IT’s been awhile!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve added anything new. So, just to let you know I’m still out here alive and living, here I am. Well, I’m happy to say that so far I have not caught covid, and or if I did, I was totally without any symptoms and didn’t know I had it. I will say that I have gotten every Covid 19 booster that has been made available. I for one, do believe in the science behind vaccines, and all the data (REAL FACTS), that show the effectiveness of each of them. On a related note, I recently got my second of the two shot Shingles vaccine, as well as the pneumonia vaccine. I am of that age, where my ol’ body just doesn’t work as well as it used to, and I need all the help I can get to stay one step ahead of one of those little virus buggers that are out looking for me.

At this point, I’m no longer wearing a mask when in public. The odds of coming into contact with a virus I have not already received a vaccine for, to boost my immunity for, are about as low as I could hope to get them.

Regarding masks, do I think that masks work? Yes, I do. Do I think they helped during the peak of the pandemic? Well, again the answer is yes, based on all the data showing that they were helpful. The one problem with masks is that most people don’t know how to use them. There are right and wrong ways to put them on and take them off. Just as there are proper ways to handle them once removed, to reduce likelihood of cross contamination from the outside of the mask to hands and other body parts. And where the cloth masks as helpful? No, they were not, but they did greatly help reduce people with covid from spreading it even more. But, regardless of how you do it, if you reduce the overall numbers of a virus entering your body, your body has better odds of fighting off those that do.

I recently read some reports showing that the number of people showing signs of longer-term effects of getting Covid (Long Covid) are much higher than originally thought. Plus, the percentage of those with “long covid” effects are about the same between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. What I didn’t see in the report is if the effects of those who get long covid, are less in the vaccinated as compared to non-vaccinated people. But we do know that the percentages of people who have gotten Covid are much higher for non-vaccinated people, so it would seem logical that the percentage of people with long-covid symptoms would be highest among non-vaccinated people, as compared to the general population. I’ll be looking for updated reports related to this.

The one thing that our media has somewhat dropped from the news, is that there are still people dying every day from the effects of having Covid. As all the states have dropped tracking and reporting statistics about covid cases, it’s much harder to know exactly what the number and percentages are. In part perhaps because, like the flu virus, covid has spread so far and wide, that it has now been able to mutate into untold variants. As such, it appears as though, that just like the common flu bug, the covid bug is with us to stay.

That reminds me, they just approved a new covid booster with all the latest known strains of coverage. So, unlike the flu vaccine, we seem to be needing to generate a new covid vaccine every 4-6 months right now. Perhaps in another couple years we will be down to a once a year shot, we can get at the same time as our flu shot.

Well, I can hope, can’t I.

Is our chance of Herd Immunity slipping?

Well here we are half way through 2021 and we have had vaccines available for months now. Even so, we only at about 50% of the population who having been willing to get one of the readily available vaccines. At first I was very hopeful that our US citizens would be willing to act as concerned citizens and all be willing to get one of the Covid-19 vaccines. Doing so would help to protect each other and get our country opened back up and able to fully and safely, get back to living more normal lives once again.

But now it is looking like there are way too many people who refuse to get a Covid vaccine because they believe all of them to be experimental or they buy into one of the many conspiracy theories trying to make people afraid of getting a vaccine shot. What I find most shocking of all, is how many healthcare workers I have seen in the news, who don’t believe in the science of the vaccines, even though thanks to science, they are providing what is supposed to be the most advance medical care available in the world. These are educated people of whom I would have thought would fully understand the concepts of modern medicine, based on years of medical science! Frankly, it makes me fear for the medical care I would receive from these people.

The sad facts are, that those of us who have received one of the vaccines, and or have already survived Covid-19, and or have survived and also gotten one of the vaccine shots; all have a very low risk of succumbing to Covid-19 if exposed. At least for now anyway. But all of those who refuse to get what has been proven by millions of citizens to be a safe and effective vaccine, risk not only catching Covid-19, but catching one of the many variant mutations that have been emerging throughout the world, which spread even more easily. They also are risking everyone else, in that they could become the incubator of yet another variant of the Covid-19 virus.

