From a different perspective. The virus down under. Impacts of disease and climate change…
Having journeyed nearly 15 hours via air to our down under second home (for me), there are differences and similarities to the approach to “the virus” that we observe.
First of all, the apparent number of people who are in the “you’re not the boss of me” category seems to be lower. If a public official speaks out in the “anti-VAX” way, they get chastised publicly and the pressure to conform to the strict regulations related to control of disease is great. There likely is a good deal more underlying this, as the government via people’s taxes pays for healthcare, and cost is considerable if a virus like COVID-19 gets out of control.
It is apparent, as well, that the freaky weather has had a big impact on supply chain, making certain foods scarce if not unavailable. Avocados are either not available, or if they are, they cost in the range of $11/per fruit! May prices are between $3.19 (US) and $3.80 (US) per kilo. OK, so the average avocado in the US is sold by the each, and in winter, is usually around a buck to $1.50. Summer, the prices go way down.
Here, there is a prediction that apples will come into short supply later on, as well. That is pretty shocking.
Not sure if there is any discussion about importing, but that would be costly as well. For fruit, the prices are still very high – and availability – well, you’d better love apples, bananas, pears, citrus, and Kiwifruit because that’s about all you’ll get, unless it is canned or frozen, and even those prices are very high here.
There is another swell in cases here – the beginning of a surge, which one would expect in winter. The population is more vaccinated here, percentage-wise, than in the States. The country continues to keep detailed information and tracks the infections and variants here.
The winter introduces more opportunity for disease spread of the virus. Along with flu. We’re stress testing right now with jet lag, going to crowded activities, out to the movies, and in public without masking. Yet many people do mask here.
It remains to be seen how our next few weeks here will pan out, and hopefully, we will remain healthy. There is uncertainty now, whereas before we had less of that.
It is certainly less worrisome related to violence and all that. A peaceful retreat from the violent chaos reported in our home news headlines.
For now, we observe.
May 8, 2023
Still Searching for Answers or Does It Matter?
Welp, there has been some discussion worth noting on two fronts:
One is whether virology research should have certain restrictions for the type of study of the virus that is engineered to mutate to invade hosts and stay alive, regardless – which is actually the natural goal of viruses, just like the rest of lifeforms on earth. Staying alive. Trying to penetrate immunity of its potential hosts.
So, we lump along, in our basic bigness, often self-focused, looking kind of like the concept of cave people that we’ve seen depicted in illustrations of what cave people may have looked like… Swatting at things that are annoying, and taking to full-on attacks on things that look like they deserve being beaten or burned or blown-up or whatever it takes to destroy the enemy. Sound familiar?
Well, nonetheless, it’s interesting to watch the unfolding evolution of how this SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) continues to play out in the “endemic landscape” starring these tiny invaders of the human race – competing with other tiny invaders and our own self-consuming diseases or that which tackles our immunity and takes us down, self-imposed or not.
Get your boosters. Tell people who are deniers that you have other plans when they ask you to socialize. By now this is getting old and tired. They are not your people. You can find others to socialize with. Wear a mask if you need to get the message across. People still do wear masks. Do what you can to stay healthy.
Take probiotics. Get up off your ass and move. Try to avoid junk food. All that health nut stuff… It can’t hurt.
More positivity. It’s ongoing.
Springing into spring…
It’s friends, it’s family, but, so far, so good. People get infected, they are getting over it – still miserable having it, but luckily, it hasn’t put anyone in the hospital or taken their lives.
Still scary. Still we hear bad stories. We just have to cope as best as we can and “stay healthy” as my doctor says. Yeah, so… keep popping the pro-biotics, the pre-biotics, the vitamins, eat right, don’t drink too much, get exercise every day, a little sunshine, some calcium, some magnesium to offset the constipating effects of the calcium, and for me, a day without coffee is… don’t ask me, I wouldn’t know.
In the old days, what did human’s do? I’m studying that. Family history – living through plagues, pandemics, etc. OR not. In my family’s narrative on one side, people striving for religious freedom, moving west, pioneers seeking a better life. Some coming from Scotland and England, settling into Canada, then coming down to continue working in New York, then moving west to Kansas, to farm and settle their large family. On the other, explorers and seafarers, later migrating into new places, becoming farmers and merchants.
How did we get here where we are? Much the same, modernized versions – but coping with illnesses and aging is all a part of living as humans – yet watching people rail against getting relief or help with avoiding illness boggles logic and confounds the mind. How they can twist this narrative into “they’re out to get us” and turn it into something that has me say, “get you? Why? What for?” I think that they have been watching too many science fiction dramas… Or don’t know that what they have been watching IS fiction… Let’s see how this continues to unravel…
In the meantime, we travel through time each day a new day, reading the headlines and learning that there is something newly discovered – sometimes interesting and enlightening, sometimes scary, but that is the human experience, at least in my world. We don’t practice voo-doo, and aren’t overly superstitious, although I have that brass four leaf on my desk and sometimes wish I had good luck charm to hold while waiting on answers…
Here we are. 2022 leads into 2023 and BOOM.
