More COVID Updates

Corona Cove, Derp County CA

Just what you’ve all been waiting for, it’s... more COVID updates! Who better to hear them from than someone who has had it, talked to real live doctors about it, and lives in an uncontrolled hot zone?

Yep, it’s true, I’ve been complaining about my sloppy lackadaisical neighbors here in [redacted] [never mind, let’s just call my town Corona Cove] for months now, and predictably we have moved from 7th in number of deaths to 3rd. We’ve already reached first place in total number of cases.

California has the highest population of any state in the US - or at least, we do for now, she said darkly - so it will make perfect sense when we eventually find ourselves at the top of the chart. *shakes head sadly*

It’s hard to accept that so many people prefer pseudoscience to protecting their own caboose, but there you have it.

I’m a Mensan, right? We have an online book club. One of the members went off about how she believes in conspiracy theories. Would you like to know why? Because a Dan Brown novel published in 2013 about a pandemic has a fictional organization in it, and supposedly a paycheck protection program launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has the same name. Proof! That is proof to her that “something is going on” and that “someone planned this.”

As a COVID survivor, I’d like to know: why would it matter anyway?

Why do people insist on believing that humans are very very good at developing viruses into biological weapons, and yet the exact same people refuse to believe that a human could develop an effective vaccine? Why believe in a supervillain scientist but not one motivated by altruism?

I’m sprawled out here under two afghans, still trying to recover, and I’ll tell you what. It wouldn’t matter to me whether I got COVID from space aliens, Lex Luthor, biological weapons, an armadillo, or sniffing deep into the spine of a Stephen King novel. Why? Because I’d still be just as ill no matter where it came from!

All I would want to know in any of those scenarios was: 1. Are there any treatments and 2. Is there any way for anyone else to avoid it?

People, and by “people” I mean “dimwits,” are saying that you don’t need to wear a mask because there are effective treatments. I hope you’re not reading this aloud to your minor children because I’m about to say something NSFW, but to me this analogy is like saying that you don’t need to wear condoms because there are treatments for syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and herpes. Uh, wouldn’t you rather avoid the outcome than treat the outcome??

Let’s talk realistically about this whole thing for a minute. We have only successfully eradicated two viruses in the entire history of humanity. One was smallpox and the other was a cattle disease, rinderpest. Of course I hope our track record will improve, and the last I heard, there aren’t any “virus rights” anti-extinction groups out there, but, our track record isn’t super impressive thus far.

Next issue. The fastest vaccine ever developed took around four years. That was for mumps, which I can assure you is a real illness because my granddad got it when he was in the Army, and that first vaccine didn’t last all that long. The one we have now works much better, and yet people still refuse to get it because evidently as a species we prefer to be devastated by pestilence than to avoid it through human ingenuity. “Avoid it like the plague,” I think not.

I guess where I’m going with that is, if we do get an effective vaccine, then 1. It will take a while and 2. It might not last very long and 3. 40% of people will throw a fit and refuse to take it because they’d rather be violently ill than not be violently ill.

Me: You do not want this
Them: YEAH I DO you don’t know my life

We have a friend who used to go on a lot of business trips with my husband. They went to dinner one night. My husband took a roll from the bread basket, bit into it, and said, “Man, this bread is terrible.” Our friend said, “I guess I’d better eat some then,” took a roll, bit into it, and said, “this tastes terrible.” “I just told you that.” “I thought you were just saying that so you could have all the bread.”

If this sort of trend keeps going, it’s going to be a great year for rattlesnakes and sharks because humans aren’t going to take each other seriously anymore.

Okay, let’s go over some interesting developments in coronavirus research.

Indications that tall people are more likely to get sick with COVID? If true, this would reinforce the speculation that coronavirus is airborne, which I have thought since April, because that is the most likely way that I contracted it myself.

COVID-19 can cause blood clots that may lead to amputations.

COVID-19 may also lead to hearing loss, which we could have guessed because there are a lot of viruses that act this way, and deafness can be caused by high fevers.

Nearly 90% of patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 had underlying conditions, which US papers will tell you, and apparently obesity increases risk of death from COVID by 90%, which I saw in the British press. If we’re really almost twice as likely to die from COVID-19 due to a risk factor as common as obesity is in the US, but it’s not being widely reported here, would that not constitute a sort of conspiracy?

Something I’d rather talk about than that: Getting the flu shot lowers Alzheimer’s risk, which is fabulous news to me because Alzheimer’s is the only thing that scares me almost as much as getting COVID again. This is a companion to the news that having had the MMR vaccine may be protective against severe COVID symptoms.

Also interesting, tattoos could boost the immune system, which would be one really good explanation for why they became popular in so many cultures throughout history.

Some speculation, since I am a futurist and that’s what we do: I don’t think a vaccine is going to pop up and miraculously allow us all to start going to stadium glam rock concerts before Halloween. I plan to stay indoors until, say, spring of 2023. Subject to updates based on current events.

What I do think will happen is that several innovators will release various designs of helmets with filtration systems that test well against airborne pathogens. I think that could happen a lot faster; is probably in development in multiple countries right now; can be tested much more quickly; would also protect against influenza, the common cold, and maybe even pollen/hay fever... and would be something I personally would buy right away.

Bye from Corona Cove, and as the conspiracy theorist said to COVID-19, “Catch ya later!”