Blended Variant in Vietnam

Vietnam’s Health Ministry announced Saturday that it had detected a highly transmissible new variant of the coronavirus that has helped fuel a recent wave of infections in the country.

Genetic sequencing indicated that the new variant was a mix of the coronavirus strains first detected in the United Kingdom and India, said Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long, according to the VnExpress newspaper.

The minister said the new variant was particularly contagious via air and viral cultures have revealed it replicates extremely quickly, the newspaper reported.

“The new variant is very dangerous,” Long said in a statement.

There it is.

Tonight I gave my presentation in Ethics and Educational Decision Making, a very cool topic in its own right, and one that is at the core of my philosophical inquiry. 

 

I've spent the last several weeks on this, and the whole of the course knowing that this topic is where I needed to dig to find my dissertation. The readings and conversations each week were excellent and pushed me in just the right directions at just the right time. The syllabus has an elegance that can only be understood by looking back, and I'm glad I took the time to really delve into this for real answers.

 

The magic happened yesterday evening, that moment when all the side notes of analysis and the structural bits of logic and craft came together to create a fertile tendril of its own. I spent five hours letting the flower unfold, and then this morning I trimmed and shaped until it was a bouquet.

 

All sorts of stuff is happening in my so-called real life, and lately it's been a struggle to do even small things. Some days thinking is too much. the last couple weeks I'd begun to worry if it would ever come back.

 

The success of the last 24 hours was restorative, and I was fine until I started making tea ten minutes before the presentation. Not a crisis of confidence in the work, but a deep shaking desire not to be seen. I leaned against the wall, letting the undeniable tears have their way until the kettle boiled. 

 

I washed my face and changed my blouse while the tea steeped. There were four whole minutes left yet, and I moved slowly through each one, tying my hair up, fetching the pages of the presentation, opening the laptop, stirring sugar into the freshly poured tea.

 

The structure of class took over, and I barely noticed the shaking in my core -- reading a strong work is settling for me, kind of the opposite of stage fright. I didn't give any preamble about why this is the line of inquiry that spoke to me, I simply looked at the top line and let the words on the page take me, as they always do. When I got to the last line ten minutes later, I was kind of sad to see them go. I muted my mic.

I looked up at the quiet zoom room, wondering if I'd muted them instead, and then the professor spoke. I don't remember his first statements, and didn't really come back to reality until I was reaching for my pen to take a note on his suggestion for long term considerations of the avenue I had recommended. I had forgotten to bring my notebook and pen. When does that ever happen? I fetched the almost dead marker from my desk, the only writing instrument in the room, and scrawled "educational long term strategy" on the back of the presentation.

 

By the time the next presentation began, I was nearly human again. All of the presentations have been so great, and I feel honored to have had the wisdom of these fellow scholars this term. I felt solid about my work and the presentation. After class I poured the rest of the tea into my mug and talked with a friend, not realizing how keyed up I'd been until the drop came, ten minutes into the conversation, a warm weariness that oozed down through my bones and rooted me to the chair, to the floor, to the ground. I'd be asleep in thirty minutes or less, so I heated up some leftover Golden Noodle Heal All, brushed my teeth, and headed to bed.

I was drifting off when my phone chimed with a text, and I blearily realized that meant it wasn't on the charging stand -- the charging routine goes into do not disturb, possibly my favorite technological feature ever. 

 

The message from my professor made my whole day.

 

 

 

Onward, friends.

The holes in the armor

Because as far as germs and viruses are concerned, mostly dead is still slightly alive.

Over 80 percent of kindergarteners at some Oakland schools entered this year without all of their state-required vaccinations. At some Los Angeles Unified schools, more than 90 percent are under-vaccinated, meaning only 10 percent of kids — or far fewer — are fully up to date on their immunizations. . . .

“We have a conditional-entrant problem here,” insisted Pine. “They’re not immunized. They’re not protected.”

The national measles outbreak has now spread to Marin County, where the Department of Health and Human Services confirms that two children have come down with the disease. As of this afternoon, the total number of confirmed cases in California stands at 92, with one being an adult coach of a high school baseball team, and one being an infant at a daycare center, where it was in care with 23 other infants and toddlers who are likely not vaccinated due to their ages.

It's difficult for me to put this sentence together, but perhaps Mississippi got it right on this one. A strict law mandating vaccinations and the lack of loopholes for exceptions have left Mississippi nearly impervious to Measles, Mumps and Rubella, and one suspects to whooping cough as well. As for the 0.3% (yes, that's three-tenths of one percent) of the population in Mississippi who remain unvaccinated because of age or medical condition, the herd really will protect them, creating a immune-based shield that will stop the advance of the virus in its tracks. This is what vaccinations are for.

We need to seriously consider, as a society, the limits of personal choice on the public welfare. In Mississippi, public health unquestionably trumps personal choice. I understand that this is the United States of America, and that we were forged in the crucible of rugged individuality and independence that was the American Frontier. I get it. But there is no reason to compromise the health of an entire population when we could so easily stop it. MMR vaccinations are cheap, readily available, and have few if any complications.

"The science is pretty indisputable," the President told NBC.

“You should get your kids vaccinated — it’s good for them,” Obama said. “We should be able to get back to the point where measles effectively is not existing in this country.”