Morons

Well that seems like a harsh title.  But, I had to make a run to the local grocery store today, and didn't get there until after 12.  The parking lot was about half full and I didn't have to wait in line.

However, I was extremely aggravated to note that about half the customers were not wearing any face coverings.  One couple in the produce section was opening pre bagged cherries and putting them in a produce bag to buy a lesser amount since they were @\$2.99/lb and the bags were rather large.

However, since neither were wearing masks and the man was handling bags of cherries-there are signs thougghout the store not to touch things unnecessarily-I shot them a dirty look on the way by,  When I circled back around, the produce bag with the cherries was sitting on top of the other cherries.  Perhaps a store worker had caught them or they changed their minds_

They weren't the only ones I saw without face coverings.  The store did have boxes of ten disposable masks for $9.99/box right next to gloves, so there are choices available.


But it seems as though this has turned into a political statement led by our esteemed leader, and it's tragic. 

The TV is full of segments featuring people scoffing the recommendations, instead of focusing on people that think the rest are idiots.  The local paper has letters to the editor of people commenting on the non mask wearers and complaints of being coughed at. 

 I saw headlines of a recent Harris poll that showed over 90% of people thought it was too soon to re-open.

Maine had it's lowest in several week new case report of 17 -but I only have to think of my 90 year old something neighbor who hasn't been able to visit his wife in the local nursing home since March.

Most of the outbreaks in nursing homes have been brought in by staff who have picked it up in the community, and to see selfish people waltzing around the grocery store without a face covering really fries my cookies. 

But when the news covers store security getting shot and killed for trying to enforce mask wearing, what store wants to require it and what police department wants to enforce it ?  Especially when you have DOJ and the esteemed leader threatening legal repercussions if they do.

 God save the weak and vulnerable. Set an example and cover your mouth and nose in public.  Thanks!

The Right Solution?

I have always had reservations about vaccines.  It must have started about 3rd or 4th grade when there was a public vaccination program through public schools.

We were all lined up like good little soldiers and "BAM!" hit with a multi needled gun in the left upper forearm.  Many people of my generation still bear the scar from that injection.

Now, the general premise of exposing someone to a killed version or a mild form of a virus to stimulate the bodies natural immune system if confronted with the virus in the future is a great one.  It's the other things that go along with it that worry me.

Like Thimerisol, a form of mercury that has been used as a preservative.  Or the load of contaminated vaccines that went out from some shady company a few years back. 

What is actually in that injection?

The push to create a vavvine for COVID 19 rapidly, (even given a nifty little code name), concerns me. I have read that one of the approaches is to take genetic material from people who have recovered, isolate the different immune responses, pick one which seems like the best, take a bit of the RNA and inject it to stimulate the body to replicate that particular immune response.

Immune responses are both good and bad.  The body identifies an invader and sends in the troops, overwhelming it.  But there are many health issues associated with immune responses.  For example, that is what causes allergies.  The body treats a substance as an alien invader and launches a response.  the result is sneezing and inflammation-accumulation of fluid from cells that are lysed, or literally exploded.

The greater the amounts of the invader, the larger the reaction.  So a lethal immune response can happen with larger exposure as well as a delayed response that allows the virus to replicate in massive quantities before the response kicks in.

People are individuals.  There are different blood types, as well as different medical histories which can include inherited as well as acquired traits. For example, I know someone who had an ancestor exposed to malaria and they have a blood condition which creates a negative reaction when exposed to sulfites.

Ideally a proper vaccine would be tailored to different types.  But that is not how it is addressed.  Massive broad testing is required to select the vaccine that will benefit the most people with the least negative effects and then it is put into production for everyone.

That is the road we are on.  The search for the cure, and then it will be distributed.

But is that really the best road?  What happens when the next virus comes along?  What happens when this one mutates beyond what the vaccine will target?

Don't we really need a worldwide cultural shift in behavior to stave off the current and future pandemics?

There are health reasons why we have sewage processing plants, cover our bottoms, wash our hands after using the bathroom.  But upper respiratory infections? 

We have been told during flu season "stay home if you are sick" and then don't offer sick pay for low wage earners.  We reward students for perfect attendance.

Walmart has been running an ad crowing about how they are open shorter hours to allow them to clean stores, showing them spraying carts and wiping the handles of cooler doors and registers conveyor belts.  Isn't this something they should always do?

I was happy when stores started putting out sani wipe dispensers near the carts and always wiped my cart off while having mixed feelings.  In the past, I was worried people with look at me as a germaphobe.  Yet I was also miffed that I had to clean the carts for the store.  Shouldn't the store be sanitizing the carts when they were brought in?  Turns out, yes, they should.

What about the negative association with burkas?  How some societies got on their high horses and harassed the wearers of same, even though it was a religious choice and even requirement.  Now some in  society refuse to wear face coverings, perhaps rooted in that face covering stigma.

IMO society, worldwide society, should adapt everyday healthy habits to protect public health, and not sit back on their laurels waiting on a cure. 

Hopefully a cure won't create more problems...

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

Homemade jelly donuts by Willow

This is the Willow's first attempt to create anything using yeast.  But, as she said, that's if you don't include the bio lab where they killed the yeast because they forgot to add the sugar.

No absence of sugar in these delicious creations.  We each ate three before they had even completely cooled  Slightly crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, filled with organic raspberry jelly-with a few blueberry since she used most of the jar of raspberry. 

They were the best jelly donuts I had ever eaten.  They were so good, I felt compelled to take two to my older widowed neighbor.  Mask in place, I knocked on her screen door and proudly handed over the little brown bag.

