further. There’s no valid reason for me and anyone else to justify allowing covid to spread out of control.

#news #coronavirus #third wave #covid vaccine #facebook sucks #please get vaccinated #misinformation #disinformation #america 2021 #rant #ars technica #vaccine hesitancy #anti vaxxer #things are going swimmingly #long post

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dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram · 3 years

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Twitter has basically begun a crusade for crucifixion of a group of girls who have gone to Harry’s shows. One girl tested positive for covid the day after the Las Vegas show (allegedly negative the day before but 🤷‍♀️), and immediately did what she could to get the word out. The internet did what the internet does and found a few other girls who were pictured all massless in a group with her, and who have since gone to the Denver show. All of Twitter has engaged in this super weird, very aggressive attack on these girls - everything from tweets begging them to wear a mask and stop going to shows, threatening them if they don’t wear masks, insulting them, and (perhaps strangest of all to me) attempting to guilt them using the possibility that they’ll get Harry sick and/or get either Sarah and Mitch sick who will give it to the baby. Now I acknowledge Twitter isn’t always the most sane or rational place, but all of this has been a bit confusing to me. What are they trying to accomplish? What do they think they’re actually accomplishing? Did they really believe every single person who went to Harry’s shows would behave with integrity and wear a mask the whole time and/or skip a show if they thought they might have been exposed prior to it? That’s maybe the most concerning to me, because I worry it means a whole lot of people have very, very incorrect ideas about their true level of risk attending these shows. I have pit tickets to one, but I am under no delusions that every single person in the pit with me will be behaving as an angel. That someone, or more likely multiple someones in the pit would be covid positive and would at some point go maskless regardless of the rules was one of the factors I took into consideration when I decided to go to my show. The morality policing really bothers me, too, because it always seems to turn so quickly from “you might get Harry or Mitch and Sarah or the baby sick” to “every single one of you is a horrible person for going to shows in the first place you careless monsters,” and then devolving into these arbitrary rules like no one should ever go to more than one show, or if you have to travel at all outside your hometown for a show don’t go to it. There has also been lots of proposing other risk reduction measures that don’t make sense to me practically, like testing every single ticket holder - great in theory. Practically a nightmare. As I’m getting to the end of this ask I’m realizing it doesn’t really have a point - just that when I saw all this unfold I thought about you, and the way you’ve laid out a framework to analyze the real risk of going to a show like this, which have really helped me think about my own show, and which I wish more people could have seen. Hope you’re well!

Thanks for this anon (I'm finally heading back to some anons from earlier in the tour that I'm really interested in). It's lovely that you say that the way I lay out the risk has helped you.

After I started reading this I read an article about wellness and vaccine denial and the tag line was: 'The randomness of illness is far too frightening for many to contemplate – so they rely on a fiction they’re special and can control their bodies' And that's something we see everywhere - including people loudly insisting that if everyone wore masks we'd know that Mitch and Sarah's baby wouldn't get sick.

The discussion seems to me to be deep in denial about what is known about COVID. In particular, that screaming for an hour, inside, surrounded by other people who are also screaming, is pretty high up there on the most COVID-unsafe activities. Masks reduce the risk (although given how intensely aeorsol friendly screaming is - nobody can be sure how much). But an intervention can reduce the risk and there can still be lots of risk. It's so important that people don't do scream for a long time around other people, unless they accept the full range of risks of what they're doing, including the risk that they might infect other people, even if they're vaccinated, even if they're wearing a mask the entire time.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about what people are doing when they say 'think about Mitch and Sarah's baby'. There's the straight racism of worrying about a white baby (COVID isn't even likely to be the most risky virus for a baby in the arena) when there's a black man with breathing problems on stage. But there's a clear purpose to all of that - which is the moralistic worldview. The baby isn't just vulnerable, but innocence, and by invoking innocence the outraged tweeters are suggesting someone's guilty.

************

In general, 'people just need to be better' is a terrible public health and political response. And what I need to remind myself is that's true of people dealing with their COVID anxiety by seeking certainty when there is none, as well as suggesting perfect masking could stop spread in high risk environments.

While I'm very tempted when faced with this sort of material to rage against what a ridiculous view of risk it is (and I usually give into temptation), it's far more useful to acknowledge that wanting certainty is a really normal response. The last year and a half has been incredibly stressful for so many people. And many people have been left in situations where there's insufficient support, completely untrustworthy communication and absolutely terrified.

The people who are anxious on twitter probably come by at least some of their anxiety honestly. (Although how much of the anxiety is about Harry as opposed to COVID is an open question). And so I do think it's worth saying: 'the situation is really scary, but yelling and trying to control other people won't make you safer, or make the situation less controlling and scary'. But that sort of response if you can suggest something less damaging that people can do and I don't know enough about the US to know what would help (I'm guessing anything that takes vaccines and good information to where people are - and it's worth praising Harry's team for what they're doing along those lines).

So I do have one final answer to a question you didn't ask anon. You say 'twitter' and 'all of twitter' in your ask. I think it's useful to conciously reject that framing. What you saw was being done by some accounts. There were lots of people who thought differently, or didn't care, but you didn't see them because they didn't post. People who say things can end up taking up a disproportionate space in our awareness, because we can't see silence.

I'm sure they've moved on to some absurd other policing now (a few days ago it owuld have been signs, I'm not sure what people are engaging with now). Which shows that a lot of it wasn't about COVID and also that it's worth actively not trying to allow it to grow bigger in importance than it actually is.

#People's fear is legitimate #but that doesn't mean that everthing they do with it #is OK #or helps fight COVID #or builds a better world #and I find it hard to keep both those things properly balanced sometimes #and also (to probably go off balance)#It blows my mind that people are policing on behalf of Harry #like of all people #he's made a risk benefit analysis #and decided it's worth it #I don't know there's something deeply odd at yelling at other people that they might infect someone #While that person is making the decisions that makes these events happen #and showing that he has quite a high level of tolerance of risk in his own life #I mean it's not that odd #it's fandom

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docmary · 3 years

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The politics of a pandemic, how not to manage coronavirus

No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thy friend's Or of thine own were: Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind, And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.

John Donne

1624

The poet John Donne warned of the dangers of isolation and imagining oneself as self-sufficient, without need of community. It was true 500 years ago; it still holds true today. No man is an island…every man is a part of the main. As wave upon wave of SARS-CoV-2 reached every continent, even Antarctica, most of us have tried to isolate ourselves on this crowded planet - with mixed results.

As of May 30, 2021, by every metric, the United States was leading the world in the number of cases and deaths from COVD-19. Brazil and India are catching up quickly. In the US, the underlying tension between public health and personal liberty has had disastrous consequences. As successful as the vaccine roll-out has been, and even with the numbers of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths dropping, this is no time to be complacent.

India, with a population of over 1 billion, and Brazil, a pariah among countries in Latin America for its poor response to the pandemic, cause or should cause great concern to everyone everywhere. Not having the resources of rich countries, they will require help to manage the tragic situation their leaders have put their populations in and it is in our interest to do so because...the bell tolls for thee.

India

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020, there had been 330,000 cases and 30,000 deaths from SARS-CoV-2 reported worldwide. In the early days of the pandemic, India was considered a model of how to manage the worst public health crisis in recent memory. India responded with a strict lockdown. International flights and exports of masks, ventilators, and certain medicines were banned. As a result, India did not see the same initial explosion in new cases and deaths compared to other countries.

Three months later, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi began easing lockdown restrictions - like the American football player who does the end-zone dance on the two-yard line—not a good idea. When the lockdown lifted, many Indians stopped taking precautions. Mr. Modi allowed large gatherings, including campaigns in state elections that he attended, without wearing a mask, at rallies of thousands of mask-less supporters, to help his governing Bharatiya Janata party. Large religious festivals resumed drawing millions of people as well. By July 2020, India had seen 600,000 cases and 17,834 deaths due to COVID. An editorial from The Lancet, said that Mr. Modi “seemed more intent on removing criticism” on social media than “trying to control the pandemic.” Sound familiar?

As recently as March 2021, India’s health minister assured the public that they had reached the pandemic’s “endgame”.

The New York Times reported in May 2021 that India was responsible for more than half of the world’s daily COVID cases, setting a record-breaking pace of 400,000 new cases in one day. Researchers believe the B.1.1.7 variant and the delta variant, which are also major variants in Britain and the US, are to blame for the surge. Clinics across India report desperate shortages of hospital beds, protective equipment, and oxygen.[1]

Just to add to the global disaster, India is one of the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers. It is struggling to inoculate its own citizens; less than 10% of Indians have gotten even one dose.[2] In September 2020, Serum Institute of India (SII) received $150 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to accelerate production of Oxford University’s AstraZenica (AZ) vaccine and the American vaccine Novavax as soon as the WHO granted regulatory approval. Under the original terms of the agreement, 50% of vaccines would be earmarked for India and the remainder would go to other low- and middle-income countries.[3]Currently, exports of vaccines from India have been shut down.

Brazil

In an editorial from The Lancet, dated May 9, 2020, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsanoro, was criticized for allowing the SARS-CoV-2 virus to spread widely while presenting himself as a “messiah” touting unproven medicines like hydroxychloroquine, with support from his rightwing allies.

At the time, Brazil had the most cases (105,000) and deaths (72,88) in Latin America. Estimates suggest the death rate was doubling every five days. When asked by a reporter about the rapidly increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases, Mr. Bolsanaro responded: “So what? What do you want me to do?”[4]

In March 2021, Brazil’s pandemic spiraled out of control. Its Latin American neighbors grounded flights, closed land borders, and regional sports events were canceled in attempts to stop the P.1 variant (and approximately 90 other variants) from spreading to their populations.

The British Medical Journal reported that 400,000 Brazilians have died from COVID-19—13% of deaths worldwide.[5] Some models predict the death toll in Brazil will reach half a million this month. That trajectory could be an indicator for what is to come for its neighbors. As Paraguay’s director of health surveillance, Guillermo Sequera, has said: “When Brazil sneezes, Paraguay gets a cold.”[6]

COVAX

With a fast-moving pandemic, no one is safe, unless everyone is safe.

author unknown. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator/covax

COVAX is an initiative dedicated to equitable access to a vaccine, particularly to healthcare workers and those most at risk. To date (5/31/2021), COVAX has shipped more than 77 million COVID-19 vaccines to 127 participants. It is co-led by[7]:

CEPI-Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. The governing board has 12 voting members; four investors and eight independent members with competencies in industry, global health, science, resource mobilization, and finance—and five observers (17 total). Financial support comes from public sources including US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance-a public/private partnership which has helped to vaccinate 760 million children in the world’s poorest countries.[8] It ensures that infrastructure is in place and technical support is available to make sure that COVID-19 vaccines can be safely delivered to support the participation of 92 lower-middle and lower-income economies. It is part of the health systems work of Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator effort, focusing on areas where it has expertise and experience, such as keeping vaccines at the correct temperature.

