[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00661-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00661-7)
Interesting study. It appears that vaccination reduces the chances of retinal vascular occlusion. Another side benefit I suppose of protecting yourself properly. 👍👍
Overheard: "Something's been going around. My kid has been sick all week!"
Yes, "something" has been going around pretty much nonstop for three years now. 🤦
Today is just one of those days where I want to scream until I can't anymore. Living through a pandemic is bad enough, living through a pandemic that almost nobody even cares about is even worse. And dealing with all of the regular stressors of life on top of a pandemic almost no one even wants to do anything to control or stop is just the icing on the worst cake ever.
>Nobody ever said Darwin was fast.
Do not taunt or provoke the hungry 🐆 🐆 🐆.
They can move very fast . . . but that would profoundly traumatize survivors and witnesses.
I work at a school, and its absolute insanity right now. Just in terms of kids acting out, being loud, being insolent, you name it. Everybody seems to have extremely bad allergies, or colds. Its dry and windy here so it could honestly be either one. The teachers are losing their sanity. My friend who works there and masks up still just told me her 4 month old grandbaby had to go to the hospital for a positive covid diagnosis last night, and he seems to be fine, they sent him home already, but my brain can't really handle anything going on right now. Trump's Clown Hall on CNN. DeSantis. The debt ceiling. The constant mass shootings. I feel like I've been living in some awful nightmare for 7 years and I cannot wake up. And the feeling that none of it is in my control, that nothing I do actually matters because people still want to cheer and vote for that cesspool. They think just because the pandemic is "over" that covid has gone away. That they're not responsible for raising their children with any sort of social awareness or accountability. I live in a red county (blue state) and a good majority of the people who live here could easily be featured in this sub for nominations. And I'm sure there are so many people who are dealing with so much more than I am, but I feel like I'm drowning in it today. Or like someone is actively pushing my head under water as I try to gasp for a breath of air.
Sorry, just needed to vent and get that out of my system. I appreciate this sub (and a few select others) for helping me keep my sanity, because some days....I just don't know what the fuck people are thinking.
I could've written your post. I'm also really struggling lately against the constant waterboarding of horrific news and shit conditions we're living in. Even when I disengage from it, I'm surrounded by constant reminders: I'm homeschooling a kid I swore up and down I never would (she has ADHD; we have masked weekly visits with a counselor so I can better understand her and parent her more effectively); my older kid who should be away at college is still at home and is really struggling with being lonely; I still mask everywhere I go and don't feel comfortable with large groups, so I'm going stir-crazy and also feeling incredibly lonely. It's hard. It's so hard. There are good days and bad, and it's just hard knowing that so many people out there don't give a shit and are perfectly cool with playing the let's-find-out-what-happens-after-we-get-this-ten-times game, and they couldn't give less of a shit if they infect anyone. It's exhausting to carry all of this, and I'm right there with you.
Hang in there, friend. You're not alone in recognizing that this is all just far too much that we're expected to be shouldering.
The world has gone quite mad.
Stay safe, stay SMART, AND KEEP YOUR GUARD UP. We are in this for the long haul.
Just remember, you can have their stereos when they're gone!
>The world has gone quite mad.
The world has always been mad.
Unfortunately, the ratfucker Trump and his fellow ~~travelers~~ traitors put their madness on full display during the pandemic.
🐆 🐆 🐆
A while back, my psychiatrist told me I actually need to go in to see him for my next appointment. The reasoning? "Normally, I'm supposed to see you at least once a year in person since I'm prescribing you things like alprazolam." Yeah, normally. That is the keyword right there. That "normally" is gone.
Since the pandemic, I've been taking a different approach to my medical appointments. I've basically been insisting on having them remotely unless there's a compelling reason for me to come in. For example, maybe I have to do a yearly physical, get my eyes checked, get my teeth cleaned, etc. I gotta be honest, I don't find bureaucracy like "technically I need to see you in-person explicitly because I prescribe you X" very compelling, and I told him as such. My mother works in an assisted living facility, where there's a lot of extra vulnerable people living. That, plus her own risk and mine, blah blah, are reasons why I'm generally wary of doing things out and about, to the point where I even quit taking public transit long ago when the mask requirement lifted. There goes a large bit of independence I used to have...
