This is the exit wildfire!

Posted on by Thor

Since Omicron surged, many countries have been scrapping COVID-19 restrictions in a shortsighted anticipation of entering an endemic phase. In a post-Omicron world, lockdowns will likely be phased out, and simple safety precautions against the airborne COVID virus, like masking and ventilation are being ignored. The virus is not endemic. No one knows what will happen next.

If the world becomes complacent, the virus will continue to spread in its own enthusiastic fashion. Humanity is simply not intelligent enough to keep safety measures in place until the pandemic is over. Across the country,  people have wishfully returned back to normal in a carefree and ignorant way. An estimated 3 billion people are unvaccinated by choice or lack access to vaccines.

The fire will continue to rage sing there is so much wood left to burn.

It was just a little spark, sparks don’t have any after effects!

Posted on by Thor

Many don’t think it is their responsibility to self isolate when they are sick. They seem to think that a “mild” infection can not spread.

Typical symptoms of a mild case of COVID include…

fever cough, fatigue, loss of smell or taste, body aches and pains, headache, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, digestive symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea.

A case is considered mild if there is no shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Research has found that about 81 percent of people with COVID-19 have a mild or moderate illness. Some people are asymptomatic, not even aware that they are sick and spreading the virus. Research found that people with a mild or moderate illness had at least one symptom for an average of 9.82 days.

So how long are people infectious? The amount of virus detected in the upper respiratory tract (nose and throat) peaked early on, generally in the first 3 to 5 days of illness. People with more severe illness seem to shed virus for a longer time. Individuals over the age of 60 appear to shed the virus longer than younger individuals. The virus is most contagious shortly after symptoms begin. However, some individuals may shed the virus for longer periods of time.

A study of 57 people with mild symptoms found, that the majority are not infectious before symptoms develop, but two-thirds of cases are still infectious five days after their symptoms begin. Lateral flow (at home) tests do not detect the start of infectiousness well, they more accurately identify when someone is no longer infectious and can safely leave isolation.

No one’s getting burnt anymore!

Posted on by Thor

The elite love to minimize COVID. They were among the first to flout COVID restrictions when they existed. That is in part because any precautions might cut into corporate profits. Investing in clean air for workers would be an investment. They also feel secure knowing they would have the best treatments should they become infected.

If you look at Hollywood elites or government elites you will not see a mask insight. The inequalities put on display when the rich and powerful flout the rules only add to public discontent. People are less likely to take even the simplest precautions like wearing a mask when elites act as if the pandemic is over.

By focusing on violations, the media helped undermine compliance by creating false norms, by implying, ‘if everyone else is going out, if everyone else if breaking the rules, why don’t we? Leaders should lead by example and the only person I noted doing that this week was Bernie Sanders who wore his mask in a crowded maskless presidential state of the union address.

A study found that the United States and United Kingdom were the only two countries of the 14 polled where a minority of people said the government had handled Covid-19 well. Not surprisingly those two countries have the highest death rates from COVID in the world. of the 6,782,716 deaths in the world, America is number 1 with  1,140,017 deaths. The UK comes in at number 9 with 205,540 deaths.

 

I’ve got a strong natural defense against bursting into flames!

Posted on by Thor

Does keeping children safe, endanger them? Some scientific “experts” fear that lockdowns could have left children with life-long immunity problems. The fact is that repeat COVID infections are creating life long immunity problems in children. Children are indeed becoming infected with RSV, flu and COVID more often than ever before. This “expert” seems to feel that COVID infections are an education for a child’s immune system.

Data in the UK from the Office for National Statistics suggests about 71,000 children in the UK are suffering from long Covid, which includes symptoms such as debilitating fatigue, brain fog, sleep problems and muscle pain.

On a personal note, I developed scarlet fever as an infant and was not expected to live. Scarlet fever, has had  more than ten times the average number of cases this winter season. COVID-19 reduces the numbers and functional ability of certain types of immune cells in the blood, say researchers. This could affect responses to secondary infections.  96 % of children have already been infected with COVID. Repeat COVID infections are resulting in children being more prone to other infections as well.