World Health Organization (WHO)

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

COVAX hopes to get 280 million doses of vaccines to Latin America but has been hit with delays to eight manufacturers (including SII) it has deals with and does not expect to deliver them until the end of 2021.[8]This has led South American nations to look to China’s Coronavac and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine supplies. One study found that Coronovac was only 50% effective after a single dose. The Biden administration has pledged to purchase 500 million doses of Pfizer BioNTech vaccine to give to COVAX; the first 200 million doses will be distributed this year, with the subsequent 300 million in the first half of next year.[10]

My Take

In what can only be called being one step ahead of the game, armed robbers in Hong Kong stole $16,000 worth of toilet paper as coronavirus sparked panic-buying of essential goods a month before WHO declared a global pandemic in March 2020.[11] (Good times)

In July 2020, President Trump formally notified Congress and the United Nations that the US was withdrawing from WHO because of course he did.

Several articles, including one from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)[12] have compared weekly deaths in the US that would be expected from historical trends with COVID and non-COVID deaths from March 2020 until January 2021. There was an increase of 22.9% of all-cause mortality. This far exceeds expectations. Excess deaths attributed to non-COVID causes could be the result of deaths that were, in fact, COVID but misclassified. They might also be due to delayed care, an overwhelmed healthcare system, or behavioral health crises. On the other side of the ledger, no doubt at least some of the deaths that would have been anticipated from non-COVID causes might have died from the coronavirus instead. Which is to say, these are at best estimates of the mortality rates. During surges in various parts of the US, deaths from several non-COVID diseases like heart disease and Alzheimer’s increased. Either way, the excess deaths could have been helped with a better response to the pandemic early on.[13]

For those “give me liberty, or give me death” fans, do I really need to point out that Patrick Henry was referring to his own death, not the deaths of millions all over the world? My parents’ generation made many sacrifices during WWII, including blood and treasure, and considered it worth the price to defeat Hitler. Wearing a mask to defeat a virus? Really? Who have we become?

It comes as a surprise to no one that the countries with the largest death tolls to date, the US, India, and Brazil, are also countries in which partisan politics was the priority over public health measures. It isn’t a good idea. Why don’t we just stop?

[1] What to know about India’s coronavirus crisis. What is behind the explosion of new coronavirus cases that is overwhelming the South Asian country? NY Times, May 25, 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/article/india-coronavirus-cases-deaths.html

[2] ibid

[3]Raghavan, P. 2020. $150 million dollar shot for serum production of COVID vaccine, India Express.

[4]Lancet editorial. September 19, 2020. COVID-19 in Brazil: “So what?”, Lancet, 395: 1461. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(20)31095-3

[5]Taylor, L. 5/20/2021. COVID-19: How the Brazilian variant took hold of South America, BMJ 2021, 373: n1277. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n1277

[6]ibid

[7]World Health Organization: COVAX Working for global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator/covax

[8]Raghavan. Op cit.

[9]Taylor. Op cit.

[10] Page, T, Rauhala, E. Jun 9, 2021. Biden administration to buy 500 million Pfizer coronavirus vaccine doses to donate to the world, Washington Post, retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-vaccine-donate/2021/06/09/c2744674-c934-11eb-93fa-9053a95eb9f2_story.html

[11]www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article1

[12]Woolf, SH, Chapman, DH, Sabo, RT, Zimmerman, EB. May 4,2021.Excess deaths from COVID-19 and other causes in the US, March 1 2020, to January 2, 2021,JAMA, 325(17): 1786-1789. doi: 10.1001/jama.2021.5199

[13]ibid

#COVID-19 #Brazil #India #COVAX #vaccine #AstraZeneca #PfizerBioNTech

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basketballandtextbooks · 4 years

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Bat how do you feel after watching the special

There are multiple levels to my thoughts.

On a satire level, they bungled a lot of the information. They were trying to take an “all sides are stupid stance” on an issue where people are dying daily and there are actual medical reasons for one stance to be factually incorrect so taking an “all sides” stance is... fucking tone deaf. To be fair to them, I enjoyed the amount of meta that informed their episode about knowing that their episode was doing more harm than good and using Randy as a tool for that particular satire was a smart and effective mood. That said, it was a mixed message that promoted a lot of misinformation. While the meta parts were funny, lamp-shading how poor your satire is doesn’t actually make your satire good. It just means you’re lamp-shading the issue. It was disappointing because I had hoped for better as they frequently write good satire. Stan’s character journey was the only cohesive one throughout the episode and while it was a good one, there was so much of the episode that was tone deaf to the severity of this issue. While I think it’s valid to bring levity to the issue and I was hoping they would, they missed the mark by a long-shot. That said, they usually don’t do well with medical issues. The last time they bungled their satire this badly was the vaccination episode. And they infamously bungle literally every trans-related episode. There were aspects of the episode that were poignant, well thought out, and well executed, but the majority was an under-researched in-cohesive mess. Which to some extent I think that’s what they were aiming for because they view the pandemic as an in-cohesive mess. The issue is that one of the reasons that pandemic is such a pervasive issue (especially in the states) is the mass spread of misinformation so when they spread misinformation to criticize the spread of misinformation... it’s just stupid.

However on a character level I very much enjoyed the episode. It was yet another Randy focused episode and as I’ve expressed on a few occasions I just don’t find him funny. Oh no, he jizzed on the weed, that’s sooooo surprising. Honestly Randy is a very one-note character. He does something horrifying, people are horrified, he faces no consequences, rinse, repeat. That all established, I think it’s important character information that he cheated on Sharon twice in China with no guilt whatsoever. He only wanted to hide his crime because “my wife is a bitch”. Also considering he cheated with non-human entities, I think this is strong proof of Rowelie’s viability so take that as you will Rowelie shippers. Also the fact that people grow Randy mustache’s if they ingest his cum and Sharon had a mustache at the end... I sort of hate that Randy took that as proof that she smoked his weed. Now, even if she had smoked it his behavior still is completely and disgustingly inexcusable but also... everyone in South Park is openly smoking so she could have very easily gotten second hand Randy-stache. Or just given her husband a blow job. Also it’s interesting information that within universe Randy’s cum has mutagenic properties. Again for the Rowelie shippers: you could use this as an excuse as to how Towelie turns into a human, Randy’s cum mutated him. Also I think it’s likely that microwaving his balls could be what caused his radioactive jizz. Or one of the times he was experimented on by aliens. Or both. Altogether Randy was a repulsive bastard within the episode who I find boring at best BUT the amount of meta information that he introduced will be very useful to inform my theories. (Also again, the fact that he so easily and guilelessly cheats on Sharon tells me that he that he has done it a multitude of times. My theory is that after he gave Gerald a handy in the hot-tub and was forgiven he just never stopped, basically assuming the permission to do it once was broad permission to do it forever) (oh and second note: this is the second time within canon that Randy has poisoned people’s weed so uh... that’s fucked up)

Freaked out a lot about Jimbo dying, I’m really scared they’ll kill Jimbo but also since they already killed Ned I wonder if the two of them can be happy in the afterlife together because no one can convince me that Jimbo and Ned aren’t canon. Also Randy’s blatant racism and lack of empathy for Jimbo’s illness was really yikes. I dunno guys, I’ve always had a soft spot for Jimbo. He’s a stupid stereotypical red-neck but he had a sort of charm to him and I thought he was funny. I miss when him and Ned were regulars on the show.

CARTMAN DANCING AND SINGING WAS ACTUALLY THE CUTEST THING EVER ON THIS FUCKING EARTH, FIGHT ME I LOVE THIS STUPID SELFISH LITTLE CRETIN also it’s yet another episode to add to the list of “times Cartman shows he can grow into a better person” and list of “times Cartman seems to show a special soft spot for Stan”. Cartman does tend to listen more frequently when Stan asks and less frequently for literally anyone else. So the Stanman was strong in this one. Also really enjoyed the Stutters. While yes, Stan was completely using Butters as a tool to project his own feelings of unease I think it really says something that he chose Butters for that role. I think to some extent he felt that Butters might be feeling the same mortality-panic he was feeling (whether it was true or not) and that kinship he felt with Butters led him to feel that Butters was also feeling the way he did. He was panicked and he thought out of all his friends that Butters was the one who might share his feelings. I enjoy that sort of subtle connection between them and it’s been a consistent thread within the show that Butters and Stan just treat each other a little different than they do literally everyone else. It’s worth thinking about.

I think Stan was also at his limit because he was already suffering from isolation issues due to Tegridy Farms from before the pandemic. He’s always been a social boy and this brought him to the brink of what he could handle.

THEY SHOT TOKEN AND I SWEAR TO GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LOUD I WAS SCREAMING AT THE TV I THINK I PISSED OFF MY NEIGHBORS i fucking knew it was coming too. The fucking SECOND they shoved those fucking corrupt ass cops in the same room as Token.... I fucking feared for his life. They’ve killed off fairly major background characters before and killing Token would be... topical. I will make it my mission to personally destroy every fucking cop in South Park (Barbrady gets a pass... BARELY). I hate them all. I’ve hated them all for a long time but they murdered several children (including Kenny, the bastards) and they SHOT MY BOY TOKEN I WILL RIP OFF THEIR FUCKING ARMS SEE HOW WELL YOU CAN SHOOT THEN YOU TRASH BASTARDS

Nothing big Kenny happened this episode, insert sad fanboy noises

There were some strong Kyman moments. Cartman went to Kyle’s house for help at the beginning of the episode, obsessed over whether or not he’d be in the same room as Kyle, tried to vomit on Kyle, AND THEN KYLE FUCKING JUMPED HIM AND BEAT HIS ASS DOWN, FUCK ALL OF YOU WHO INCORRECTLY THINK DIFFERENT KYLE IS A FUCKING DOMINANT TOP, HE DOESN’T TAKE IT, HE GIVES IT

Adding that to my long list of “episodes where Kyle shows he isn’t a pushover, is very violent, and can easily kick Cartman’s bitch ass” because every so once in awhile I have to break out that list when someone insists upon how submissive Kyle is. Bitttttttccchhhhhh, you haven’t watched the show if you think that. My favorite kid doesn’t take your shit

Very interested in Red’s new canon last name (McArthur) but I’m also unsure about it because in the scene’s where it’s shown I couldn’t quite tell if it was actually Red or Powder. She kept being shown from odd angles and her hair looked a little shorter than normal. That said, I’m happy if it is her because I’ve been wanting a canon last name for Red for a long-ass time. Even presuming you go by the cousin’s headcanon for Craig and Red, there’s no guarantee they would have the same last name.

Let’s see, I think I had some other thoughts but those were the main points

OH PAUSE THE SCREEN WHEN THE PARENTS ARE ON ZOOM it’s really cute/funny what the usernames are. For example Annie’s mom is totally just using Annie’s account so she’s probably not very tech savvy. There’s actually a lot of minor character detail that you can infer from those screen-names.

Yeah those are my major thoughts: Randy is trash, nothing new, Cartman was ADORABLE and also lots of good meta for him (I have some hcs that one of the reasons he adored the social distancing so much isn’t because he hates human contact because we know from previous seasons that he’s a bit of a lonely boy, but he likes the social distancing explicitly because it gives him an excuse to reject other people before they can reject him), good stutters moments, good kyman moments, good stanman moments, there were some style moments if you squint? Kyle was one of the people Stan consulted about his feelings of unease but since it wasn’t just Kyle that he consulted it didn’t really feel like that was a special personal part of their relationship, moreso that he wanted Kyle to kiss his booboo and make it better. Although further proof that Kyle is the dom in that relationship. Kyle was agitated over the situation but overall rational, Stan was flipping the fuck out. Stan came to him submissive, scared, and asking for Kyle to make him feel better. Kyle remained calm and logical. I swear to god if I read one more cutesy-innocent Kyle post I might flip a table. Literally Kyle’s canonical self is RIGHT THERE

OH YEAH MY BUTTERS THOUGHTS there’s nothing really new here but it continues the trend of Butters being a self centered prick. (I love him but he is) Instead of even trying to understand the number of people dying or the gravity of the situation, he’s just upset and throwing tantrums because he doesn’t get to play at Build a Bear. And it’s made explicit in the writing that unlike Stan he isn’t struggling with the nebulous fear of death (probably brought on by his uncle getting sick). Butters is just bitter that he doesn’t get to have special things. Also Stan was the only one who tried even a little to save Butters from getting taken by the guards. No one else tried to stop or warn Butters. So again, very cute Stutters moment where Stan is overtly worried for Butters’ well-being even when he’s throwing a bratty tantrum. (I don’t know how anyone perceives Butters as an altruistic person, he’s a selfish twat. he’s a lovable selfish twat, like Cartman, but he’s still a selfish twat. and none of his shitty behavior in this episode was even remotely related to Cartman so you can’t connect it to him. Butters, on his own and without anyone else’s influence, does and acts like a shit-head). There is the excuse that he’s only ten but literally everyone in that cafeteria is only ten. But Butters is the only one kicking other people’s food because he didn’t get his special prize.

This all sounds like I hate Butters. I love Butters, warts and all, I just get really annoyed when fandom ignores his warts because his warts are PART OF THE REASON I LOVE BUTTERS. Also it’s like... blatantly and observably canon that he’s selfish.

I’m going to happily ruminate on Stan feeling a strong pang of protectiveness towards Butters though. That was quite illuminating.

#official ooc tag #official ask tag #timmytimmytomcats

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Poll: Learning setbacks a top concern for parents (AP) Parents across the U.S. are conflicted about reopening schools. Most are at least somewhat worried that a return to the classroom will lead to more coronavirus cases, but there’s an even deeper fear that their children are falling behind in school while at home. Sixty-nine percent of parents are at least somewhat concerned that their children will face setbacks in school because of the coronavirus pandemic, including 42% who say they’re very or extremely worried about it, according to a new poll from The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Nearly as many, 64%, say they are at least somewhat concerned that in-person instruction will lead to more people being infected, but it’s only 33% who say they are very or extremely worried about the risk. That tension reflects the fears of a nation on the cusp of a widespread return to classroom teaching. More than a year after the pandemic started, more schools are now opening their doors to students or plan to do so in coming weeks.

Home school (US Census Bureau/Numlock) Since 2012, the rate of homeschooling in the United States has been pretty steady at about 3.3 percent. Then the pandemic hit, and according to the U.S. Census during the period late April to early May 2020, roughly 5.4 percent of households with children reported homeschooling. To be clear this isn’t doing school at home—they adjusted for that—it’s yank-the-kids-out-of-the-district homeschooling. By fall, that number was 11.1 percent of households opting for true homeschooling rather than virtual learning through school.

Damage from virus: Utility bills overwhelm some households (AP) Millions of U.S. households are facing heavy past-due utility bills, which have escalated in the year since the pandemic forced Americans hunkered down at home to consume more power. And now, government moratoriums that for months had barred utilities from turning off the power of their delinquent customers are starting to expire in most states. As result, up to 37 million customers—representing nearly one-third of all households—will soon have to reckon with their overdue power bills at a time when many of them are struggling with lost jobs or income. A study done by Arcadia, which runs a service that helps households lower utility bills, found that the average past-due amount by those in its network was roughly $850.

Is bad news the only kind? (NYT) Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, noticed something last year about the Covid-19 television coverage that he was watching on CNN and PBS. It almost always seemed negative, regardless of what was he seeing in the data or hearing from scientists he knew. When Covid cases were rising in the U.S., the news coverage emphasized the increase. When cases were falling, the coverage instead focused on those places where cases were rising. And when vaccine research began showing positive results, the coverage downplayed it, as far as Sacerdote could tell. But he was not sure whether his perception was correct. To check, he began working with two other researchers, building a database of Covid coverage from every major network, CNN, Fox News, Politico, The New York Times and hundreds of other sources, in the U.S. and overseas. The results showed that Sacerdote’s instinct had been right. The coverage by U.S. publications with a national audience has been much more negative than coverage by any other source that the researchers analyzed, including scientific journals, major international publications and regional U.S. media. “The most well-read U.S. media are outliers in terms of their negativity,” Molly Cook, a co-author of the study, told me. About 87 percent of Covid coverage in national U.S. media last year was negative. The share was 51 percent in international media, 53 percent in U.S. regional media and 64 percent in scientific journals. Sacerdote is careful to emphasize that he does not think journalists usually report falsehoods. The issue is which facts they emphasize. Still, the new study—which the National Bureau of Economic Research has published as a working paper, titled, “Why is all Covid-19 news bad news?”—calls for some self-reflection from those of us in the media. Sometimes our healthy skepticism can turn into reflexive cynicism, and we end up telling something less than the complete story.

As Europe’s Lockdowns Drag On, Police and Protesters Clash (NYT) In Bristol, an English college town where the pubs are usually packed with students, there were fiery clashes between the police and protesters. In Kassel, a German city known for its ambitious contemporary art festival, the police unleashed pepper spray and water cannons on anti-lockdown marchers. A year after European leaders ordered people into their homes to curb a deadly pandemic, thousands are pouring into streets and squares. Often, they are met by batons and shields, raising questions about the tactics and role of the police in societies where personal liberties have already given way to public health concerns. From Spain and Denmark to Austria and Romania, frustrated people are lashing out at the restrictions on their daily lives. With much of Europe facing a third wave of coronavirus infections that could keep these stifling lockdowns in place weeks or even months longer, analysts warn that tensions on the streets are likely to escalate. In Britain, where the rapid pace of vaccinations has raised hopes for a faster opening of the economy than the government is willing to countenance, frustration over recent police conduct has swelled into a national debate over the legitimacy of the police—one that carries distant echoes of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.

Subterranean playgrounds—and refuge (Atlas Obscura) Thought to be the world’s only city with an underground master plan, Helsinki began excavating tunnels through bedrock in the 1960s to house power lines, sewers and other utilities. City planners quickly realized that the space could also be home to retail, cultural, and sporting attractions—and that it could shelter the city’s population of 630,000 in the event of an invasion from its neighbor to the East, Russia. Today, nearly 200 miles of tunnels snake beneath Helsinki, providing a weatherproof subterranean playground. But hidden behind the bright lights are emergency shelters fitted with life-sustaining equipment: an air filtration system, an estimated two-week supply of food and water, and cots and other comforts. “It’s comfortable and safe,” says Eija Kivilaakso, Helsinki’s chief underground planner. “If it’s raining, you can drive into the city center to an underground car park and go straight into department stores from elevators. You can dress for comfort instead of in cold-weather clothes. If the weather is not comfortable, people choose the underground.”

Cars become home for Spain’s pandemic casualties (AP) When the social worker called to tell Javier Irure that he was being evicted, the 65-year-old Spaniard couldn’t fathom that he could end up homeless after five decades of manual labor. “I grabbed some clothes, a few books and other things, wrapped them up in a bed sheet and told myself, ‘I have one more roof to put over my head: my car,’” Irure said from inside the old Renault Clio compact that has been his shelter for the past three months. Irure belongs to the multitude of economic victims of the coronavirus pandemic. He managed to avoid getting COVID-19, but the labor slowdown caused by restrictions on movement and social activities the Spanish government imposed to control the spread of the virus proved lethal to his financial stability, and he lost his apartment. The pandemic has been particularly hard on Spain’s economy due to its reliance on tourism and the service sector. The country’s left-wing government has maintained a furlough program to reduce the impact, but over a million jobs have been wiped out. Catholic aid organization Cáritas Española said earlier this month that around a half-million more people, or 26% of all its aid recipients, have reached out for help since the start of the pandemic. Like Javier, some are living in their cars.

Writer faces prison after calling Polish president ‘moron’ for confusion over U.S. electoral college (Washington Post) Polish writer Jakub Zulczyk says he is facing up to three years in prison after he called Poland’s president a “moron” for saying he did not understand the U.S. electoral college system. Writing on Facebook on Monday, Zulczyk said that a district prosecutor in Warsaw had filed an indictment, using an article in Poland’s penal code that prohibits insults against the head of state. The writer said he had not been contacted by the prosecutor and had found out about the indictment from a Polish news site. International rights groups have criticized Duda’s ruling Law and Justice party for clamping down on freedom of speech and an independent judiciary. Freedom House, a U.S.-based group, has called Poland’s laws related to insults “harsh” and noted that libel should be a criminal, rather than civil, offense.

Rohingya refugee camp fire (Reuters) A devastating fire that tore through a sprawling Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh killed 15 people and left tens of thousands homeless, the United Nations said Tuesday. More than 550 people were injured and 400 remain missing. The fire began Monday afternoon at Balukhali camp, one of several such settlements in Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh, which is home to nearly 1 million Rohingyas who fled from neighboring Myanmar.