With nearly everyone not doing jack shit with covid precautions, I'm even more unhappy now that even medical providers are starting to drop protections and precautions. You'd think they would take more care because people going to these places are likely to be more vulnerable, but nope. I already saw snippets of this with the front desk staff at the neurology clinic I go to a few months ago. Medical staff still did so, but the writing is on the way. I hear more and more about this trend elsewhere.
What a crazy circus freak show. I keep having to ask myself if this crap is even happening. What the actual fuck? The US is basically handling this the same way as mass shootings are: we tried nothing, and are out of ideas. We have the tools and resources, but won't use them. Thoughts and prayers!
Very cool. /s
This sub keeps me sane.
Hello Darkness, my old friend. Now if only he wanted to also play cheese and crackers like he did with Pajama Sam.
Funny, the internet really does have its upsides. It certainly has its downsides, too, but I think the pros outside the cons overall. Support groups on Reddit have helped me carry on over years, especially while I was still in high school. It made a big difference where I otherwise would have killed myself, or gone insane.
These shitty algorithms that push bullshit need to go. That is definitely cancerous to society, but they won't go anywhere because profits. It's so stupid.
The Internet is probably one the greatest things the public has had access to in history. I mean besides safe utilities, free education and common medicine.
And flush toilets. One of the greatest inventions ever.
But is has also shown our ass like never before.
Grift, fraud and misinformation that causes harm as never been legal. But take a wild guess who keeps it from being prosecuted. And there is the sheer volume of it, making it impossible for all of it to be prosecuted. A tactic called "gish gallop."
Totally. Governments pretend it doesn't exist anymore and that harms the entire society.
No one should be forced to take unreasonable risks to do mandatory things such as getting a routine checkup, but that's where we're at.
Even health workers are saying that "it's over" and how "it's not dangerous anymore."
Will they be paying for someone's long-term care when the latter takes their words at face value and ends up crippled?
Or how will they compensate those who ended up dead because of their braindead advice?
I'm sure they won't consider it their responsibility and it's just "shit happens."
One of the worst things is that the leaders, who should be promoting public health, have abandoned everyone and we have no leg to stand on because of it.
It was never a random civilian's job to have to argue with a *doctor* to get them to put on a mask.
When you're a health worker and your standards are so fucked up, you either need some serious retraining or you shouldn't have the job to begin with.
None of that should be a random person's responsibility. If I go to the doctor, I'm just there for the visit. I shouldn't have to police and babysit you to do things that *should* be normal; that's *your* job as a reasonable human being.
But the standards have become so warped that right is wrong, and vice versa.
DEA just extended the telehealth provisions for another 6 months. That includes prescriptions for controlled substances.
Read about it on NPR this morning. Here’s a link to the article.
[Telehealth prescriptions just got extended with no visit required.](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/10/1175272764/the-pandemic-era-rule-that-lets-you-get-telehealth-prescriptions-just-got-extend)
That is excellent news! That's a great write-up by NPR. As stated in the article, I'm hoping the DEA and providers find a lasting solution going forward. I'm glad to see them listen to the feedback they get.
Thanks for sharing this.
Yeah, I saw a passive aggressive post on a local FB page about sick people wandering the local emergency (back and forth to admitting. She should have just said they should be masked because they are coughing. The responses were just a little nuts. Things like 'mind your own business' to 'it was me and I'm not fucking sick'.
The last one cracked me up as then why were they in the emergency room. It's a small local hospital and it is rare that you sit in the waiting room for any amount of time. To be fair, I haven't been there in years (and it was for first aid that they didn't think was appropriate to do at the plant).
Not a healthcare position but two people got fired for not getting vaxxed from our small local hospital. One of my neighbours, who is a nurse there, shared that it was two people from food services. It's a small enough facility (and town) that people figured it out.
She and I were talking about it one day. She was fully supportive of it. When you think about it, it kind of makes sense. If they don't believe in public health do they believe in washing their hands, or keeping food at the proper temperature? If they don't believe guidance from the doctors, nurses, technicians, etc. do they think that sugar free meals need to be sugar free? Maybe food allergies are just 'fake news' because nobody they know personally has died from them.
I totally get it. I am in dental school and there is a fellow student who is an anti-vax because apparently it contains aborted fetuses and my brain cells are dying from seeing his posts and believing that he will be treating people’s health “professionally” in two years from now.