You need to burn to develop non-flamability!

Posted on by admin

Some seem to think that getting infected is the solution to fighting an infectious disease. No one is exactly sure how long the protection after natural infection will last and how durable that protection will be against a variety of different variants. An infection will protect you from reinfection against only the variant that caused your illness. The virus is mutating very quickly. The next mutation can cause re-infection. Some people think that after you’ve gotten a natural infection, you will be permanently protected against COVID-19 as if this were measles. That is simply not true.

An infection will cause COVID-19 antibodies can stay in the body for months. New evidence suggests that ‘hybrid’ immunity, the result of both vaccination and a bout of COVID-19, can provide partial protection against reinfection for about eight months. However, if a new variant finds ways to escape the existing immune response, then even a recent infection might not guarantee protection. The Omicron variants circuiting now are mutating at an incredibly fast rate. Many of these new variants are finding ways to break through existing immunity.

The virus is evolving so fast, that it is impossible to predict exactly how many months someone might be protected from re-infection if they survive their bout with COVID. One in five people who are infected develop long COVID which can greatly reduce quality of life.

Toasy Studio

Posted on by Thor

One assignment I have with my virtual Urban Sketching students is to sketch the studio they happen to be working from.I always sketch and paint along with them and explain in this case, one point perspective and how to block in a scene. In this case the foreground has all warm colors while the mid–ground is more neutral and greyed down. I emphasized how things in the foreground will have fewer horizontal lines while object further away might be home horizontal.

You can see how disorganized I am with rags and folders stored in egg carts. Larger sketches are rolled up on the table and stacks of sketchbooks wait to be filled with sketches. Entry to the studio is blocked with a short stack of plastic containers. That is so the dog doesn’t come in and make even more of a mess. When the dogs have to go outside, they sit at the entrance to the studio and stare at me until I stop painting and let them outside. They are a bit spoiled since they can go out at any time since I am always painting.

Another goal of the painting was to make sure anything outside the windows was painted lighter than anything inside. If I had more time I would erase lines and focus on hard and soft edges of objects.

On July 1, 2022 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers that updated booster shots for the fall season will need to have added protections against the latest omicron sub-variants. By this time people were becoming keenly aware that breakthrough infections would shift from a statistical anomaly to a regular occurrence.

We all have to get burned!

Posted on by admin

Public responses to widespread disease have remained mostly unchanged since the Black Death, in the 14th century. Over 3000 COVID related deaths a week in America has become the new normal. Blindly accepting so much death is as American as Sunday football. Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan has a seating capacity of 107,601. What better place for a maskless orgy of denial and disease? If I had any desire to see a Michigan football game I would be perfectly happy to watch on TV.

When people observe others taking risks despite the pandemic they assume those risks are acceptable. Unfortunately from the start of the pandemic, leaders have not been honest and transparent. Contradictory messages are the norm.

Human beings are inherently social, not solitary, creatures. Making that a reality can be accomplished while masking and having some physical distance. Physical distancing is different than social distancing. The human need for connection with other people is probably what fuels a lot of disease transmission. Most people however have abandoned all protective measures. They actively seek to infect others  as they ignore reality and go about life like it was 1999.

Social distancing does not have to equal social isolation. Those are two very different concepts and virtual interaction can make a big difference.

 

This is a wildfire of the unburnt!

Posted on by Thor

Ignoring COVID does not make it go away. The World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that, although everyone is tired of hearing about COVID-19 and its restrictions, “we need to face an undeniable fact…the virus is still very much present among us”. Engaging in risky behavior sends the message that COVID isn’t really their problem, that they don’t see a reason to modify their behavior to mitigate risk. To see this behavior just watch the State of the Union Address in which the only member of Congress to wear a mask was Bernie Sanders. The president giving his speech kept coughing.

People feel helpless and out of control. Their only coping mechanism is to pretest the pandemic does not exist. Complacency, denial and ignorance take over for rational thought. People do not want to live in fear, so they ignore the source of the feat rather than facing the fear. The risk has not magically disappeared, they have chosen to ignore the risk. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is also death.