North Korea fires short-range missiles in challenge to Biden administration (Washington Post) North Korea fired off multiple short range missiles last weekend after denouncing Washington for going forward with joint military exercises with South Korea, according to people familiar with the situation. The missile tests, which have not previously been reported, represent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first direct challenge to President Biden, whose aides have not yet outlined their approach to the regime’s nuclear threat amid an ongoing review of U.S.-North Korea policy. For weeks, U.S. defense officials warned that intelligence indicated that North Korea might carry out missile tests. The regime elevated its complaints about U.S. military exercises last week when Kim’s sister warned that if the Biden administration “wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink.” The tests put renewed pressure on the United States to develop a strategy to address a nuclear threat that has bedeviled successive Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.

South Koreans Are Furious Over Housing Scandal (NYT) The 10 people bought $8.8 million worth of land in an undeveloped area southwest of Seoul, registering it for farming and planting numerous trees. It’s a common trick used by shady real estate speculators in South Korea: Once the area is taken over for housing development, the developers must pay not only for the land, but the trees, too. A national outrage erupted this month when South Koreans learned that the 10 people were officials from the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH)—the government agency in charge of building new towns and housing—suspected of using privileged information to cash in on government housing development programs. The incident has thrown President Moon Jae-in’s government into crisis mode just weeks before key mayoral elections that are largely seen as a referendum on him and his party ahead of next year’s presidential race. Young South Koreans are saying they are fed up with corruption and the president’s failed policies on runaway housing prices. The LH scandal is now set to become a critical voter issue in Mr. Moon’s final year in office. President after president has promised to make housing more affordable in South Korea, but real-estate prices have kept soaring, undermining public trust.

Massive cargo ship turns sideways, blocks Egypt’s Suez Canal (AP) A cargo container ship that’s among the largest in the world has turned sideways and blocked all traffic in Egypt’s Suez Canal, officials said Wednesday, threatening to disrupt a global shipping system already strained by the coronavirus pandemic. The MV Ever Given, a Panama-flagged container ship that carries trade between Asia and Europe, became grounded Tuesday in the narrow, man-made waterway dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula. An Egyptian official blamed a strong wind in the area for the incident. Egyptian forecasters said high winds and a sandstorm plagued the area Tuesday, with winds gusting as much as 50 kph (31 mph). The Egyptian official said tugboats hoped to refloat the ship and that the operation would take at least two days. The Ever Given, built in 2018 with a length of nearly 400 meters (a quarter mile) and a width of 59 meters (193 feet), is among the largest cargo ships in the world. It can carry some 20,000 containers at a time. About 12% of world trade by volume passes through the canal connecting Europe and Asia.

Work affects bosses, workers differently (Bloomberg) A new survey of 30,000 workers in 31 countries by the popular gaming and social networking service Microsoft found that 61 percent of business leaders said that they were striving, while just 39 percent said they were surviving or struggling. That 61 percent living their best life is markedly out of step with the entire rest of society—23 percentage points higher than the average worker—where 54 percent said they are overworked, 39 percent described themselves as exhausted, and straight up 41 percent of people said they are considering just leaving their jobs, a level of burnout not seen before.

#headlines #news

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lcugoldaward · 3 years

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youtube

Part 3 is up! Hope you enjoy it!

We’re halfway there.

Transcipt under cut.

[ Hello, my name is Lillian Utz. For my Girl Scout Gold Award, I have created this video series about autism, focusing on the misinformation spread about it as well as common misconceptions, and how to make the world a little better for autistics. ]

As the core part of my project, working against misinformation and misconceptions, this video, about what autism isn’t, will be a little long.Thank you!

Misinformation is easily spread when real information is scarce, not well spread, or, there is no “solid” information on it. In the case of autism, misinformation is incredibly common, and sadly, often held as true. The largest categories of this misinformation are: the causes of autism, that it is made up or a recent “invention”, has “levels”, and can or will “go away”.

One of the largest incorrect “truths” about autism is that it is caused by vaccines. This is not true in the slightest, and if you don’t believe me, you can read these articles from the Centers for Disease Control and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Vaccinations do not cause autism. What they do is save people from diseases, and maybe cause a little irritation on the skin for a few days after getting it. There is no commonly agreed-upon cause of autism, it simply just exists.

Tied to the belief about vaccines, is the one that autism is a “new thing”, that because it hasn’t been “around very long”, it is either caused by vaccines, or “made up”. As previously stated, vaccines do not cause autism. It also isn’t made up, or something “for attention”. It is real, my struggles and experiences are real, myself and the other millions of people with autism are not faking it.

Autism also isn’t a new thing, it has existed for probably as long as modern humans. A person nowadays seen as autistic could have been seen as a changeling, a fae child, or some other kind of mystical creature that isn’t quite human. Another thing to consider is what makes autism “noticeable”. Many of us, myself included, are hyper-sensitive to things around us, such as the noise, bustle, and general clamor of the modern world. If I were a medieval shepherd, I wouldn’t be “visibly” autistic. Sure I might be a little chatty, but I minded the sheep well and kept to myself.

While different autistics act, think, and function in different ways, there are terms we generally try to stray from: high-functioning and low-functioning. Some of us might be more adaptable to allistic society, while some of us aren’t. It’s less of a different “levels of severity” situation, and more of a “traits you have”. Some might be more nonverbal, while others might fidget more noticeably, among other things.

Autism also doesn’t go away. It still exists, in children, in teenagers, and adults. While being typically associated with children, it doesn’t go away when those children grow up. When I turned eighteen, I didn’t suddenly stop being autistic. What does change is that as we get older, we learn better coping techniques, gain better understanding of social norms, and grow as people as everyone does.

It also can’t be cured. As previously stated, autism does not go away. There are no ways to cure it or to remove it. The only real treatment for autism is therapy to find coping methods and to just help in general. My therapy has helped me learn social norms and how to work with people I don’t understand. It didn’t make my autism go away.

A difference between misinformation and misconceptions is that misinformation is more influenced from external sources, while misconceptions are often from one’s own perception, or thoughts, with some outside influence. The main misconceptions about autism are: people can “look autistic”, they can’t be smart, can’t be social, or that we’re childish.

Anyone can be autistic, and therefore, there is no way to “look” autistic. Some are tall, some are short, some are black, some are white, anyone can be autistic. Autistics are not stupid, we just think different. In fact, famed mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton was most likely autistic. Autistics can be social, make friends, and engage with peers. The way we do it is just a little different from the norm, which can make us seem asocial, apathetic, or weird. While there are many autistic children and teenagers, there are also many autistic adults. We are not childish or immature. Being treated as ignorant children incapable of taking care of themselves is incredibly restricting. While some adult autistics do need help taking care of themselves, not all of us do.

The main way to avoid these misconceptions is to recognize that no two autistics are the same. We are all very different.

The misinformation and misconceptions presented are just a few examples of a large problem. Always try to think critically, openly, and rationally about what you hear, see, and say about autism and autistic people.

{Thank you for watching! I hope you learned something. If you have any questions click on the link down below. If you would like to read a full transcript, the posting schedule, or other information about the project, there is a link to the blog in the description as well.}

#actuallyautistic #Autism Acceptance #lcu videos

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starsailorstories · 4 years

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So! Given, uh, everything, any chance you could talk about how various Astraea cultures deal with sicknesses and quarantine? Especially since some (especially Bell Town) are extremely or entirely genetically identical, and so more at risk?

Also, how would the cast members react to self isolation and social distancing?

FIRST OFF, sorry this took 10 years to answer, I was super busy and there’s kind of A Lot Of Spec Bio to discuss here

Also, this question made me feel very Seen lol…why yes i DO use worldbuilding as a coping mechanism for the stress of watching the wet tissue paper my country calls a social safety net dissolve

Most sickness that astraeas deal with day to day isn’t actually contagious*, but more a result of individual reaction to the environment (in terms of public health response, think seasonal allergies, although physiologically speaking it’s nothing like that). Communicable, infectious disease tends to be a less frequent problem but purely for that reason is more feared, especially as the most common source for novel diseases is interplanetary shipping (like, astraeas on one planet who have immunity to something unknowingly ship contaminated goods to another planet where people don’t). All that is nowhere near as devastating as it could be in a human context–for one thing astraeas’ bodies are hella dry compared to ours, so if a microbe isn’t airborne it’s almost a non-issue (on the other hand, infection is almost a guarantee if you have an open wound)–but most planets, stations and orbiters have a list of OTHER planets, stations and orbiters categorized by how long it’s been since first contact and how long shipments need to be in quarantine based on that, and that kind of thing runs the same gamut from “rigorously evidence-based” to “completely political and petty” that it does on earth.

Speaking of which, the issue of genetic similarity as a disease risk is as politicized as you’d expect in a society where people said “oh, with our genetic technology we can just design the working class to be however we want.” The Hyperians, being, you know, A Rigidly Hierarchal Interstellar Empire In A Space Opera as they are, tend to present the genetic homogeneity as sort of a good thing, what makes Us Us and Them Them, and the royal family themselves subscribe to the very historically royal (and also very eugenicist) idea that genetic “purity”–which for astraeas mostly just means having children in a very chemically controlled environment–helps keep em’ royal or something. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t it just makes hemophilia, and the more conservative Basileans minimize the environmental variance that keeps them from wiping each other out like some kind of aggressively graceful banana monocrop, the easier it is for epidemics to escalate in general because whole colonies become vectors together.

You won’t read about it in your galactic history book til after the revolution, but the dangers of genetic homogeneity were actually observed by lux units, who noticed that “variant” and “off-order” clones were a bit more likely to survive outbreaks of disease. Supervisors in clone factories have tried HARD to excise the superstition that variant units who remain un-decommissioned into adulthood are good luck to have on your cabin crew or manufacturing-plant shift, but it’s never completely gone away, and once Bell Town goes topside their medics and scientists immediately get to work testing, peer reviewing and proving the mechanics of diversity as a factor of public health because it’s a helpful argument for legitimizing their seizure of the means of their own reproduction and fighting the prejudice against “defective” lux that don’t fit the mold.

To really get into your question, Bell Town at least has the advantage of being small and having a busybody mom friend for a de facto head medic, so I don’t think they’ve ever had a quarantine situation get much bigger than four or five people just because Bolt is very up on how everyone’s doing and very very persuasive–the medics know that that’s just a matter of luck though, and I’m sure a factor in the push to go topside is the potential for tragedy involved in having a settlement of mostly/nearly genetically identical people in somewhat adverse and scarce conditions. That’s not to say there’s no plan–the shortages in Bell Town tend to be of immediately consumable raw materials, like air and fuel and very basic multi-use medicines, whereas raw materials for manufacturing specialized equipment are a lot easier to get because organized factories in DT’s network can have them smuggled out. And a majority of the town’s population, at least by vol. 2, are former manufacturing-plant labor with working radio receivers in their heads, so it’s fairly feasible to expect even a small portion of them, with an emergency push, to manufacture A Lot of vaccines, or intensive care equipment, or whatever was needed practically overnight with the direct guidance of the medics to ensure as much safety in the process as possible (they do just that with medical and defense supplies in vol. 2 for various spoilery things).