The coronavirus strain known as Covid-19, is just a mutation of an earlier coronavirus which had mutated and made itself much easier to pass from person to person, infecting them as it did so. Currently our vaccines have been indicated to be effective against the all the currently known Covid-19 variants. But like all viruses, it will continue to mutate as long as it has a host (PEOPLE), in which to grow, mutate and spread.

As the virus mutates, it WILL, if given the chance, mutate into a form which is immune to all the current available Covid-19 vaccines. If this happens, then the world will once again find itself back in the year 2020 Covid situation. The way to stop this from happening, is to ensure the large majority of the USA and Worlds population have been immunized so that we do have herd immunity levels to ensure the COVID-19 virus dies out. The virus is not able to be passed along to people who have immunity.

In the United States alone, we have had over 600,000 reported deaths in the last year and a half. Should the virus be allowed to continue to spread and mutate into a virus for which our current vaccines do not work, we have no guarantee that another vaccine could be developed just as quickly. In that case, another 600,000 deaths could just be the start in this country.

The only rear way to eliminate Covid-19 is for everyone to get a vaccine shot. Just like Polio, Smallpox, and a host of other dreaded diseases, the only proven way to eliminate them, is if everyone gets vaccinated.

Well there is one other way. Just let everyone catch it, and the ones who survive will have some immunity and or join the growing numbers of Long-Haulers, who have continued health problems related to having been sick with Covid. The 1% to 2% who do not will just be a statistic, right?

2021 started out looking like 2020, COVID all over again!

Here we are and it’s May of 2021 and perhaps we can finally see some light coming from the end of over a year of COVID. But, much still depends on a lot more people stepping up to the vaccination line and getting one of the approved COVID-19 shots. Everyone wants to get to the magical state of “Herd” immunity.

Unfortunately there are only two roads that lead to enough people being immune or at least highly resistant to COVID.

First: The first is the natural way. I hear so many people saying they do not trust anything that is not natural. The natural road to Herd immunity is that enough people catch COVID and build up immunity levels, to the point that they can fight the virus off and not pass it on to others. This road, though a long proven method, results in many people ending up dead in the process. Currently between 1 and 2 people out of every 100 who catch it die. The Black Plague, followed this process, as did polio right up until a vaccine was developed and everyone went and got it.

Second: People go out and get a vaccine shot which has been shown to be 90% or more effective at stopping a person from getting COVID and or, should still happen to get it, they get a much milder case. Recently in Nebraska, there was an outbreak in a nursing home (some of the most severely effected population at the start of the outbreak) in which all the residents’ had received one of the COVID vaccines. The outbreak resulted in 50% of the residents testing positive for COVID, but only two of those had any symptoms, and their symptoms were mild. Over the last year we had a number of outbreaks in facilities before the vaccines where available, and many people died in those pre-vaccine days. So far, the only possible vaccine deaths have been from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, in which a few people developed deadly blood clots for unknown reasons, resulting in around 10 deaths’. This was out of tens of millions of the J & J vaccine given. And we still do not know for sure what the direct correlation was, other than it was women. But we do know that about 1.8% of everyone who has contracted COVID-19 has died from it.

So, if we go by option #1, based on a population of lets say 300 Million, about 5,400,000 people will die before Herd Immunity is obtained. World wide, the number is staggering without a vaccine.

If we go by option #2, we have about a 0.000000077% odds that of 300 Million people getting a vaccine, there could be up to 230 people who could die, if everyone took the J&J vaccine. Based on all the data reported so far, we are looking at potential deaths in the low hundreds, not millions, if we can get everyone to get a COVID vaccine shot.

So I for one, have to vote that in this case, taking the natural route is just a stupid idea! This is based on everything that is known about the risks and benefits of the current vaccine. I think if you check, you will find that the Small Pox vaccine had complications that were much higher than those being seen with todays COVID-19 vaccines.

Lastly, for those who believe that God will take care of you. God already has, by giving you and me great scientific medical doctors, who have been working on coronavirus vaccines for over ten years. Because of this, they were able to develop a vaccine in record time for this new strain of coronavirus (COVID-10). So if you do not get a vaccine, you are not letting God take care of you.