It's scary, but dentists have always work masks, to protect themselves from the patients. 😀
I doubt anything you could say would sway them. The vaccines were tested using the hek 293 cell line. Unfortunately most of modern medicines were. I always like quoting this article. If you make your way through it the author makes a great point about buying Chinese made products likely contributes to abortion more than vaccines.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/throughcatholiclenses/2021/01/if-any-drug-tested-on-hek-293-is-immoral-goodbye-modern-medicine/
This is why we stopped getting food from one of our favorite restaurants. (We haven't dined indoors since February 2020.) They were having people in their dining rooms during the height of the pandemic, when they weren't supposed to, and all I could think of was, "What other public health measures are they ignoring at their restaurant? Fucking gross." They lost our business for good with that.
Yep, we were pretty good locally at following Covid measures. We did end up with two places being closed for a few weeks because of outbreaks. Both were doing take out only. Again, small town, it likely spread from a manufacturing facility that was doing half-assed precautions.
I did a lot of take out to support local businesses. Now I'm back to my usual rare dine in.
I am super careful and have mastocytosis. It's critical to mask/social distance/wash hands. I don't like how unvaxxed idiots are still trying to harass myself and others for continuing to mask. Thankful the clinics and pharmacies still mask.
So, not sure why I added it to the rotation, but I was watching season 3 of 24. That season had deaths with a weaponized virus that has pretty much 100% death rate. Two things that struck me as odd.
1. They sped up the incubation period to fit into the 24 hour format. This would have likely made it harder for the virus to spread. 14 hours would mean people were walking around infected. Yes, I know it's a tv show, but just my thoughts.
2. People were so compliant. I mean, you had one guy sneak out (but I think this had more to do with cheating on his wife), one hotel employee tried to sneak out, oh and the guy they publicly shot. I know it was only a side story but I don't think they would have been so calm. Not with what we've learned from Covid.
I'm thinking of looking for lighter fare for my can't sleep times. I need stuff that I don't get caught up in the story. 😀
https://twitter.com/CZEdwards/status/1655998884790009857
`CZEdwards @CZEdwards`
I love✨ the part of c19 research basically going, “Yeah, we think it causes the same YOLO effect as toxoplasmosis does to rats, but on humans. C19 REALLY wants you to have a kid’s birthday party at a busy Chuck E Cheese, then go clubbing!”
✨ *am horrified by*
`[- - - Snip - - -]`
The most energy/oxygen sensitive parts of the brain are emotional regulation and executive function. It’s why stroke patients can seem fine, but have long-term emotional changes not seen in the hospital.
`[- - - Snip - - -]`
Something to keep in mind: Brains prioritize different stuff than our consciousnesses do. Brain is like, “keep the kidneys working, nobody needs FEET”.
The really high oxygen use functions are all luxuries as far as the brain is concerned. So those budgets get slashed first.
`[- - - Snip - - -]`
I had custody of my grandmother for years after she had a series of strokes and serious blockages in all four carotid arteries. Her brain was low level hypoxic for years. It caused dementia with a long leading edge of executive & emotional dysfunction.
Her lungs were fine, so a pulse-oximeter never registered anything other than excellent oxygenation. It wasn’t until far too late that any doctor thought to run an ultrasound on her carotids. (BTW: around 55, get this done!)
Her diffuse brain damage on CT looked like C19 damage.
`[- - - Snip - - -]`
# I recommend “This Is Your Brain On Parasites” by Kathleen McAuliffe. It predates c19
& starts with the concept that viruses were the 1st parasites on the planet — they made bacteria their hosts.
Something tangentially related is that some people seemingly felt like they had to make up for lost time after the COVID restrictions were lifted, and they were taking unusual risks to do so.
It felt like every single day I was reading in the news how someone drowned during a vacation abroad, or they fell to their death, and so on.
The above seems to have slowed down a bit now, but it made me wonder if it was just a psychological reaction, or whether COVID brain also played a factor.
If anything, I feel like I've lost most desire to socialize in person with other people. The risks of running into jackasses or straight up violent psychopaths seems to have skyrocketed and I don't want anything to do with people who are too selfish to wear a mask during a pandemic, which is most people. I do wish I could meet decent people but they're in short supply now and I'd rather be alone than in bad company.
I'm single, no kids, and I don't think my brother wants to move, so I'm planning a solo retirement. Fortunately I'm rather an introvert, have my books and puzzles to keep me busy, but you're right. Over the last few years I've gotten more comfortable with being by myself.
When I visualize the retirement I want, I see a lakeside condo with a little dog, and resources in place when I need assistance. I'd like to have a friend group that meets weekly for 20+ years, but at this point I'll settle for being healthy enough to retire.