Up top, the aula’s responses to any and all large-scale social crises tend to be erratic but sweeping. There are some advantages–in terms of expertise, there are certainly things that well-paid doctors with fully equipped research hospitals can accomplish that a dedicated crack team of self-educated medics can’t, including proactive study of new strains of disease. There’s also feudal insanity–technically individual hospitals/institutions aren’t supposed to issue info without the aula’s permission, though legally local nobles can give it on the Hyperians’ behalf if they’re willing to risk Drama. The internal weirdness of the court both logistical and interpersonal (which I need to make a post about) can sometimes mean, in any emergency, that different parts of the empire receive conflicting information, or an edict followed after a day’s delay in the satellite network by a retraction. Public trust (among citizens of relative status at least) that the Hyperians know what they’re doing tends to decline exponentially as you move out from the inner Rings for this exact reason.

Derafior City on Caesura B dealt with a wave of multiple epidemics a couple hundred turns before the official rise of the empire that still affect how the city is laid out–leaders at the time issued quarantine orders in cooperation with individual colony matriarchs, and as those orders became enforced in physical “zones” neighborhood identities, reputations, and rivalries became increasingly defined (Crater culture being what it is, quarantine boundaries were often pretty literal battle lines as the situation became desperate). A lot of historians trace the factionalism of the Crater to this era, although outside imperialism was also a major instigator of both factional conflicts and disease exposure. Keep in mind too that while outsiders like to portray Derafior as violently fractured and there’s a grain of truth to that, there are just as many deep loyalties between neighborhood/colony factions as there are rivalries and as we see in vol. 3, Caesurans are certainly not allergic to closing ranks when shit really hits the fan.

I don’t have specific canon examples from other ante-dome cultures but another thing of possible interest that I’d like to talk about is that in places touched by Basilean culture, a lot of what we consider “social distancing” is just normal because cleanliness is highly ritualized and valued. Although platonic adult friendships tend to be very cuddly by American and British standards, at the same time, hand touches between strangers outside specific social rituals are seen as quite inappropriate, so things are more thoroughly designed to prevent them–for example, most trading of goods is done purely on paper at the point of sale and nothing actually passes from hand to hand, you go get it out of the crate or pick it out of the field yourself (which is also a practicality of the relative non-ubiquity of flexible currency–and actually, one of the complaints about the use of currency among more traditional astraeas is that it spreads germs). Basically everyone who can afford it wears gloves in public, which are changed and washed every time a person re-enters her home (disposable gloves are mostly limited to medical and laboratory settings, although it’s not unheard of to use them in a pinch if you don’t have a place to launder gloves at home. Side note, if you’re translating directly Altamaian actually refers to manual labor that makes it impractical to wear gloves as “barehanded” labor and the summary conceptualization of such as unhygienic represents a MAJOR vein of classism among Basilean citizens). The reason for the glove thing is that for a species with an exoskeleton regular hand washing can be kind of involved (You know how sometimes it takes a lot of scrubbing to get the dirt out from under your fingernails? Now imagine you have fingernails all over your hands).

Oh and to answer your second question: out of the main cast the one you’d think would suffer most with self-isolation is Bolt, but being a healthcare worker she’d still see people. Rugsy would complain the loudest but also paradoxically be secretly kind of relieved to not have to worry about People for a while. DT experiences virtually no change from her normal lifestyle lmao

*There’s two kinds of disease that can affect astraeas–what they call “miasmic”, and infectious. Miasmic disease (which as you might guess I named after the precursor to modern germ theory–it’s kind of true in this instance!) is basically when an individual’s body and light chemistry can’t maintain its normal balance in certain atmosphere conditions. A big reason for the kickoff of the artificial atmosphere industry after the settling of Altamai is that the cloud cover tends to trap a lot of carbon dioxide, and for i.e. Basillans and Sitherians (who have come to be based on G-type stars, like the sun, and K-type stars, slightly smaller and cooler than the sun) there’s just not enough hydrogen atoms in there to run their bodies optimally. This mostly affects very young children, the elderly, and those whose cores were formed in suboptimal conditions (comparable to a human who has a chronic health condition because of a birth defect) and if it can’t be remedied by a move to more hydrogen/helium rich air, it’s treated by sucking the pure hydrogen out of a water electrolysis device through a hose on the daily, which side note, is also a reliable hangover remedy for them.

#sweet chariot #worldbuilding #onwardmotley #ask me to tag

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gelinedomingo · 4 years

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ECQ: Enhanced Community Quaranscene A Comprehensive Analysis of our Local Government’s response to the Global Crisis: The Covid-19 Pandemic

Hey! It’s me, Geline Domingo! A 19 year-old BSED student from Bulacan State University. As the title suggests, this blog will tackle the practices done by our locality when the Enhanced Community Quarantine was administered.

#QuarantineSeasonInANutshell #ImBoredInTheHouseAndImInTheHouseBored #FolkloreAlbumSavesTheYear

WE GOT SCAMMED! It is undeniably that last year (2019) has been a very tough year for all of us. It is indeed a mentally and emotionally draining year. During countdowns, people wished to leave their bad experiences behind and swore to make the upcoming year a more meaningful and memorable one. At exactly 12 midnight, as we jumped hoping to earn some heights (yep! I know that I’m not the only one who grew up believing on that superstitious belief, minus the fact that I didn’t grow up haha :( but still there’s nothing to lose if you try, even though I am already past puberty.) we bid our farewells to an extremely exhausting year and were officially ready to face year 2020, heads on.

We thought that as a decade past, we can all now have a fresh start. Thus, before the year ends, people were all ready to welcome an amazing year, or so we thought. You’ll see people on the internet (especially on twitter) were already claiming that 2020 will be our year! BUT we got PRANKED.BIG.TIME. 2020 be out there screaming #ISSAPRANK. It’s true when they said that not all jokes are funny because this year has been a big joke since day one and it is getting more annoying each day :)

Wishing that this year would be the start of each and everyone’s breakthrough didn’t became a success maybe because we lacked 11:11 wishes, nah just kidding.

“Disappointed but not surprised” has been a whole MOOD for all, if not then I think it’s safe to say that majority, after everything that has happened. Not even a single soul expected that the most anticipated year that everyone thought to be their new beginning would slap this hard. BUT, it is not only because of the cancelled plans, empty planners, and not having commencement program for the graduates that make this year even worse than 2019.

People are dying. They are NOT just numbers, they HAVE lives and those are not mere statistics! Those are real life people who have families, dreams, and people who they got to inspire.

“This is not the plot twist we’re desperately asking for.” “Surviving doesn’t equate to living.” “It’s either we’re gonna die ‘cause of hunger or get infected by the virus.” — are just some of my everyday thoughts.

Never ending, “*insert year* will be better.” Yes, it is tiring but I think at some point, it should still be something to be grateful of. Never losing hope is a skill that I, myself couldn’t even master. So it’s amazing that there still people out there with that kind of mindset but not to the point that it’s becoming toxic. Well, we do have our different definition of toxic. But, can we all agree that what 2020 brought upon us, isn’t debatable, toxic?

Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind.

Let’s have a quick flashback as to where it all started in our country...

The first case of Covid-19 in the Philippines was reported by the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) on the 30th of January, 2020 — a 38-year-old female Chinese national and on March 7, the DOH confirmed the first local transmission of the said virus.

As the virus spread rapidly which resulted to the increase number of Person Under Investigation (PUI), Person Under Monitoring (PUM), and the confirmed cases, the National Government decided to place Luzon on a lockdown which in the Inter-Agency Task Force guidelines is known as the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), it was officially enacted on March 15, 2020. It causes the cancellation of both international and local transportations.

MAJORITY OF THE CITIZENS IN OUR BARANGAY HAVE BEEN LARGELY COOPERATING SINCE DAY ONE. In accordance with the National and Regional IATF’s rules and regulations, our barangay officers made sure that all of the ordinance are being strictly followed — the minimum health standards such as social distancing and wearing face masks whenever an individual ( for essential work and purpose) leave their house. Those practices that they have been doing to cope up in this pandemic aside from the cooperation of the citizens became the key to control the spread of the virus within our area. First, they took the implementation of the curfew hours seriously. Our curfew hours ranges from eight in the evening to five in the morning. There are barangay officers that patrols on our area from time to time. Furthermore, to make sure that the most vulnerable age group won’t get infected, only those who ages from twenty-one to fifty-nine years old were allowed to go out. Every family could only have one person who can acquire a quarantine pass which can only be used to go out and buy our necessities, every Wednesdays and Saturdays.

AYUDA TALK! Ayuda is one of the most famous word that 2020 has. We received ayuda thrice — dated April 6, April 17 and May 2. The relief goods were delivered on each and everyone’s doorstep. As we all know, many families lost their source of income because of the pandemic, those goods that we received can’t barely sustain a day in our household with seven people, this may seem not the average amount of people living under one roof BUT even in a average household, those foods will only last for a day or two (except if they’re in a diet). To think that the distributions were only done thrice on separate days, how could the people without means to provide for themselves and only depending on the “ayuda” survive?

We are qualified to be one of the beneficiaries that’s why.we received six thousand five hundred pesos from Social Amelioration Program (SAP) (since my father lost his job because of this pandemic) but not all citizens of our barangay received cash assistance. If you’ll ask me, it is not even bare minimum, knowing that the financial aid was only given on the last weeks of April, a month after the lockdown.

I do have some concerns but I know that our barangay officials only followed the instructions given to them nonetheless what I can suggest is that aside from the goods they allocated. They could’ve add some vitamins since there is no vaccine yet, it would be a great help to fight the virus, by boosting our immune system.

*Per the Office of the Governor’s recommendation/request, The Regional Inter-Agency Task Force approved the extension of the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine in our province until May 31,2020.

On the latter part, I know that this pandemic also affects people’s mental health and some people’s coping mechanism is by going out so I want to share my concern to those people. I do hope that you’re doing okay during this quarantine season. I am praying that God may help you be stronger each day and please always remember that your feelings are valid, and that you, a beautiful human being, matter!

Quarantine, virus, and pandemic are just few of the words you would encounter on fantasy series and films, who would have thought that it would be our reality?

