It’s May 29th, 2021 – time to report in on how this is going… and yes, it’s still with us. Probably will be forever…

We all resort to trying to feel like this is not going to be the way life is from now on, but I think we all at some level, deniers included, realize that indeed, the axis has tilted.

Whether it is some diabolically intended situation – or an “accident” – or eating or interacting weirdly with some wild animal – what really matters now is whether or not we can tame this sucker via enough people getting immunized to the degree that it tells “it and it’s Cousin Its” that “you are not welcome here in this human species”.

It will be quite a trick – smallpox and polio were eradicated – but making cameo appearances at certain times, have tried to return – let’s face it – smallpox is a horror show – it’s more likely someone will the WHO Hotline, when that is suspected. We won’t go into the polio situation – again, people who distrust others and have deep superstitious tendencies don’t seem to like the idea of immunizations…

This poses issues, for sure. How do you break that wall down? We will see. It requires a lot of deep digging into what drives these whether it’s a voodoo grandmother or some religious interpretation of The Bible or some other spiritual text – it’s apparent through history that this is a barrier to adoption of some scientific offerings. Oh yeah, some are happy to get a boob job, or go in to the ER if they have chest pain – but prevention of illness? Nuh-uh. Going to just roll the dice on that. Let God decide.

My reply, “God created doctors and scientists, and by default, vaccinations…” “God told me to tell YOU that you should get vaccinated. God loves you and everyone else and does not want them to suffer with this atrocious disease that affects some horribly and with great torture, leaving them disabled – and others with a light touch that nobody can seem to understand why…” Or, then there’s the “This disease is Satan, come to life, and God is giving us vaccines to fight Satan (the virus). God told me to tell you to take the vaccine to fight Satan.” Maybe this would work.

I don’t know what to say to people who are anti-vaccines. I guess they have to get sick, or lose someone who wasn’t vaccinated to some horrible disease that was preventable, before they decide to get with the program. Yes, that happens, too – sadly, after people have suffered.

One day, they will, but we’re racing against time, here, folks.

These variants are chasing the vaccinations and trying to beat them down… It’s the monster that comes back to life after you think you have defeated it. This is not like anything we’ve dealt with in the past – except maybe as horrid and scary as some of the others that science has enabled us to contain. The trouble is the politics and the religion getting mixed into the sensibilities of people’s lines of reasoning. But, as we said, it’s happened before – this is just on a larger scale.

Today’s Worldwide Numbers are:

Cases 169,471,649

Deaths 3,523,126

Vaccine Doses Administered 1,803,252,398

Those are real, folks. That’s 169 and a half MILLION cases. 3 and a half MILLION deaths. 1.8 BILLION doses of the vaccine administered. Those numbers boggle the mind. How can we even conceptualize this? You can’t.

Stay tuned for more.

-Hope Never Vanishes

August 3, 2021

Let’s start with the numbers, folks:

First – the vaccination situation:

2nd dose administered
1,150,971,337 (14.7%)

1st dose administered
2,230,776,169 (28.4%)

Total population
7,845,261,000

Doses per 100 people
53.71

Next – the global case counts:
Updated Aug 3 at 4:54 PM local

Confirmed Cases
199,299,103 (in our last report we had 169,471,649) – today is an increase of 30 MILLION PLUS from May 29th, worldwide.
+684,580 since the day before – these case counts are on the up-tick due to the Delta variant of the virus. Yes, that one that decimated India with shit-show horror is now munching on the rest of the world…

Deaths from COVID-19
4,241,509 (in our last report we had 3,523,126 deaths…

That means another 718,383 have departed planet earth since the end of May. That is like Denver, Colorado’s inhabitants disappearing off the face of the earth since the end of May. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, folks. This virus is hell-bent to erase humans off the surface of the planet. It doesn’t have a brain, it just has an appetite – it is simply relentless, ever-evolving, morphing to survive.

So the death count shows an increase of +12,367 since the day before. OK folks, that is like eating up the annual growth of some fair sized cities.

That’s where we are, folks.

We aren’t going to reach “herd immunity”. Sorry. It’s not 1919.

This isn’t the “Spanish Flu”. We have a lot more people with a lot more complexity to deal with in order to get that many people to get a vaccination. Lots of gaps. Lots of hotspots. Lots of belligerent people with “you’re not the boss of me” attitudes. Politicizing all of this has definitely done a number on it. The conspiracy theorists have really been having a hay-day. The madness of crowds has taken over and just get a bunch of these folks together in one place and it’s a “come for the rave, beer, booze and boobs, and take home the virus” situation.

Excuses would go around the world many times – humans are so clever making up why they won’t or don’t want to do something that they fear…

Top 10 Excuses:

1. “It hasn’t been tested enough…I don’t know what it will do to me…” Well, we know what COVID will do to you in the worst case scenario – I’ll take the vaccine, please and thank you…

2. The malarkey that “the vaccine has micro-chips in it” – “THEY are trying to control us” (Yes… the black helicopters… “THEM” and “THEY” are doing a pretty good job, alright!)

3. “They are experimenting on us” (who the hell is, “THEY”? and why would THEY?)

4. “it’s evil” (I love that one)

5. “My pastor told us not to take the vaccine.” (Hmmm. Since when is he a medical doctor or a scientist… Don’t recall that Jesus or any other religion’s prophet was into virology… oh, yeah – there was that plague that wiped down the planet pretty good one time… hmmmm…)

6. “I don’t do vaccines…” (like it’s heroin or some such… well, good thing you’re so CLEAN! Now, let’s talk about NOT getting sick…)

7. “my voodoo grandmother told me not to do it…” (no words…)

8. “never take the things (vaccines) – I don’t need them” (like somehow you have natural immunity… yeah right – that’ll only last so long…)

9. “I’m waiting to see what happens…” (oh like if you are going to get the virus? or not? hmmmm…)

10. And my all time favorite. “I’m not going to (get the vaccine).” Why? “I just won’t.” (So that one is hard… I say, to myself, well alrighty then, good luck with that.) You can’t fix stupid.