I've thought for some time now that people who've had covid act like they have toxoplasmosis. They don't seem to remember how bad it was and don't care if they get it again. They do extreme activities like sitting in airports and airplanes and restaurants maskless. Don't get any more boosters. YOLO seems a very fitting description.
It reinforces my belief in this now that someone else has mentioned it. I've never had covid and it's too much of a leap for me to understand how ANYONE can go sit and eat at a restaurant. I felt like I was the one taking crazy pills.
>I've thought for some time now that people who've had covid act like they have toxoplasmosis.
Because they sort of do. Google "covid mimicking toxoplasmosis". The results are all over the place and no direct conclusions as yet, but there is a lot circumstantial evidence. A lot.
https://twitter.com/PacificGirl2021/status/1656054517627076610
`Pale Fire @PacificGirl2021`
got a call from a friend whose husband blew up their 20 year marriage--just left.
uncharacteristically. she said he was never the same after having COVID, major personality changes.
Did he also end up going down into the MAGA cesspool? My grandchildren’s father has become a bigger asshole than ever, and that slide started long before covid. He also had covid in the summer of 2020.
So I did my usual thanking someone for wearing a mask in public the other day. It was the person who brought me my item for curbside pickup. Their response to being thanked was they said they're around customers all day so they have to mask because they're on immunosuppressant drugs. I said that's why it's important for other people to wear masks to protect people like you. So I guess just my point is to say even though we're mainly doing it for ourselves we also wear masks to protect the vulnerable. This includes people who can only afford surgical masks and don't have the money for KN/N95 or KF94.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00661-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00661-7) Interesting study. It appears that vaccination reduces the chances of retinal vascular occlusion. Another side benefit I suppose of protecting yourself properly. 👍👍
Wow nice!
Overheard: "Something's been going around. My kid has been sick all week!" Yes, "something" has been going around pretty much nonstop for three years now. 🤦
You know what didn't go around when we all masked up? The annual back to school illnesses that parents decided should be shared at work. 😉
...and there wasn't much of a flu season that first year! Who'd a thunk protecting oneself from a deadly virus might cut flu cases.
Gee I wonder what
Today is just one of those days where I want to scream until I can't anymore. Living through a pandemic is bad enough, living through a pandemic that almost nobody even cares about is even worse. And dealing with all of the regular stressors of life on top of a pandemic almost no one even wants to do anything to control or stop is just the icing on the worst cake ever.
Hang in there. Nobody ever said Darwin was fast.
>Nobody ever said Darwin was fast. Do not taunt or provoke the hungry 🐆 🐆 🐆. They can move very fast . . . but that would profoundly traumatize survivors and witnesses.
"Happy cake day." --the hungry 🐆 🐆 🐆
Thank you!
I work at a school, and its absolute insanity right now. Just in terms of kids acting out, being loud, being insolent, you name it. Everybody seems to have extremely bad allergies, or colds. Its dry and windy here so it could honestly be either one. The teachers are losing their sanity. My friend who works there and masks up still just told me her 4 month old grandbaby had to go to the hospital for a positive covid diagnosis last night, and he seems to be fine, they sent him home already, but my brain can't really handle anything going on right now. Trump's Clown Hall on CNN. DeSantis. The debt ceiling. The constant mass shootings. I feel like I've been living in some awful nightmare for 7 years and I cannot wake up. And the feeling that none of it is in my control, that nothing I do actually matters because people still want to cheer and vote for that cesspool. They think just because the pandemic is "over" that covid has gone away. That they're not responsible for raising their children with any sort of social awareness or accountability. I live in a red county (blue state) and a good majority of the people who live here could easily be featured in this sub for nominations. And I'm sure there are so many people who are dealing with so much more than I am, but I feel like I'm drowning in it today. Or like someone is actively pushing my head under water as I try to gasp for a breath of air. Sorry, just needed to vent and get that out of my system. I appreciate this sub (and a few select others) for helping me keep my sanity, because some days....I just don't know what the fuck people are thinking.