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9or10allgood · 4 years

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I love Tumblr. Far more than Facebook, which has become a seething morass of political partisanship, and while I’m all about seething partisanship when it’s discussed by people willing to engage their intellects, I’m less so when “debate” means posting memes and gifs which are, let’s be honest, the electronic equivalent of saying “nanny nanny boo boo”.

Anyway… Tumblr. You can, to some degree, control your content. If you are, like I am, mildly (*snort*) obsessed with a certain tall, lanky, Scottish actor, you can find like-minded individuals and follow them and bask in his glory to your heart’s content. Likewise, you can follow fandoms based on television shows and movies and plays and music… and you get my point. You’re all here so, of course, you do.

And, if you are interested in things like politics or social issues or the environment or science or all of the above (and more), that content is also readily available on Tumblr.

Generally speaking, I find the folks on Tumblr to be considerably more relaxed and open and accepting than on Facebook. I attribute that, for the most part, to the members being mostly younger. I’m a great believer in young people. The future belongs to them and I am, present circumstances notwithstanding, mostly optimistic about the future.

I’m a Boomer. I was born eleven years after the end of WWII. (Good Lord, I feel old!) There were no twenty-four-hour television or radio stations, and the internet wasn’t even conceived of, even by the most forward thinkers. Doctors still made housecalls as a matter of course. Milk was still delivered to your door every morning. The polio vaccine was still being tested. Putting a man on the moon was a science fiction fantasy.

As a generation, we “Boomers” were guilty of a lot of things, beginning with not quickly enough shedding some of the baggage from the generation before us. We were still largely segregated and we are paying the price still and we will until - I don’t know how long and that disturbs me more than I can say. We were too quick to distrust the other - just ask the immigrants that came to these shores during and after the War. There was a dear older lady in my church when I was in high school. A kinder, more charitable, more joyful woman you could never hope to meet. She was a German war bride - met an American soldier and they fell in love and married and he brought her home to his small, south Georgia hometown. Their first decade was tough - folks were slow to forget and she was sometimes ostracized. Even when I knew her, people would sometimes refer to her (in lowered tones) as Leroy’s German frau.

We were abysmal when it came to the environment. I mean, look at the cars we drove in the sixties and seventies before the oil crisis forced a turn toward economy cars. Gasoline was $.37 a gallon - and that was hi-test! What did it matter that my mother’s 1971 Mercury Grand Marquis land yacht only got 11 miles to the gallon? Gender equality? Seriously? Gender Identity?!?!? How you came out of the womb is what you were. Period. And if your family had that special uncle or the aunt with a Very Close Friend, well, it just wasn’t talked about, was it…

On the other hand, there were things we did do. That social conscience that drives our society today? You can thank those who loudly and visibly protested the Vietnam War for a lot of it. Sure, there were anti-war movements always, but the Vietnam War lit a fire that, with the availability of news cameras and microphones and news cycles, burned hot and bright until the last helicopter departed the US Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975. And when the war was over, there were plenty of other things to get riled up about: the environment, women’s rights, the right to choose, civil rights, gay rights. Anger over things that are wrong today didn’t just start in the 2000s. A lot of us - and I mean a lot! - have been pissed off for a while.

Putting a man on the moon belongs to the generation before the Boomers, obviously, but the drive to continue space exploration - the space shuttle, the probes that are still sailing toward places beyond our solar system, the International Space Station, the Hubble telescope - belong to us. Medical advances? Advances in diabetic screening and treatment, the MRI, treatment of HIV/AIDS… Cancer research was largely theoretical until the ‘70s. The idea of DNA re-sequencing as a therapeutic treatment? Late ‘70’s.

And as for culture? My generation embraced the idea of embracing the accoutrements of other cultures. Clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, music, food… we were all about it. I see people commenting on “cultural appropriation” as if it’s a bad thing. We - my generation - considered it to be a tangible form of acceptance.

(As an aside, I have a dear friend who is battling uterine cancer. She has lost all of her hair due to chemotherapy. On one of her “good days”, she and her family took in an Indian (the country) festival and, while she was there, saw an artist creating henna tattoos. On impulse, she asked the woman to create one for her scalp. It was a masterpiece, absolutely glorious, and it gave my friend so much of her joy back. For the first time, she was proud to show herself without a wig or scarf. I think if I’d heard anyone say anything about “cultural appropriation”, I would have punched them in the mouth.)

My point to this ramble is this. Lately, I’ve been seeing anti-Boomer things on Tumblr. Boomers are rude. Boomers are backward. Boomers are outdated. And while I get that it’s just a thing for generations to complain about each other, it’s the absolutism that I see that bothers me. When I was young and dealing with my parents’ generation, I didn’t consign the whole kit and kaboodle to the Dark Ages. And, from my viewpoint as an older person, I don’t heave a great sigh and clutch my pearls over the entirety of the Gen X'ers, the Millennials (raised one!), or the Gen Z'ers. I may get annoyed with one or two individuals and have a sudden urge to shake my cane and yell “get off my lawn, whippersnapper!” but I manage to contain myself. (There was the young man in the electronics department at WalMart who, in his most condescending manner, asked me if I knew what a USB port was. I wanted to tell him that I’d been working with computers since before his father first bought his mother a malt at the chocolate shoppe. Instead, I just gave him The Look™ and he mumbled an apology.)

Absolutism about anything is corrosive. I mean, think about it. It lies at the heart of so many of the evils that are tearing at us now. It feeds the desire to hate all of the “other” because of a crime perpetrated by one or a few. Wars result from this kind of thinking. Down through history, you see it. And it’s so much more easily spread now with social media. Again, I would abandon FB altogether - except that it’s how I keep up with the folks back home - because it’s become a political, partisan, largely unintelligent cesspool. All because those on the Left believe that those on the Right are the Minions of Satan and those on the Right think that those on the Left are Bloodsucking Snowflakes. And, of course, they don’t all think that, but it’s so easy to click a “Like” or a “Share” without really thinking about the message they are sending, and before you know it things are out of control and we’ve put a dictator wannabe in the bloody Oval Office!

(Sorry. I’m still upset.)

There are those who ask why boomers are offended. I mean, “ok boomer” is just a joke, right? Well, yeah, but that same reasoning has been applied to how many derogatory labels. (I read one comment that “Boomer” isn’t an ageist slur. Except it kinda is, y'know?) And, again, it spreads and it gets blown out of proportion and there are those who are just ready to jump on a bandwagon - any bandwagon! - and the next thing you know, it’s trending on Twitter and we’ve got one more thing to get mad about that shouldn’t be anything at all because there are so many other things that we really should be mad about and trying to do something about…

Do you get my point?

If someone of any generation gets on your last good nerve, by all means, express yourself. (Short of violence, obviously.) But ease up on projecting the “they’re all bad" mentality. It isn’t true. It doesn’t make anything easier. And we’re all better than that.

Aren’t we?

#boomers #ok boomers #just a few observations #by a boomer

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babemazzello · 5 years

Text

‘39 - A John Deacon FanFiction

Chapter 10 - Getting Closer

Story Description: Amy is sitting in his apartment when she hears some frantic knocking outside her door. She opens it to see a frightened and frazzled John Deacon. A 23-year-old John Deacon. Who believes it’s still 1974, and not 2019. Amy takes it upon herself to help John and get him back to where he belongs. Part 1 is here.

Chapter Description: Amy and John are even closer than before and there is absolutely no tension between them anymore. Amy tells John more things about the future and they spend a nice time listening to music together.

Notes: If you would like to be tagged for this story, either leave a comment or shoot me a message and I will tag you for all future chapters. Thank you all so much for reading, by the way. It means a lot to me. (Also, I took a week off to straighten some things out, so thanks for sticking with me and being patient. <3) ((Something got screwed up with the first version of this so I’m trying again. whoops.))

Warnings: none

Words: 3.3k

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1 week later

Since we held hands that night, we had been closer than ever before. We would stay up late telling jokes and funny stories to each other. Just loving the presence of the other person near us. Sometimes, when I would be cooking breakfast, John would come up behind me and place a hand on the small of my back. He would help me out if I needed anything and even set the table if the food was taking longer than I thought.

While our mornings before work were spent talking and enjoying conversations with each other, our evenings were becoming a little different. I would take John out to eat more than before. Getting him acquainted with little nuances of the future. Things like screens being everywhere, people having every piece of knowledge at their fingertips, and how multitasking was becoming an increasingly normal thing.

"So, people just listen to music while they do...anything?" He asked. We were sitting in a diner that I had been to a countless number of times before. The reason I hadn't taken him here was because the walls were covered in 1950's music icons and their music was constantly playing over the speakers just low enough that you could talk over it or listen to it to drown out the silence if there was a lull in the conversation. I was worried about him knowing that these artists are still respected and known over 50 years into the future since their start. But, because I was teaching him everything about the future, I figured this was something he was bound to figure out at some point since I had some of these records at home.

"Yup," I answered. "I thought you might have had that in your time, but you don't. It first started with something called a Walkman which I think came out in the late 70's." I was going into another history/future lesson and his eyes and ears were locked on me as he rested his face in his hand. "You see, the music industry found a way to condense a record into a plastic rectangle about...this size." I tried to make a box with my fingers in the shape of a cassette. "Those were called cassettes and you could play them as you walked around. But now, you can put music onto...want to take a guess?" I asked. Placing my hand on my phone next to me on the booth.

"Your phone?" He asked with a smile. I picked up my phone and showed it to him.

"Exactly," I grinned. I placed the phone down on the table. "So, the record and cassette could only hold about 12 songs, but if I really wanted to, I could fit over...I don't know...2,000 songs on here?" I was guessing on that part. I figured it could at least hold 2,000 and John would be impressed by that number anyway.

"2,000?" He almost yelled. Thankfully, the place was pretty empty so no one was bothered by our conversation.

"Yeah. That's normal now. Isn't that crazy?" I was beaming. I loved seeing him experience this world for the first time. Especially because when you live in a world like this, you get used to it. It becomes normal. Teaching him about all this stuff made me appreciate it more and actually realize how far we had come in a society in almost 50 years. There was a small silence between us.

"So...If you have all this technology and live in a time like this, why do you care about the past? I feel like I wouldn't," he admitted. I thought about it for a second. He stumped me. How could I put my love of the past into words? No one had ever asked me that before.

"Well," I stammered, trying to buy some time while thoughts raced in and out of my mind. "Everyone looks back on the past with rose-colored glasses, right? I guess that's very true for me as well. I see the amazing parts of the past. Like the music and the entertainment and the pop culture. The good stuff. And I guess I'm not doing you any favors by only telling you the good stuff about the future either." He knitted his eyebrows together.