"Would you like some eggs?" she asked? "Come in, come in."

I stepped in while she was collecting well over a dozen homegrown eggs, and after she handed them to me she started telling me about her Gdaughter who was working at the local convenience store.

"I went to pick her up and she came out without her mask.  She said that it was so tight it gave her a headache, and that NONE of the customers who had come into the store that day had been wearing masks."

(our state has told us to wear masks if we go out or work in public)

I thanked her for the eggs and beat a rather hasty retreat.

I don't suppose any of those customers thought about possibly exposing her Gdaughter, who could then expose her elderly Gmother, who could then expose the neighbor dropping off a couple of freshly made donuts.

If just one customer at that store had been shedding COVID-19, the amount of people potentially exposed is exponentially astronomical, even here in rural Maine.  That person might have felt the whole thing is a Demohoax, or that they didn't need to worry because they are fit and forty.

While they might not be concerned about infecting others and only worried about themselves and their families, evidence is coming to light that COVID does not just kill by respiratory failure.  The virus potentially affects clotting factors in the blood, and can lead to sudden death from heart attack or stroke.

Children in NY are exhibiting unusual inflammatory responses when infected, showing heart issues as well as a skin condition that resembles Kawasaki disease.

So people, if you are being told to wear a face covering, just do it. We all want to live another day to eat donuts.

Propaganda or stupidity

I have a scientific mind.  I ask a lot of questions and gather a lot of information then run scenarios out in my mind before I come to conclusions.  People such as my family get mad when I ask their opinions, because they say I don't do what they recommend. 

That is because I am info gathering and inputting that information.  Often I have already run that "data" or can see immediately that it would lead to a less desirable result. 

I am not always right, but any means.  Sometimes I am way off.  Part of that is due to false information input.  That is why I hate liars.  One bit of false information can make it impossible to come to a correct conclusion.  Liars do not want you to know the truth, so they feed you false information. 

Sometimes the "data" is corrupted because the incorrect information you are given is made up out of ignorance-they have come to incorrect opinions but due to ego announce falsehoods as facts.

Take the US response to COVID19 for example.  I am sick and tired of all the lies and BS

On January 22 I texted a relative who has spent almost 50 years working in various capacities at one of the nations most re known hospitals. I had been watching the regular over-the-air news and was getting very disturbed about the new virus. My concern came from information I was receiving that was readily available to the US population.

January 22,2020 7:04 pm EST

Me:  "Should we be worried about the new virus?"

7:10 pm EST

Them:  " Not really.  They are screening at the big airports.  3 cases in USA all isolated.  It's a Virus like a Cold similar to the SARS and MERS virus of years past.  Those never really took hold in America especially after it was recognized and screened for"

I followed with additional texts about the dangers of virus that mutate from animal to human, referring to the ones they mentioned as well as swine flu.  I looked up the research on COVID 19 and linked a Scientific American article that suggested the genetic material looked like the virus went from bats to snakes to humans.

Last text exchange 8:08 Thanking me for the link.

Several hours later they were on their way home from work and were at a stop sign.  Someone hit them head on.  The person got out of their vehicle and walked away, right by them pinned and bleeding in their destroyed car.

The relative was able to call 911 and spent several weeks recovering from airbag and seat belt injuries.  Their car was totalled.

A week later, on January 29, I went to a local drug store and bought a box of ten surgical type masks for $18.  I handed them out to my kids and urged them to order more.  My daughter ordered a box of 50 simple procedure masks.

Where am I going with this story?

1. On Jan 22 the US had 3 cases and were supposed to be screening at "major airports"

(after that date, someone flew into Logan with symptoms and was not identified as positive for 48 hours while they traveled around Boston area, Nevermind how many travelers used that plane in the meantime)

2.  It was common knowledge it was a respiratory virus transmitted via airborne particles, yet it took THREE full months before the CDC and local governments started recommending the wearing of masks. in fact, we were told NOT to wear masks and I was too intimidated to wear the ones I had bought when out in public.  Eventually (weeks later) I would see one or two people wearing masks and began to wear mine.

3.  In the meantime we have been ordered to stay at home (with a few exceptions) and wash our hands.  It has cost trillions of dollars-taxpayer dollars, will be the end of many businesses, and has the country on the edge of rebellion.

A lot of people (including the VP) still believe there is no reason to wear a mask.

To my mind, if in addition to washing hands, from the beginning, if everyone was required to wear masks in public or group settings, with temperature screenings before entering any public building, we might have averted the shutdown of the country

Remember the relatives initial response on 1/22 that SARS and MERS were stopped as a result of SCREENING.

My state's criteria for testing has been very stringent, over 65, or in critical care.  Doctors simply would not test, and if they did, first they would test for the flu.  So an average person would have to not only pay for the doctor's visit (and or co-pay with their lousy insurance if they had any) but flu testing, all the while moving about unmasked in the general public and doctor's offices. 

To those of you who feel mask wearing impinges on your constitutional right, what about wearing underwear or coverings on your bottom?  Why do you think THAT is mandatory?  Why do you think washing your hands after going to the bathroom is so important, or treating human waste, or burying people 6 feet deep?

I think one change that should come out of this is that schools need to be teaching sanitation and microbiology from the time children enter public education.

When you see what happens to a dish of blood agar (think jello made from blood) that has been scratched with a wire contaminated with Strep or Staph and then kept warm for three days, you will live your whole life differently.

And everyone in the World will be a lot safer and happier.  THAT is our constitutional right!