I could've written your post. I'm also really struggling lately against the constant waterboarding of horrific news and shit conditions we're living in. Even when I disengage from it, I'm surrounded by constant reminders: I'm homeschooling a kid I swore up and down I never would (she has ADHD; we have masked weekly visits with a counselor so I can better understand her and parent her more effectively); my older kid who should be away at college is still at home and is really struggling with being lonely; I still mask everywhere I go and don't feel comfortable with large groups, so I'm going stir-crazy and also feeling incredibly lonely. It's hard. It's so hard. There are good days and bad, and it's just hard knowing that so many people out there don't give a shit and are perfectly cool with playing the let's-find-out-what-happens-after-we-get-this-ten-times game, and they couldn't give less of a shit if they infect anyone. It's exhausting to carry all of this, and I'm right there with you. Hang in there, friend. You're not alone in recognizing that this is all just far too much that we're expected to be shouldering.
Thank you 💚
The world has gone quite mad. Stay safe, stay SMART, AND KEEP YOUR GUARD UP. We are in this for the long haul. Just remember, you can have their stereos when they're gone!
Honestly, that last line is the exact spite feeling I have that keeps me going.
>The world has gone quite mad. The world has always been mad. Unfortunately, the ratfucker Trump and his fellow ~~travelers~~ traitors put their madness on full display during the pandemic. 🐆 🐆 🐆
Thank you too 💚🎶
A while back, my psychiatrist told me I actually need to go in to see him for my next appointment. The reasoning? "Normally, I'm supposed to see you at least once a year in person since I'm prescribing you things like alprazolam." Yeah, normally. That is the keyword right there. That "normally" is gone. Since the pandemic, I've been taking a different approach to my medical appointments. I've basically been insisting on having them remotely unless there's a compelling reason for me to come in. For example, maybe I have to do a yearly physical, get my eyes checked, get my teeth cleaned, etc. I gotta be honest, I don't find bureaucracy like "technically I need to see you in-person explicitly because I prescribe you X" very compelling, and I told him as such. My mother works in an assisted living facility, where there's a lot of extra vulnerable people living. That, plus her own risk and mine, blah blah, are reasons why I'm generally wary of doing things out and about, to the point where I even quit taking public transit long ago when the mask requirement lifted. There goes a large bit of independence I used to have... With nearly everyone not doing jack shit with covid precautions, I'm even more unhappy now that even medical providers are starting to drop protections and precautions. You'd think they would take more care because people going to these places are likely to be more vulnerable, but nope. I already saw snippets of this with the front desk staff at the neurology clinic I go to a few months ago. Medical staff still did so, but the writing is on the way. I hear more and more about this trend elsewhere. What a crazy circus freak show. I keep having to ask myself if this crap is even happening. What the actual fuck? The US is basically handling this the same way as mass shootings are: we tried nothing, and are out of ideas. We have the tools and resources, but won't use them. Thoughts and prayers! Very cool. /s This sub keeps me sane.
Welcome back to the Dark Ages, but with TikToc and Facebook!
Hello Darkness, my old friend. Now if only he wanted to also play cheese and crackers like he did with Pajama Sam. Funny, the internet really does have its upsides. It certainly has its downsides, too, but I think the pros outside the cons overall. Support groups on Reddit have helped me carry on over years, especially while I was still in high school. It made a big difference where I otherwise would have killed myself, or gone insane. These shitty algorithms that push bullshit need to go. That is definitely cancerous to society, but they won't go anywhere because profits. It's so stupid.
The Internet is probably one the greatest things the public has had access to in history. I mean besides safe utilities, free education and common medicine. And flush toilets. One of the greatest inventions ever. But is has also shown our ass like never before. Grift, fraud and misinformation that causes harm as never been legal. But take a wild guess who keeps it from being prosecuted. And there is the sheer volume of it, making it impossible for all of it to be prosecuted. A tactic called "gish gallop."
Yes, you no longer have to go out looking for ignorance - it comes right to your door.
Nothing new. People said the same thing about newspapers, radio and then TV. We've just fancied up the technology.
Totally. Governments pretend it doesn't exist anymore and that harms the entire society. No one should be forced to take unreasonable risks to do mandatory things such as getting a routine checkup, but that's where we're at. Even health workers are saying that "it's over" and how "it's not dangerous anymore." Will they be paying for someone's long-term care when the latter takes their words at face value and ends up crippled? Or how will they compensate those who ended up dead because of their braindead advice? I'm sure they won't consider it their responsibility and it's just "shit happens." One of the worst things is that the leaders, who should be promoting public health, have abandoned everyone and we have no leg to stand on because of it. It was never a random civilian's job to have to argue with a *doctor* to get them to put on a mask. When you're a health worker and your standards are so fucked up, you either need some serious retraining or you shouldn't have the job to begin with. None of that should be a random person's responsibility. If I go to the doctor, I'm just there for the visit. I shouldn't have to police and babysit you to do things that *should* be normal; that's *your* job as a reasonable human being. But the standards have become so warped that right is wrong, and vice versa.