 

We have all the tools we need to deal with a wildfire!

Posted on by Thor

Tools to fight COVID-19 have been abandoned or are being phased out. Treatments available earlier in the pandemic are becoming useless with the rapidly evolving new variants of the virus. Monoclonal anti-body treatments are no longer effective. “The big problem is that monoclonal antibodies bind to a very small piece of the virus. As the virus changes, we are now in a position in which we lost them all because they don’t bind to the virus anymore,” Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, told NBC News.

In May of 2022 the White House said it would have to wind down it’s COVID relief program since Congress cut  $22.5 billion in COVID relief funding. There will be no more free vaccinations, tests and treatment to the immunocompromised. If more COVID-19 variants emerge, different boosters may be developed to fight them. Without additional funding, the government will not be able to purchase enough boosters for Americans. U.S. doctors will stop accepting claims from uninsured people.

U.S. will no longer be able to invest in more oral antiviral pills or any new promising antiviral treatment. They will also dial back on research into a “next-generation” COVID-19 vaccine that would protect against a wide range of variants. The country “blindsided” to emerging variants. Researchers won’t be able to properly assess any new variants of COVID-19 that could possibly emerge.

You may have a wildfire and you may have water. The water is useless unless you have a way to get the water to the fire.

Wen Misinformation Genie

Posted on by Thor

The pandemic is not over. Yet certain talking heads are placating the public and pretending it is over. Almost 4,000 Americans continue to die every week, about 1,000 more that the number of people who died on 9-11. The death numbers are rising. July 4th of last year president Biden claimed the pandemic was over, and a year later despite all the needless death inbetween, he once again proclaimed the same.

Leana Wen is a research professor of health policy and management. She has been a favored host on CNN. At one point in 2021 she said that people should not be allowed out in public unless they are vaccinated. Far right anti-vaxers were furious. Lately however she seems to be on the far right anti-vax pay roll.

Wen claimed that getting infected should be perceived as the new normal going forward. So 4,000 deaths a week is “the new normal.” In a recent column in the Washington Post, Wen claimed, “We are over counting COVID deaths and hospitalizations.” She didn’t reference any research or data to back up her claim but she did talk to several friends.  The anecdotal opinions of these two friends seemed to be the entire basis for her crazy headline. One said that of the patients he treats in Massachusetts,  just 30% are treated with a steroid for patients suffering from low oxygen. He went on to state that he felt hospitalizations are over counted. Strangely, Wen referenced the 30% number and attributed it to deaths rather than hospitalizations, or treatments with steroids which she earlier referenced. Does she not know the difference between death and hospitalization? The article is misleading at best.

Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Bringham and Women’s Hospital, who teaches at Harvard, and consults with the White House. He said on Twitter, “I can’t say for sure if we are over counting hospitalizations, it is certainly possible, although it is not black and white. But I can say with confidence that we are not over counting COVID deaths right now, including Massachusetts, the state highlighted in the Post, because this is literally what I study.”

Excess deaths (orange) in America follow the same trajectory as COVID deaths (black), with excess deaths often being rather higher. These deaths are compared to what would have been expected given the five year averages of deaths prior to the pandemic. If anything, this makes it seem that COVID deaths are likely being under counted. Dr. Faust went on to say, “If we were truly over counting COVID deaths, an important piece of evidence to support that would be if COVID deaths…were exceeding all cause deaths.” So to state the obvious, simply, COVID deaths are not being over counted. It is very likely that COVID deaths are being under counted.

The misinformation Wen is now peddling is dangerous because it ignited the conspiratorial far right anti-vax, Q-Anon crowd. In the early days of the pandemic I used to respect Wen’s opinions and guidance but now she is quite simply encouraging death and denying the facts all around her as the pandemic continues to rage. Wen’s stance is offensive to all the millions of families who lost a love one because of COVID.

Can someone please cork the bottle of this genie of death.