After all, it is a free country and it is your choice. I hope you make the informed one.

PS. I did get mine and encourage everyone to get theirs too!

Things that go bump in the night.

Like so many in this time of Covid-19, I find we are isolated at home.  We are fortunate in that we live in a wooded area, which has some wildlife to help entertain us.  Of course many of our nighttime friends are somewhat shy and do not care to be watched directly.  As such, we have recently purchased a game camera and set it up in the back yard.  Below is a raccoon who came to visit and grab a couple pieces of food we placed out on the patio table.  We are looking forward to perhaps catching a live viewing once we learn what times our friend likes to visit.  This picture is taken with the nite camera, so it is only in B&W.  More to come in the future. So, the next time you are hearing some bumps in the night outside, don’t worry, it might just be a friendly masked friend.

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Goodbye 2020

If I am like a lot of other people last year, which I think I am, the year of 2020 will be remembered as a year we learned to really appreciate the many things we typically took for granted. Going out on the weekend to have a nice restaurant meal is one of the many things that were missed the most of 2020. Going to a movie, dining out, going shopping for new clothes, grocery shopping, or just walking through a store to look for items we might like, verses only going in for those things we absolutely must have. But most of all, just getting together with family and friends to share some personnel space together, being it is having a meal, playing a game, or just setting around to socialize about the prior week or month’s events and happenings.

If you were paying attention you also learned the value of wearing some form of filter mask during a pandemic outbreak. The value of which is more important to the people near you, rather than yourself. Though a simple filter mask does not provide a great level of protection for the person wearing it, it does limit your ability to spread a virus, should you be unlucky enough to have it.

I think it is not a coincidence that in a year when the most people ever where wearing filter masks, the number of cases of the seasonal flu is at an all time low. Many other countries have adopted a culture of social protection, where if you are feeling sick, you wear a mask to help prevent spreading it to your family, friends, co-workers and the general public around you in your daily life. So does everyone hopefully getting a Covid vaccine mean masks will no longer ever be needed? I think anyone who care about others around them, realizes that “masks” should and are likely, to be with us from now on. We should strive a a society to adopt those cultural practices from other countries which have proven to be effective in reducing the spread of illnesses such as Colds, Flu and yes, Covid’s, should we start to feel under the weather ourself.

So, my hope is that out of all the miseries that Covid-19 has wrought upon all of us, that perhaps from the lessons we have learned, our culture here in the good ol’ USA, can perhaps change just a little. With that change being we come to expect anyone and everyone who is feeling ill, will do something simple, like wearing a filter mask, to help no share there illness with everyone else. It could become the visible sign of a person who cares about others around them. Ok, that and the importance of washing one’s hands.

What to do while distancing from home?

Well, here we are in week, whatever it is, of the Covid-19 mess.  Spending a lot more time at home has provided us with an opportunity to spend a little more time on our backyard deck and actually enjoy our backyard!  One of the first things that I started to notice was that we had a lot more different types of birds around the house than I had really realized.  Having the time to just set and watch with a pair of binoculars, there are Robins, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Red Bellied Wood Peckers,  Cedar Waxwings, and a little family of Blackburnian Warblers flying around.  So far the star of the local back yard group has been a family of Robin’s who build a nest on top of the back yard house light.

The Robin family was a determined little two birds at the start.  Twice I removed the beginning of a collection of dead grass that was appearing on top of the house light.  Then a few days later, I stepped out to find a completed next with four blue eggs inside.  As the nest was now already completed and in use, I had to leave it be.  But as it turns out, these Robins have been a treasure trove of entertainment.

Did you know that it is against Federal Law to remove an occupied active nest of a Robin?  In fact you cannot try to capture, raise, or Check out the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, if you doubt me.  All Migratory birds are protected under this treaty from being hunted, killed, captured or sold, or even messing with nests and eggs unless you have a specific license for such action.  This has helped to insure that birds are not over hunted, but also has includes a whole list of birds you do not think of when thinking about hunting of birds.

So, here are a photo of our new family of Robin’s: