While driving into Sag Harbor for a movie and some fine dining at The Corner Bar I realized that Covid is here for good, that considering the inequitable distribution of vaccines, the intransigence of so many anti-vaccine people, and the inter-connectivity of countries, we're basically f-d. You're right, get boostered. I did in September.
This reads like it came right out of an old Rod Serling 'Twilight Zone' story. How many more variants have to show up before the deadheads get the message that they need to step up and get vaccinated.
Twilight Zone . Most of the world is really screwed. Poor nations population will be reduced by death and long term mortality issues unless someone figures out how to kill Covid with a Ray Gun or AR15.
I’m pulling my jigsaw puzzles out of the cellar…it’s my mindless lockdown pastime. With only 59 percent double vaxed I fear a repeat of April-June 2020 here in NYC. Loved the list of airlines and your 6 am trip to JFK with Lily.
I recall in 1969 being a rifleman in Vietnam. The Army Infantry was 88% draftees in 69. About a 1/3 were wounded or hit with malaria. Fatalities among the wounded were about a third. It was so miserable that some guys actually tried to get Malaria by not taking their pills. A lifelong error for these dudes. -- with a disease that can keeps returning. So take your vaccine. As my platoon Sarge warned us, " Not all of your dumb sons of bitches will survive. So try not to be stupid because the rest of us will have to put you in a body bag and drag you to a helicopter".
That is a bit like we are now. Many Stupid people will get COVID and have gotten it. The rest of us have to help carry them....
I believe that this is the variant that we were afraid of that could happen. I hate being a doomsayer, but if the governments around the world are already banning flights and entry into their countries based on the WHO's "variant of concern" then there's a damn good reason for it.
And then we should be redoubling our efforts of masking, vaccination, and isolation.
I've been isolating myself out of not only necessity but of practical use-I live alone, with no neighbors, very few visitors (who are already vaccinated) and when at work I'm very much masked up, and I don't linger around when I'm off duty.
I'm not taking anything for granted. I've been putting off dental work for another 6 months at least for the simple reason is that I don't trust anyone to be vaccinated or masked up to standards. My state is having a surge, and it's a bad one.
I'd rather not be a statistic.
Keep safe and keep on your guard. This variant could be the big one. It's scary enough to frighten scientists, it should frighten all of us.
The mayors of several Chicago suburbs have eliminated the Statewide mask mandate that was put back in place by our Governor in August. Once you let the Genie out of the bottle, it’s very difficult to get him back in.
I'm so glad you posted that list of airlines from JFK. That's what I had been envisioning at all major airports; just walking from one terminal to another in one of those vast spaces, is like a walk through the entire globe. And then think of the airports like London Heathrow, where hordes of people rush through crowded passageways to board buses jammed with other passengers, to be transported to different terminals. We are ALL interconnected, whether we realize it or not. And with the one woman in Belgium example to build upon, I would submit that we are already "there" in this country with Omicron.
The hardest part of transitioning from life BC (before Covid) to life DC (during Covid) for me was "transitioning" - meaning, how do I live my life now? Fortunately for me, although I had to give up shopping, acting, making music with groups, and attending functions with friends and family and other activities involving groups, I had enough personal interests in my own space that not only kept me occupied, but kept me mentally engaged. And discovering your substack and others became an important of my life DC. Through you and your subscribers, I have found my own world vastly expanded, even though it's through a keyboard or a zoom meeting or some other virtual way to connect. It's been a wonderful and interesting new journey.
And then my good friend and artist, Toni, agreed to take me on as a student of water color. So, my tiny bubble expanded from two to include her and with it an entire NEW universe to explore. If Omicron restricts my desire to get out and about (which has abated, I must confess!), so be it. I'm good for the duration. I just want to be around for the time when it is "all gone"! LOL! Sorry, for so much personal. But thank you again!
Omicron looks like a variant of "OMG!" or maybe "Oh, Macron!" Which could refer to either the president of France or (lowercased) the short horizontal line over a long vowel. I'm wishing, not for the first time, that the so-called responsible media could dial down their "emergency! emergency!" tone till they actually know what they're talking about. Crowd-think doesn't make anyone smarter, and given the low baseline we seem to be dealing with in this country . . . Most of the time I'm more worried about my fellow USians than I am about Covid-19.
I haven't got your ear but I have your attention for a minute - being snotty achieves this 😊. I, of course, don't know what you have read or studied in depth but when a writer with a readership of at least hundreds of smart people says "go get a booster" I know prima facie that you haven't thought the booster idea through with your own reasoning or read any research on the subject (because it doesn't exist yet). We all have heard that it typically takes years to develop a vaccine. This covid vaccine development schedule has been remarkable - 6 to 8 months and whammo ! a vaccine that is working. My question for you and your snarling supporters: What is getting boosted with a booster shot? It is either the same stuff you originally got injected with (good luck with Delta and Omicron) or some new(ish) genetic revision / protein expression of an evolved spike protein molecule - whatever is in the booster - it hasn't been proven anywhere that it is boosting anything (this from Dr. Racaniello - the smartest virologist in the room - Columbia researcher). The whole concepts of boosters for such a rapidly mutating pathogen is screwy - by the time drug concoctors have got a booster molecule the damn thing has mutated again so the patient is always 6 months behind the latest killer bug and patient is shot full of several different vax antigens crowding up your B Cell / plasma cell factories in your bone marrow when they are very busy trying to grok the very latest virus particle you have inhaled. Your immune system is brilliant about reading hyper-fine variations of pathogenic proteins and developing a hyper-specific antibody for it within a few days of it entering your body. If a person is clogging up their natural immune cascades with 6-month old antibody products, your immune system can't do what 500 million years of evolution have allowed it to do. Well-intentioned doctors / drug makers have a long history of fucking things up and drug makers have a filthy recent history of pushing unecessary drugs for profit with ZERO regard for customer health. To see you light up for the booster idea was disappointing. We grew up in an era where boosters for polio, mumps, and measles were the norm. Polio, mumps and measles are different microorganisms than SARS-CoV-2 which mutates VERY fast. I put on my Mr. "know-it-all" persona simply to bug people - Hey ! It works! - everybody hates a know-it-all. Funny thing is I feel like I know verrrry little but most people in the media-sphere know a lot less.
Many thanks (?) for this diatribe directed at those of us who are obviously not nearly as wise and well-informed as you. As my dear Mother would say: sometimes there’s great value in saying nothing at all! I am aware that it is the same shot, just time to boost up!
That said....Don't let me get in the way of your education - Racanello's great and so is the Dettmer book. BTW - try to find one study that supports a covid booster - just one...from anywhere in the world. Even an excellent writer isn't going to be un-fuzzy on everything. You are 85% right down the strike zone on your covid articles - get vaxxed / wear a mask / be careful. People typically get huffy when they are wrong - see: you and your name-calling subscribers. Why would I want to unsubscribe to my favorite blog?
My "education?" How do you know what I have read or otherwise heard or seen and chosen to consider or disgard? But you are right about one thing. I do tend to get huffy when people who don't know me start lecturing me about my clotted fuzz and inferring that I am somehow in the thrall of big pharma. You could use a little help getting people to listen to what you have to say. You certainly haven't got my ear with your snide know it all attitude.
You're pushing a booster - why? Boost what? Boost your vaccine mRNA cocktail that fights a 2-year old strain of SARS-C0V-2? Where is a single shred of science that proves a booster is effective ?- science from anywhere / anybody / any lab even against Delta let alone Omicron. You're coming across as a friend of big pharma - LTIV To do to get more informed: Watch Dr. Vincent Racaniello's You Tube Q&A sessions (weekly) where he discusses many aspects of this whole pandemic. Google the guy - to get REALLY wised up watch his 25 one-hour lectures on virology. Set aside an hour a day to get up to speed - beyond the normal smart person clotted fuzz. Don't miss the GREAT new book "Immune" by Phillip Dettmer for a super grand view of our(or any mammal) immune system. All of this easy-access info will allow you to think fresh, independent thooughts on the subject you write about so often.
"Normal smart person clotted fuzz?" Thanks a lot, pal. Any time you want to unsubscrie to my un-fresh non-independent newsletter, just let me know..I will contact my friends at big pharma and let them know that they can relax, because I'm no longer getting my clotted fuzz brain polluted by your super grand fresh independence.
...yeah, but then what'll the dogs do? that's always the first place my head goes when I contemplate apocalyptic scenarios. as for this whole booster thing: my understanding is that the need for a booster (or PROBABLE need) is based on a person's antibody count. the doctors I know seem to feel that a booster is a very good idea but is probably a bit less essential if that antibody level is very high. I know that my doctor insisted on doing that test after I had my very mild case of Covid and after my first Moderna shot. I got my booster and flu shots the same night around ten days ago. felt crappy one day and that was that.
To your little coda, "COVID is tiny, COVID is quick, COVID is clever, COVID makes you sick", I would add, "So please do your part, Don't be a dick!".
Well-said, sir!
Just returned from Greece a few weeks ago. Everyone masked, had to show vaccination card to enter museums and archaelogical sites.
At my local Walmart here in DeSantistan (Southwest Florida) today, hardly anyone masked.
Here we go again.