One of us tests positive for COVID. God only knows which version this is. It obviously is contagious as hell, but compared to the 2022 version early in the year – the dawn of Omicron, this is not the same.
Both of us were likely exposed. One of us came down with it. So far. The news releases continue to be a moving target which really don’t help us understand anything except the “buzz”.
It’s better than it was under the (ha hah) leadership of the orange orangutan – at least we don’t have the goofus on television press conferences spouting outlandish garbage. That Pandemic Response woman, whose name I can’t call up right now, sitting there listening to him as he spewed his garbage… I can still remember the look on her face. She is probably in hiding somewhere having used reputation.com to erase her from the internet. I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing.
Then there is the freaky weather ongoing and unlikely to stop anytime soon, if ever.
Now they call them “atmospheric rivers” and they rate them for severity – categories 1-5.
| Cat | Strength | Impact | Max. IVT[a] |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Weak | Primarily beneficial | ≥250–500 |
| 2 | Moderate | Mostly beneficial, also hazardous | ≥500–750 |
| 3 | Strong | Balance of beneficial and hazardous | ≥750–1000 |
| 4 | Extreme | Mostly hazardous, also beneficial | ≥1000–1250 |
| 5 | Exceptional | Primarily hazardous | ≥125 |
Also, we have named winter storms – like wintertime hurricanes – this is now a thing.
But this crazy weather has brought horrid air quality, lots of pollen with the ups and downs of temperatures and more rain. The mosquitoes decide that it’s best to grow bigger, faster, and more aggressive.
The birds don’t know what the hell is going on – “it’s supposed to be WARMER here… hmm, guess we need to keep flying south…”
And the humans have, due to fatigue and rebellion, adapted a more “unmasked” approach, leaving them more susceptible to everything out there for which they blew off getting vaccinated… For the unvaccinated, or under-vaccinated, people’s immune systems are out of practice if they masked for most of those years, so here we go. I still pretty much hole up. I take my probiotics, my prebiotics, and anything I can that might help me keep an immune system going. Whatever it is, it somehow works most of the time. I’ll just keep going with that…
Signs that things are not good, virus wise… Achoo. Cough-cough. Oh my aching head! Did somebody turn up the heat? Oh… I mean the A/C?
There are lots of respiratory bugs besides COVID and the flu circulating this year. You go to the store to get symptomatic relief OTC remedies and the shelves are empty just as school is starting up again. Especially the one for the kid strength offerings. What does that tell you? The weary pharmacist at the CVS repeats what she is charged to say in response to questions about drug effects, interactions, and such. You know that she has heard these probably a million times in the past three years. They don’t have answers always, but they may try to be helpful, or not. In the US, pediatricians are likely overwhelmed. This is not going to be fun… again.
Here we go again. The human adaptation cycle – stress, distress, growth. Somehow, though, there are ants in the distress part which alters the growth part, and like with trees that don’t know they died, we get zombies, or something like zombies. “Errants”, I guess.
All of this reminds me of the shift one goes through in adapting to a situation that is no longer an acute emergency, but turns chronic, whereby we will still be fraught with change and the unexpected. And this induces stress. Which can become chronic stress. This somehow turns on the hyper-vigilant settings in our brains, and pushes us into constant learning and analysis mode, at least that’s what happens to me. “Adapt or die” sets in, and my fears that I can’t learn enough to adapt go ape-shit.
We kind of get into the mode of going by “schedules” and detecting anomalies as we are in constant monitoring mode, then reacting. Sleep when you can, don’t push the envelope, stay focused, yada, yada, yada… Despite strategic planning, sometimes the surprises from left field blow the plans away. Should we go into Plan B mode or the emergency plan mode (ICE), or do we just wait on disaster recovery mode? What’s that plan?
Been there, done that, definitely have the tee-shirts and the rubber bracelets, plus ran the races to raise money for the cause, which helped displace the forming despair about just one tiny fracture in our human condition.
I am always reminded of the song “From a Distance” that reflects on how the big blue marble looks kinda cool from afar, but once we drill down, baby, do we have a crazy race going on – the human race that is – and all of it’s diversity that anthropologists and paleontologists are continuing to uncover. With every major drought come discoveries that were buried or covered by vegetation that the drought drains or tames back. Many stories have come out about these recently. Who knows what will be found? The meaning of life? We will see.
What will we see next? Race events to save the planet? Possibly.
2023 may unfold interestingly – how could it not? China took the controls off (at least for now) so COVID is raging there – and they’re behind in versions, so new variants of the old versions are likely. We have continued issues with supply chains. We have rampant inflation (don’t get me started).
There is SO MUCH wrong in US politics, but what happens in 2023 will no doubt bring a popcorn event or more (with adult beverages, probably). We shall see.
In the meantime, here we are. The second chapter of dealing with COVID and bringing in the New Year with a sneeze or two… More on that as we go.
January 5, 2023 – Stardate 100610.84