"Tell me that too then," he said in a soft voice.

"Well, life expectancy is down for the second year in a row, companies are forcing people to work in low paying jobs and for despicably long hours, global warming is almost at a point where it might be irreversible, everyone in the world is more divided than they ever were before, people have begun to stop vaccinating their kids because of false scientific research, and then there are leaders here and all around that world that refuse to believe that none of this is happening. The people in charge who have the resources to fix most of the bad stuff don't want to because it would get in the way of their own interests to make a bunch of money. That's the bad stuff." I looked at John's eyes. He was staring down at the table, but looking through it. His eyes were in a thousand-yard stare trance. "And that's not even all of it." There was another silence.

"I'm sorry about that," he apologized.

"It's alright. Nothing to be sorry about. It's just the world I live in. I'm sure the time you're from isn't all puppies and roses either. It's just how the world works. There has to be some bad so you can appreciate the good. Focusing on the good parts gets you through the day. So, that's what I choose to do." I sat back in my seat.

"I guess that's true," he replied. There was a silence before he decided to change the subject. "But, why does Elvis seem to be everywhere? Is he considered the greatest artist of all time? Because it seems like it." He looked up at the giant mural of Elvis that was painted on the wall above our booth. To be fair, it was a good question to ask. Even when we would be walking down the street, there would be vendors selling art and they would always have some piece with Elvis.

"He's sort of a peace-keeper, I guess. I haven't met anyone who's said that they didn't like Elvis. He's like the one thing all of us can agree on. He's not necessarily the greatest, but he's loved by pretty much everyone. Guys wanted to be him and girls wanted to be with him," I explained.

"Must be nice," John said.

"What part of it?" I asked, not entirely sure by what his statement meant.

"The fact that everyone loves him." He was still staring at the painting. I bunched my eyebrows together in confusion.

"What do you mean? Do you think people don't love you? You have some fans, right?" I tried to be as nonchalant with my question as possible.

"Yes, we do. But, I don't like the fame part. If everyone could just like me and never acknowledge me for it, I'd be happy." He gave me a small smile right before our waiter came with our food. I sadly smiled down at my food. Knowing full well that after Freddie died, he retired from the music industry and was never seen again. And the fact that it was well known that he didn't like the fame, but liked making music. I was saddened to see this part of him even in his younger self. It reminded me too vividly of what was to come.

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We had started a tradition at home of trying to watch a movie together every other night. It not only gave John something to look forward to but something else to do. I explained to him what DVDs were. I didn't even try to explain streaming services because that would be a little too complex for him right now. So, our movie choice was limited to whatever DVDs I still had on my shelves. Thankfully, I had a lot of old movies.

That night, we decided to watch It's A Wonderful Life. It wasn't close to Christmas, but we both admitted that we loved the movie and decided to watch it anyway. I grabbed it off the shelf and popped it into the player.

John was sitting back on the couch. His legs spread a little bit and one of his arms resting on the back of the chair. A loud crack of thunder roared outside and we both stopped what we were doing to watch the rain blast against the window.

"Some storm," John commented.

"Happens more than you think this time of the year." April was always supposed to be the rainy season, but New York never got the memo. It would rain a lot in May which didn't please many of the tourists who thought this was the perfect time to come here.

"Glad we're inside then," John spoke again. I looked over at him and watched him watch the rain for a second. The yellow light reflected in the raindrops danced across his face and made him look more handsome than in the daytime, which I didn't think was possible. I shook the thought from my head and finished setting up the movie.

I walked over to the couch and sat down in the place beside John. The next couch cushion. There was room left between us, but not much. I liked it that way. His arm rested on the back of the couch behind me. I was very aware of it as I pressed a button on the remote to start the movie.

We sat and watched in silence. Laughing along to some of the jokes. That was until Mary showed up. The movie is often talked about as a Christmas movie, but not a romantic movie. My eyes widened when I remembered which part would be coming soon. Then, it came.

The part where George and Mary stand in front of her house and George says he would give her anything. He talks about giving her the moon if she wants it. And how he'll tie a lasso around it and pull it down. Then, they kiss. My heart melted seeing them kiss. Knowing that I was sitting next to the one person who I wanted to kiss more than anyone else in the world.

And, like he was reading my mind, his arm shifted off the back of the couch and onto my shoulder. Comforting me. He had made his move. I was shocked at the sudden touch. I looked over at him, unsure if he knew what he was doing. He looked down at me and saw the confusion in my eyes. He quickly thought that he had made a mistake and read the situation wrong.

I acted quickly to try and make him stay. To tell him that what he did was nice and right. As his hand slipped off of my shoulder, I caught it and pulled it back over. I scooted in closer to him on the couch and laid my head on his shoulder. Slightly resting into him.

I heard him let out a small chuckle at my actions. Happy that I wasn't backing away as I had done before. If I tried hard enough, I could hear his heartbeat. But, only when the movie was quiet or extremely low. We sat like that for the rest of the movie.

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The next day, I was home from work. Saturdays were nice because I could sleep for as long as I wanted and no one could tell me otherwise. However, I hadn't seemed to be able to do that since John got here. I was always waking up earlier than I normally would on the weekends just to make sure he had something to do.

However, I started to trust John a bit more. Trusted him to not defy me like he once did and be alright on his own in the mornings and let me sleep past 9. John liked to sleep in as well, but I wasn't akin to his sleep schedule, even after all this time. So, sometimes I would wake up and he would still be asleep. It didn't bother me too much because he looked so adorable when he slept.

Although that day, we were both up pretty early in the morning. We spent most of the day enjoying some music and I was telling him stories about some of the 'new' bands he hadn't gotten to experience yet like Journey, Boston, STYX, David Bowie, and other people from the late seventies and early eighties. He seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.

"Oh! Let's try this one," I suggested after scanning the newly refiled record collection. I had put all of the albums back because there wasn't a restriction on them anymore. Well, all of them except the Queen ones, but John didn't need to know that.

I slid the record out from the shelf and stood up. Walking over to the player and unsheathing the record from its sleeve. John watched my every move, but I tried not to focus on that. I placed the black and gold sleeve next to it as I smiled to myself. Knowing full well that he was going to love what I was going to play.

I placed the needle on top of the record and waited for the familiar piano rake to hit my ears. I turned toward John as Dancing Queen filled the room. I got the pleasure to show disco to a future funky disco man.

His eyes lit up as he listened to the song for the first time. I danced around to the beat that I had heard a million times before, but it suddenly felt so new and fresh. I swiveled around and mouthed the lyrics to the song. Doing my best to emulate what the dancing would have been like in the clubs when this song came on. Which was also similar to what people would do when the song came on now.

John laughed as I acted out every lyric and dance move. Shaking my hips around the room and even recreating some of the moves from the movie. I loved dancing around to ABBA's music and I hadn't done it in such a long time. I watched his eyes as the music flowed through him. He was listening to every beat and loving every second of it.

Up until now, he had his face in his book. Only listening to the music as background noise as a way to catch up on everything he had been missing all these years. But, with this album, he was focused completely on the music. Bobbing his head to it as he watched me dance.

I pointed to John throughout the chorus. Making sure that he knew that he was the dancing queen. He wouldn't understand what I was referring to yet since Disco Deacy didn't come out in full swing until the late seventies. So, he just enjoyed the attention I was giving him.

Eventually, the song ended, and he seemed sad. Wanting the disco beat to go on forever. I knew he would like the song, but it shocked me that he was so moved by it. We waited for the next one to start. Knowing Me, Knowing You began to ring through the apartment. I danced along with this one too. A little slower, but still dance-worthy.

I started singing along to the actual song. John chuckled and kept a smile plastered on his face the entire time. It was difficult to keep the blush from creeping over my face at how he was admiring me. My entire body felt like it was on fire just from his gaze. And I became embarrassed that I was dancing alone. I walked over to his and reached both of my hands out to him. I smiled at him. A wide grin plastered on my face.

"Come on. I know you want to," he grabbed my hands with a nervous laugh and started to dance with me. I held his hands in mine and swayed them back and forth to get him a little more comfortable. He was bobbing his head and two-stepping to the beat. He was trying to loosen up when he danced around me.

I broke away from him and started dancing crazily to the music to hopefully encourage him to let loose a little more. It seemed to work when I saw his hips begin swaying more and his arms started moving around to the beat. But, the song started to fade out. I had spent so long trying to get him to dance that the song had ended. But, I knew what the next one was and I smiled at him as Take A Chance On Me started playing.

I lip-synced the words at John while he was dancing to the beat. It was wonderful and soft. Both of us giggling at each other's silliness and feeling comfortable enough around each other to do something like this. Everything was going great until I sang a certain lyric at John that made his face fall.

Cause you know I've got

So much that I wanna do, when I dream I'm alone with you

It's magic

You want me to leave it there,

Afraid of a love affair, but I think you know,

That I can't let go

His face turned serious as his dancing began to slow and weaken. I kept singing, hoping that I didn't offend him in some way. I started poking his side with my finger. Hoping to get him back into the silly mood with me. With every poke of my finger, he seemed to cheer up a little bit.

And when I went in to poke him for the fifth time, he grabbed my hand and pulled me in closer to him. I laughed at his sudden movement as he brought my hand in his and we were in the slow dance position. We began swaying back and forth to the fast pace of the song. Laughing and giggling to each other. Loving how close we were.

John would extend his arm to push me out and pull me back in. He would even spin me as well to the beat of the song. It was intimate and close, and there wasn't any tension between us. None lingering from the last time we were in this position. It was calm and silly and had no expectations behind it.

When the song eventually faded away, we stopped and realized what position we were in. He looked over at our hands and then the small space between our bodies and then up to my face. There was a small twinge of fright at what he would do next. I desperately didn't want a repeat of last time, and I wasn't sure if I would pull away again or give in. But, thankfully, there wasn't a repeat.

"I feel like getting something to drink tonight. What about you?" He spoke. I was shocked and even stepped back a small step at his question.

"Yeah, sure," I laughed.

"What's so funny?" He asked.

"Nothing, I just- That seemed to come out of nowhere, that's all," I answered him.

"Oh well, do you know any good bars we can go to?" He wanted to get out of the house, but I couldn't let that happen.

"Can't go out to any bars," I informed him. The next song started, but we didn't notice it or pay attention.

"And why not?" John asked in a playful fashion.

"Too many drunk people who might let something slip about the future to you. And I can't let that happen." I saw his face get sad, so I offered up another solution. "But, I can go get some bottles of something and bring them back here. We can have our own little party, how about that?" His face lightened.

"Sounds like a plan." He said.