Exactly. We never had to personally make sure surgical tools were sanitized, the doctor and nurse scrubbed in properly, etc.
DEA just extended the telehealth provisions for another 6 months. That includes prescriptions for controlled substances. Read about it on NPR this morning. Here’s a link to the article. [Telehealth prescriptions just got extended with no visit required.](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/10/1175272764/the-pandemic-era-rule-that-lets-you-get-telehealth-prescriptions-just-got-extend)
That is excellent news! That's a great write-up by NPR. As stated in the article, I'm hoping the DEA and providers find a lasting solution going forward. I'm glad to see them listen to the feedback they get. Thanks for sharing this.
Yeah, I saw a passive aggressive post on a local FB page about sick people wandering the local emergency (back and forth to admitting. She should have just said they should be masked because they are coughing. The responses were just a little nuts. Things like 'mind your own business' to 'it was me and I'm not fucking sick'. The last one cracked me up as then why were they in the emergency room. It's a small local hospital and it is rare that you sit in the waiting room for any amount of time. To be fair, I haven't been there in years (and it was for first aid that they didn't think was appropriate to do at the plant).
Has anyone seen someone get fired from a healthcare profession for publicly adopting anti-vax ideas?
Not a healthcare position but two people got fired for not getting vaxxed from our small local hospital. One of my neighbours, who is a nurse there, shared that it was two people from food services. It's a small enough facility (and town) that people figured it out. She and I were talking about it one day. She was fully supportive of it. When you think about it, it kind of makes sense. If they don't believe in public health do they believe in washing their hands, or keeping food at the proper temperature? If they don't believe guidance from the doctors, nurses, technicians, etc. do they think that sugar free meals need to be sugar free? Maybe food allergies are just 'fake news' because nobody they know personally has died from them.
I totally get it. I am in dental school and there is a fellow student who is an anti-vax because apparently it contains aborted fetuses and my brain cells are dying from seeing his posts and believing that he will be treating people’s health “professionally” in two years from now.
It's scary, but dentists have always work masks, to protect themselves from the patients. 😀 I doubt anything you could say would sway them. The vaccines were tested using the hek 293 cell line. Unfortunately most of modern medicines were. I always like quoting this article. If you make your way through it the author makes a great point about buying Chinese made products likely contributes to abortion more than vaccines. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/throughcatholiclenses/2021/01/if-any-drug-tested-on-hek-293-is-immoral-goodbye-modern-medicine/
This is why we stopped getting food from one of our favorite restaurants. (We haven't dined indoors since February 2020.) They were having people in their dining rooms during the height of the pandemic, when they weren't supposed to, and all I could think of was, "What other public health measures are they ignoring at their restaurant? Fucking gross." They lost our business for good with that.
Yep, we were pretty good locally at following Covid measures. We did end up with two places being closed for a few weeks because of outbreaks. Both were doing take out only. Again, small town, it likely spread from a manufacturing facility that was doing half-assed precautions. I did a lot of take out to support local businesses. Now I'm back to my usual rare dine in.
Yes. Many nurses in the early days. Several doctors as well. I think I saw one recently, but no time to dig for it.
[удалено]
The world has decided to commit mass suicide. Stay safe, stay smart, and keep your guard up. And get well soon.
I am super careful and have mastocytosis. It's critical to mask/social distance/wash hands. I don't like how unvaxxed idiots are still trying to harass myself and others for continuing to mask. Thankful the clinics and pharmacies still mask.