These represent the ten excuses I’ve heard most. I’m sure that people can think any reason when they will not or cannot understand the science and have a low trust level of this type of thing – or don’t like rules – or think that they are somehow smarter (gotta ask – and your expertise on this comes from where????). Superstition plays a part. Ignorance. Crowd-mentality plays a huge part. And peer pressure unfortunately has developed into a very nasty kind of situation amongst those who have politicized this.

They are the mean kids at school – the bullies – those who decide to make fun of, or even get aggressive towards those who wear masks, or are getting vaccinated, or showing signs of “not playing with the team”. That is tragic.

How about the “the libs are pushing science on us…” rallying cry. Oh really?

OK, I get it – you didn’t graduate from high school or you cheated in your science classes, playing on your mobile device, passing notes to your friends, or writing all the answers on your palm for the tests… Whatever. So, here we sit.

This time next year, we will look back at something and who knows what that will be.

Some of us are vaccinated, waiting on boosters. Hey, if you don’t want your jab, I’ll take extra! Maybe it doesn’t work that way – and you know what, I’m going to wait on the SCIENTISTS and VIROLOGISTS to tell me that. I’m not a doctor. They are. Period.

It’s not pretty right now, and it is guaranteed to get a lot uglier. Watch the numbers. Do the math. But, of course, some of those folks can’t do math… or don’t want to do the math… or whatever excuse they can come up with… Like I said. YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID (or mean, or both).

Maybe we will get through this. At least by now, we’ve had some experience, and learned quite a few lessons.

–Hope Never Vanishes

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Not. And then there was Omicron to finish off 2021 and move with us into 2022…

Since the beginning of the virus called COVID-19 by its common name, SARS-COV-2 by it’s official name, that started, likely at the end of 2019 – it just wasn’t declared a pandemic until March of 2020.

Great numbers of people suffered from Alpha, the first variant… then along came others, then the deadly Delta, which was even more severe in both its reach and infection numbers. Delta is still around, but being edged out by new variants, particularly Omicron. By the time the Delta peak began to fall, somewhat, downward into another valley of uncertainty, Omicron emerged and shocked the world with its infectiousness and transmissiblity right at the beginning of the holiday season.

It hit our household two days after Christmas. Despite having vaccines, which helped us stay out of the hospital, it was no fun for those in our house who suffered a moderate case, and those friends we believe contracted it from one individual at a mini-spreader event consisting of nine people. Two-thirds were asymptomatic or showed very mild symptoms. Three were sickened with symptoms that made them miserable for roughly a week, then have lingered after effects that make them remember that they had the virus.

Despite our best efforts at keeping ourselves from getting this thing, we found that our own self-control had limitations.

Coupled with the transmission rate and infectiousness of the Omicron variant, we simply were in a situation whereby people who we thought were being as vigilant as we were, simply had not been – and now we find ourselves wondering if we can ever trust them again. One of us is dubious about being around them. They jokingly call themselves “Typhoid Mary”, and go on about their business – no masks, going out into crowds regularly, to the gym, and doing whatever.

From what we hear, they fall into the ranks of those who have given up and have the condition called “COVID fatigue” and that is not from the disease itself, but more of an attitude problem. They say, “I’m over this, I’m sick of this, and I’m going back to normal.”

What happens is eventually, the virus will find them and say “hello, I’m your new illness.” The unvaccinated are getting slammed and jam our doctors clinics, our ER’s and our hospitals with patients who are very ill, stressing the healthcare system such that people can’t even get basic needs met. Healthcare professionals are stressed. Some in the patient care professional ranks are nurses and other workers who think that they know more than doctors, and have become radicalized anti-vaxxers. This only adds to the confusion. It also tells you that when they entered their profession, to supposedly help people, they left a tiny reservation at the door – just in case. With these attitudes, we now have situations where we can’t trust the people we should be able to trust anymore. It’s very confusing and it simply just sucks.

This virus has not only wrecked people’s lives physically, it has wrecked the world’s normal structures for providing health and medical care services in ways that are unexpected and unpredictable.

What 2022 will bring, who knows? What we hear is that this virus will become “endemic” (we believe it already is). We will have pharmaceutical companies in tall cotton with a lasting revenue stream that will be from a combination of government coffers, private health insurance, and in many cases where there are gaps, the victims themselves. Not like influenza, but like influenza at the same time, we may expect regular jabs that must be had, in order to minimize the impacts if we do get infected with one of the next variants that comes along.

Personally, I feel naked without a mask out in public. I feel like it’s everywhere in the air inside places that we go. It’s so tiny, it can come through cloth masks, easily. I only remember the past surgeon general going on YouTube showing how to make a mask out of a bandana. What a maroon. Don’t you know he is embarrassed now? Maybe not. Maybe it was the naivety at the time where we had no idea what was coming.

Like an asteroid hitting the earth, like a giant volcanic explosion, like so many apocalyptic events on our planet – this one is a combination of planetary disruptions – the tiny invaders that came from somewhere in Asia, likely China, whether it was a wet market or a lab, it doesn’t matter much anymore. We have to be hopeful that this will pass or change into something that doesn’t wipe out everyone on the planet eventually. If it does, well, it’s nothing that we can control, that is for certain.

On that note, let’s wrap 2021 and move on to 2022.