While driving into Sag Harbor for a movie and some fine dining at The Corner Bar I realized that Covid is here for good, that considering the inequitable distribution of vaccines, the intransigence of so many anti-vaccine people, and the inter-connectivity of countries, we're basically f-d. You're right, get boostered. I did in September.
This reads like it came right out of an old Rod Serling 'Twilight Zone' story. How many more variants have to show up before the deadheads get the message that they need to step up and get vaccinated.
Twilight Zone . Most of the world is really screwed. Poor nations population will be reduced by death and long term mortality issues unless someone figures out how to kill Covid with a Ray Gun or AR15.
I’m pulling my jigsaw puzzles out of the cellar…it’s my mindless lockdown pastime. With only 59 percent double vaxed I fear a repeat of April-June 2020 here in NYC. Loved the list of airlines and your 6 am trip to JFK with Lily.
I recall in 1969 being a rifleman in Vietnam. The Army Infantry was 88% draftees in 69. About a 1/3 were wounded or hit with malaria. Fatalities among the wounded were about a third. It was so miserable that some guys actually tried to get Malaria by not taking their pills. A lifelong error for these dudes. -- with a disease that can keeps returning. So take your vaccine. As my platoon Sarge warned us, " Not all of your dumb sons of bitches will survive. So try not to be stupid because the rest of us will have to put you in a body bag and drag you to a helicopter".
That is a bit like we are now. Many Stupid people will get COVID and have gotten it. The rest of us have to help carry them....
I believe that this is the variant that we were afraid of that could happen. I hate being a doomsayer, but if the governments around the world are already banning flights and entry into their countries based on the WHO's "variant of concern" then there's a damn good reason for it.
I just looked it up, too.
It's worth looking at:
https://www.who.int/news/item/26-11-2021-classification-of-omicron-(b.1.1.529)-sars-cov-2-variant-of-concern
And then we should be redoubling our efforts of masking, vaccination, and isolation.
I've been isolating myself out of not only necessity but of practical use-I live alone, with no neighbors, very few visitors (who are already vaccinated) and when at work I'm very much masked up, and I don't linger around when I'm off duty.
I'm not taking anything for granted. I've been putting off dental work for another 6 months at least for the simple reason is that I don't trust anyone to be vaccinated or masked up to standards. My state is having a surge, and it's a bad one.
I'd rather not be a statistic.
Keep safe and keep on your guard. This variant could be the big one. It's scary enough to frighten scientists, it should frighten all of us.
This is the public service message we need to hear. Thank you, LT4!
The mayors of several Chicago suburbs have eliminated the Statewide mask mandate that was put back in place by our Governor in August. Once you let the Genie out of the bottle, it’s very difficult to get him back in.
I'm so glad you posted that list of airlines from JFK. That's what I had been envisioning at all major airports; just walking from one terminal to another in one of those vast spaces, is like a walk through the entire globe. And then think of the airports like London Heathrow, where hordes of people rush through crowded passageways to board buses jammed with other passengers, to be transported to different terminals. We are ALL interconnected, whether we realize it or not. And with the one woman in Belgium example to build upon, I would submit that we are already "there" in this country with Omicron.
The hardest part of transitioning from life BC (before Covid) to life DC (during Covid) for me was "transitioning" - meaning, how do I live my life now? Fortunately for me, although I had to give up shopping, acting, making music with groups, and attending functions with friends and family and other activities involving groups, I had enough personal interests in my own space that not only kept me occupied, but kept me mentally engaged. And discovering your substack and others became an important of my life DC. Through you and your subscribers, I have found my own world vastly expanded, even though it's through a keyboard or a zoom meeting or some other virtual way to connect. It's been a wonderful and interesting new journey.
And then my good friend and artist, Toni, agreed to take me on as a student of water color. So, my tiny bubble expanded from two to include her and with it an entire NEW universe to explore. If Omicron restricts my desire to get out and about (which has abated, I must confess!), so be it. I'm good for the duration. I just want to be around for the time when it is "all gone"! LOL! Sorry, for so much personal. But thank you again!
Omicron looks like a variant of "OMG!" or maybe "Oh, Macron!" Which could refer to either the president of France or (lowercased) the short horizontal line over a long vowel. I'm wishing, not for the first time, that the so-called responsible media could dial down their "emergency! emergency!" tone till they actually know what they're talking about. Crowd-think doesn't make anyone smarter, and given the low baseline we seem to be dealing with in this country . . . Most of the time I'm more worried about my fellow USians than I am about Covid-19.
I haven't got your ear but I have your attention for a minute - being snotty achieves this 😊. I, of course, don't know what you have read or studied in depth but when a writer with a readership of at least hundreds of smart people says "go get a booster" I know prima facie that you haven't thought the booster idea through with your own reasoning or read any research on the subject (because it doesn't exist yet). We all have heard that it typically takes years to develop a vaccine. This covid vaccine development schedule has been remarkable - 6 to 8 months and whammo ! a vaccine that is working. My question for you and your snarling supporters: What is getting boosted with a booster shot? It is either the same stuff you originally got injected with (good luck with Delta and Omicron) or some new(ish) genetic revision / protein expression of an evolved spike protein molecule - whatever is in the booster - it hasn't been proven anywhere that it is boosting anything (this from Dr. Racaniello - the smartest virologist in the room - Columbia researcher). The whole concepts of boosters for such a rapidly mutating pathogen is screwy - by the time drug concoctors have got a booster molecule the damn thing has mutated again so the patient is always 6 months behind the latest killer bug and patient is shot full of several different vax antigens crowding up your B Cell / plasma cell factories in your bone marrow when they are very busy trying to grok the very latest virus particle you have inhaled. Your immune system is brilliant about reading hyper-fine variations of pathogenic proteins and developing a hyper-specific antibody for it within a few days of it entering your body. If a person is clogging up their natural immune cascades with 6-month old antibody products, your immune system can't do what 500 million years of evolution have allowed it to do. Well-intentioned doctors / drug makers have a long history of fucking things up and drug makers have a filthy recent history of pushing unecessary drugs for profit with ZERO regard for customer health. To see you light up for the booster idea was disappointing. We grew up in an era where boosters for polio, mumps, and measles were the norm. Polio, mumps and measles are different microorganisms than SARS-CoV-2 which mutates VERY fast. I put on my Mr. "know-it-all" persona simply to bug people - Hey ! It works! - everybody hates a know-it-all. Funny thing is I feel like I know verrrry little but most people in the media-sphere know a lot less.
Many thanks (?) for this diatribe directed at those of us who are obviously not nearly as wise and well-informed as you. As my dear Mother would say: sometimes there’s great value in saying nothing at all! I am aware that it is the same shot, just time to boost up!
My booster doesn't show up in my Excelsior Pass yet, gotta figure that out, meatime I Feel FIne...https://youtu.be/WrAV5EVI4tU
That said....Don't let me get in the way of your education - Racanello's great and so is the Dettmer book. BTW - try to find one study that supports a covid booster - just one...from anywhere in the world. Even an excellent writer isn't going to be un-fuzzy on everything. You are 85% right down the strike zone on your covid articles - get vaxxed / wear a mask / be careful. People typically get huffy when they are wrong - see: you and your name-calling subscribers. Why would I want to unsubscribe to my favorite blog?
My "education?" How do you know what I have read or otherwise heard or seen and chosen to consider or disgard? But you are right about one thing. I do tend to get huffy when people who don't know me start lecturing me about my clotted fuzz and inferring that I am somehow in the thrall of big pharma. You could use a little help getting people to listen to what you have to say. You certainly haven't got my ear with your snide know it all attitude.
You're pushing a booster - why? Boost what? Boost your vaccine mRNA cocktail that fights a 2-year old strain of SARS-C0V-2? Where is a single shred of science that proves a booster is effective ?- science from anywhere / anybody / any lab even against Delta let alone Omicron. You're coming across as a friend of big pharma - LTIV To do to get more informed: Watch Dr. Vincent Racaniello's You Tube Q&A sessions (weekly) where he discusses many aspects of this whole pandemic. Google the guy - to get REALLY wised up watch his 25 one-hour lectures on virology. Set aside an hour a day to get up to speed - beyond the normal smart person clotted fuzz. Don't miss the GREAT new book "Immune" by Phillip Dettmer for a super grand view of our(or any mammal) immune system. All of this easy-access info will allow you to think fresh, independent thooughts on the subject you write about so often.
"Normal smart person clotted fuzz?" Thanks a lot, pal. Any time you want to unsubscrie to my un-fresh non-independent newsletter, just let me know..I will contact my friends at big pharma and let them know that they can relax, because I'm no longer getting my clotted fuzz brain polluted by your super grand fresh independence.
Note to myself: Avoid Jim Blake's rubbish.
...yeah, but then what'll the dogs do? that's always the first place my head goes when I contemplate apocalyptic scenarios. as for this whole booster thing: my understanding is that the need for a booster (or PROBABLE need) is based on a person's antibody count. the doctors I know seem to feel that a booster is a very good idea but is probably a bit less essential if that antibody level is very high. I know that my doctor insisted on doing that test after I had my very mild case of Covid and after my first Moderna shot. I got my booster and flu shots the same night around ten days ago. felt crappy one day and that was that.