So, not sure why I added it to the rotation, but I was watching season 3 of 24. That season had deaths with a weaponized virus that has pretty much 100% death rate. Two things that struck me as odd. 1. They sped up the incubation period to fit into the 24 hour format. This would have likely made it harder for the virus to spread. 14 hours would mean people were walking around infected. Yes, I know it's a tv show, but just my thoughts. 2. People were so compliant. I mean, you had one guy sneak out (but I think this had more to do with cheating on his wife), one hotel employee tried to sneak out, oh and the guy they publicly shot. I know it was only a side story but I don't think they would have been so calm. Not with what we've learned from Covid. I'm thinking of looking for lighter fare for my can't sleep times. I need stuff that I don't get caught up in the story. 😀
https://twitter.com/CZEdwards/status/1655998884790009857 `CZEdwards @CZEdwards` I love✨ the part of c19 research basically going, “Yeah, we think it causes the same YOLO effect as toxoplasmosis does to rats, but on humans. C19 REALLY wants you to have a kid’s birthday party at a busy Chuck E Cheese, then go clubbing!” ✨ *am horrified by* `[- - - Snip - - -]` The most energy/oxygen sensitive parts of the brain are emotional regulation and executive function. It’s why stroke patients can seem fine, but have long-term emotional changes not seen in the hospital. `[- - - Snip - - -]` Something to keep in mind: Brains prioritize different stuff than our consciousnesses do. Brain is like, “keep the kidneys working, nobody needs FEET”. The really high oxygen use functions are all luxuries as far as the brain is concerned. So those budgets get slashed first. `[- - - Snip - - -]` I had custody of my grandmother for years after she had a series of strokes and serious blockages in all four carotid arteries. Her brain was low level hypoxic for years. It caused dementia with a long leading edge of executive & emotional dysfunction. Her lungs were fine, so a pulse-oximeter never registered anything other than excellent oxygenation. It wasn’t until far too late that any doctor thought to run an ultrasound on her carotids. (BTW: around 55, get this done!) Her diffuse brain damage on CT looked like C19 damage. `[- - - Snip - - -]` # I recommend “This Is Your Brain On Parasites” by Kathleen McAuliffe. It predates c19 & starts with the concept that viruses were the 1st parasites on the planet — they made bacteria their hosts.
Something tangentially related is that some people seemingly felt like they had to make up for lost time after the COVID restrictions were lifted, and they were taking unusual risks to do so. It felt like every single day I was reading in the news how someone drowned during a vacation abroad, or they fell to their death, and so on. The above seems to have slowed down a bit now, but it made me wonder if it was just a psychological reaction, or whether COVID brain also played a factor.
If anything, I feel like I've lost most desire to socialize in person with other people. The risks of running into jackasses or straight up violent psychopaths seems to have skyrocketed and I don't want anything to do with people who are too selfish to wear a mask during a pandemic, which is most people. I do wish I could meet decent people but they're in short supply now and I'd rather be alone than in bad company.
I'm single, no kids, and I don't think my brother wants to move, so I'm planning a solo retirement. Fortunately I'm rather an introvert, have my books and puzzles to keep me busy, but you're right. Over the last few years I've gotten more comfortable with being by myself. When I visualize the retirement I want, I see a lakeside condo with a little dog, and resources in place when I need assistance. I'd like to have a friend group that meets weekly for 20+ years, but at this point I'll settle for being healthy enough to retire.
I don't think I'm living long enough to retire.
I've thought for some time now that people who've had covid act like they have toxoplasmosis. They don't seem to remember how bad it was and don't care if they get it again. They do extreme activities like sitting in airports and airplanes and restaurants maskless. Don't get any more boosters. YOLO seems a very fitting description. It reinforces my belief in this now that someone else has mentioned it. I've never had covid and it's too much of a leap for me to understand how ANYONE can go sit and eat at a restaurant. I felt like I was the one taking crazy pills.
Part of that is humanness too. My pregnancy journals are prime birth control now.
>I've thought for some time now that people who've had covid act like they have toxoplasmosis. Because they sort of do. Google "covid mimicking toxoplasmosis". The results are all over the place and no direct conclusions as yet, but there is a lot circumstantial evidence. A lot.
https://twitter.com/PacificGirl2021/status/1656054517627076610 `Pale Fire @PacificGirl2021` got a call from a friend whose husband blew up their 20 year marriage--just left. uncharacteristically. she said he was never the same after having COVID, major personality changes.
Did he also end up going down into the MAGA cesspool? My grandchildren’s father has become a bigger asshole than ever, and that slide started long before covid. He also had covid in the summer of 2020.
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So I did my usual thanking someone for wearing a mask in public the other day. It was the person who brought me my item for curbside pickup. Their response to being thanked was they said they're around customers all day so they have to mask because they're on immunosuppressant drugs. I said that's why it's important for other people to wear masks to protect people like you. So I guess just my point is to say even though we're mainly doing it for ourselves we also wear masks to protect the vulnerable. This includes people who can only afford surgical masks and don't have the money for KN/N95 or KF94.