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Masterlist

#john deacon #queen #'39 - a john deacon fanfiction #john deacon x reader #john deacon fan fiction #john deacon fanfiction #queen x reader #queen fan fiction #queen fanfiction #bohemian rhapsody #borhap #time travel #masterlist #deacy #deaky

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garethprice-blog1 · 5 years

Text

The Off-Switch for a Ticking Time-Bomb: The Importance of the Measles Vaccine

The pattern is clear: over the last decade or so vaccination uptake globally has dramatically declined, and cases of measles and other illnesses commonly vaccinated against during childhood has dramatically increased.

This is a pattern that is also being seen in the UK. A recent report by Unicef and the World Health Organization (WHO) found that between 2010 and 2017, 527,000 children in the UK who were eligible to receive their vaccinations were not vaccinated. This has led to spikes in cases of measles in certain parts of the country – ‘Public Health England (PHE) said there had been 47 cases across Greater Manchester in 2019, compared to only three cases in 2018 and seven in 2017’ (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-48040787). The issue has recently been described as ‘a ticking time-bomb’ by the NHS chief Simon Stevens: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48039524.

The accepted cause for these patterns is growing concerns some parents have concerning vaccinations and the effects they have on their children. It’s worth saying at this point that I am about to start working as a doctor within the NHS and I passionately believe in the vital role vaccination plays in public health. Because of this, I have decided to make this short little piece to try and answer some of the most common questions and concerns some parents have regarding vaccines. These questions are the ones I have seen most commonly being asked during my clinical placements in hospitals and GP practices, as well as on the internet and social media. I have tried to reference all the answers to show that they’re not just my wild imaginings and are all backed up by thorough evidence and research.

If you’ve ever felt concerned or sceptical about vaccinations, if you have seen or read anti-vaccination literature in the past, or if you are just curious, please just give this a read and let me know what you think.

Do vaccinations even work?

Yes. Numerous studies by various organisations worldwide, including WHO, have shown that vaccinations are secondary only to clean water in reducing the burden of disease on a population (https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/2/07-040089/en/). As long as the uptake rate is high enough, vaccination can dramatically reduce the incidence of its target disease, and in some cases even eliminate it from the population. This occurs through an effect known as ‘herd immunity’ – this means as long as enough of the population take up the vaccine – around 90-95% for measles – so many people are immune to the virus that it can no longer survive in that community. This elimination of a disease has actually been achieved in some instances, such as the eradication of smallpox in 1980 through a vaccination programme. Local elimination of measles has also been seen in areas with high uptake of the measles vaccine e.g. in Finland. https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/2/07-040089/en/

How do vaccines work?

To understand how vaccines work, its first best to get an idea of how our body fights an infection. When exposed to a bacteria or virus, our body can quickly become a battlefield. Our body puts up a whole host of defences to try and stop the bacteria or virus spreading throughout the body. Some of these defences include increasing body temperature to try and burn off the infection (this is why we get fevers) or even just trying to cough or sneeze up the bacteria or virus in snot or mucous.

Our soldiers in this battlefield are called white blood cells. A specific type of white blood cell called a B cell can learn to recognise certain shapes on the cell of the infecting organism that are unique to that bacteria or virus – just like people have their own distinctive looks and facial features that help you recognise them. Once it realizes this, the cell makes many clones of itself so that next time that same bacteria or virus attacks the body, it can quickly be recognised and all your body’s defences can attack and destroy it, usually before you even start to feel ill.

Vaccines work in the same way. Vaccines contains a little bit of this unique bacteria/virus shape and allows your body to see it, recognise it as an invader and then memorise it. This means that if your body ever gets infected with the real deal, your body will recognise it quickly and be able to destroy it before you even start to feel ill. Some vaccines contain just this little shape, while others contain dead or deactivated versions of the virus or bacteria which cannot cause true infection but still allow your body to learn its unique shape. The measles vaccine contains a weakened, also known as attenuated, form of the virus.

This video explains the process pretty well too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-muIoWofsCE

Isn’t measles just like a bad case of the flu? Does my child really need to be vaccinated?

Widespread vaccination programmes are still a relatively recent thing (the first vaccine against measles in the UK was introduced in 1968). Despite this, the programme has been so effective that measles became a forgotten disease that we didn’t see anymore and only the older generation could remember.

Public Health England

http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/measles

Measles is a lot worse than a bad case of the flu. Children who develop measles at first develop fever, greyish-white spots in the mouth and a distinctive red-brown rash that starts behind the ears before spreading to the rest of the body. Children are usually unable to get out of bed for around five days and can miss up to two weeks of school. The initial infection often also leads to complications such as further infections in the ear, lung or even the brain.

But beyond these usual cases, in a minority of children infected with measles, the disease can be fatal. It is thought that one out of every 5000 children infected with measles will die. The famous children’s author Roald Dahl’s daughter died of a complication of measles and he spent much of his life after her death campaigning and spreading the word about the importance of vaccination in the fight against measles and other infections. You can read his account of his daughter’s death and the effect it had on him here: http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/blogs/ojohn/how-dangerous-measles).

In a small number of cases, some children infected with measles go on to develop a condition called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). The children often don’t develop the condition until years after their initial measles infection. Its caused by the measles virus spreading to the brain, leading to destruction of the central nervous system, dementia, epilepsy and eventually death. You can watch a video on the effect SSPE has had on a family’s life here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8kGwKZiq0

If everyone else is vaccinated, does it really matter if my child doesn’t get the vaccine?

As explained earlier, eliminating a virus or bacteria from a community is dependant on the effect of herd immunity. For the measles virus, it has been calculated that around 90-95% uptake is needed to provide effective protection against the virus for the population. There are a number of children who, for many reasons, will not be able to receive the vaccine. These reasons include them being too young to receive the vaccine (the vaccine against measles is usually given at around 1 year of age) or if the child has other illnesses e.g. cancer, that mean its immune system is not able to mount an effective immune response to the vaccine.

This means that if healthy children are not vaccinated, they may carry the virus and spread it to children who are not able to receive the vaccine. If a healthy unvaccinated child gets infected with measles they will likely be able to fight off the infection themselves but may inadvertently spread it to children who are not strong enough to fight the infection. In these children, the risk of developing complications and severe infections is much more likely and so it is very important for all children who can be vaccinated to be vaccinated in order to protect everyone.

Don’t vaccinations cause autism?

No. This controversy was started after a paper was published in the medical journal the Lancet in 1998 claiming that there was a link between children who received the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and children who went on to develop developmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder. The claims made in the paper were quickly picked up by the national press and led to a widespread distrust of vaccinations that is still felt in some areas of the UK and the world today.

Due to the seriousness of the claims and the panic it caused, a vast amount of time and money went into research looking into the link. They all reached the same conclusion: there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. They also found that Andrew Wakefield’s study had been seriously flawed:

1) Wakefield selected patients that had already started to show signs of autism before his study began, meaning his study wouldn’t be a fair reflection on the effect of the MMR vaccine on the general population.

2) Wakefield falsified the information to suit the results he wanted to get e.g. one child in the study had already started to show some signs of autism before receiving his MMR vaccine (this was clearly stated in the child’s medical records), but in Wakefield’s report it stated that the first signs appeared months after the vaccination

3) Wakefield was being paid to conduct the research by lawyers representing parents who were against vaccines. This meant that he was set to gain financially if he could discredit the safety of vaccinations.

The man behind the now disgraced report linking the MMR vaccine to autism; Andrew Wakefield

For all these reasons, the Lancet retracted the paper and Andrew Wakefield was later found guilty of deliberate fraud and struck off from the medical register, although he still has a large following in some parts of the world, particularly in the anti-vaccination community. Due to the amount of research that went into investigating the link between the MMR vaccine and autism at the time, the fact that there is no link between the two is now one of the most well-proven things in modern medicine.

You can find more in-depth information on why Wakefield’s paper was fraudulent and unreliable here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/ and https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452. And more information on research into the link between the MMR vaccine and autism can be found at the bottom of this page ‘Is The Vaccine Safe?’: http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/mmr-vaccine

Could my child get ill from the vaccine?

Because a vaccine is trying to trick the body into thinking that there is an infection starting, the body can sometimes switch on all its defences after a vaccine e.g. fevers, runny noses. This occurs in around 1 in 10 children who receive the vaccine and normally wears off after 2-3 days. Another common side effect is redness and some pain and swelling around the site of the injection, which again quickly wears off.

In a small number of cases (1 in 1000), some children can develop fits or seizures following the vaccine. Although this is a serious side effect and will need medical attention, it is worth remembering that fits and seizures are far more common in child infected with the real measles virus.

Some parents also voice concerns regarding allergy to the measles vaccine, particularly regarding children with egg allergies. Although the measles virus strain used for the vaccine are grown on chick embryo cells there will only be tiny, if any, amounts of egg protein in the vaccine and not enough to cause an allergic reaction. Like all foods and medicines, there is a risk that a child could have an allergy to another of the ingredients of the vaccine leading to a serious allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. This kind of a reaction is extremely rare with the measles vaccine. However, this is why many healthcare professionals may want to observe the child for a few minutes following the vaccination to ensure the child doesn’t have a reaction. If a reaction does occur, the child can be quickly treated with adrenaline (the same stuff that’s used in EpiPens for people with other allergies).

If you have any concerns about your child following a vaccination, please contact your GP or other healthcare professional for more advice.

More information on the side effects of the MMR vaccine can be found at: http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/mmr-vaccine

Aren’t there lots of nasty chemicals in MMR vaccine?

As well as the active ingredients needed to trigger the immune response, the MMR vaccine also contain some other ingredients that help the vaccine work:

- Gelatine to act as a stabiliser (this is only in one form of the vaccine, a version not containing gelatine is also available)

- Sorbitol, mannitol and recombinant human serum albumin all act as stabilisers

- Polysorbate 80 is used as an emulsifier

- The vaccine may also contain traces of an antibiotic called neomycin, which is used during the manufacturing process to stop bacteria growing and contaminating the culture

None of these ingredients have been shown to be harmful to humans. You can find out more information on the ingredients of the MMR vaccine at: http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/mmr-vaccine

I hope you have found this piece interesting and I hope it has answered some questions you might have concerning the MMR vaccine. It is worth underlining that measles and the other infections protected against by vaccines are serious infections that are horrible to go through and can in a number of patients lead to serious complications and even death. Vaccination is vital in protecting both our healthy children and also those too young or too ill to receive the vaccination.

If you have any questions regarding the MMR vaccine or vaccines in general, please do not hesitate to contact your GP or other local healthcare professional.

#vaccine education mmr measles shot autism immunology nhs

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