Fevered mind

As a nurse, I encourage you to read and repost, and quote at length.

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How can a disease with 1% mortality rate shut down the United States?

Franklin Veaux - updated 6 hours ago, professional writer

There are two problems with this question.

1. It neglects the law of large numbers; and

2. It assumes that one of two things happen: you die or are 100% fine.

The US has a population of 328,200,000. If one percent of the population dies, that’s 3,282,000 people dead.

Three million people dead would monkey wrench the economy no matter what. That more than doubles the number of annual deaths all at once.

The second bit is people keep talking about deaths. Deaths, deaths, deaths. Only one percent die! Just one percent! One is a small number! No big deal, right?

What about the people who survive?

For every one person who dies:

So now all of a sudden, that “but it’s only 1% fatal!” becomes:

That’s the thing that folks who keep going on about “only 1% dead, what’s the big deal?” don’t get.

The choice is not “ruin the economy to save 1%.” If we reopen the economy, it will be destroyed anyway. The US economy cannot survive everyone getting COVID-19.

THIS THIS THIS

And that’s not even talking about how many widows, orphans, and single parent families a 1% death rate will create.

How many more people are dying of non-covid illness because they’re either choosing not to get treatment or there aren’t any beds?

How many households are going to lose their primary breadwinner?

How many disabled people are going to lose their caretaker?

How many couples are going to divorce after losing a child?

How many senior citizens are going to have to move to a nursing home after losing their spouse, or their adult child?

And that’s just personal dynamics. Consider the social.

How many kids are going to drop out of high school rather than repeat a year?

How many kids won’t be going to college because they don’t feel safe on campus?

How many students are deciding against nursing school because they figured out long ago that no amount of clapping is worth getting assaulted by a maskless patent’s family demanding horse dewormer?

How many teachers saw parents spitting on their colleagues at PTA meetings and decided this was their last year in the classroom?

This isn’t something we bounce back from like a recession or a bank failure. This is an atom bomb: this is going to be felt for GENERATIONS.

"The US economy cannot survive everyone getting COVID-19" and yet the attitude with omicron is 100% "everyone's going to get it."

Gonna talk about those MRNA vaccines real quick.

So, many of us (possibly not all, because other vaccines in the pipeline) are going to be getting either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

What vaccine you end up getting is likely to depend on your age, health, and where you live. Pfizer’s vaccine is harder to store and transport, so if you live in a big city you’re more likely to get that one.

For what I’m going to say, though, it doesn’t make a difference.

You’re going to be getting two shots, a few weeks apart. For Moderna, it’s 28 days (4 weeks). For Pfizer, it’s 21 days (3 weeks). Yes, this sucks. No, this is not ideal for mass vaccination. You’ll get a card that will remind you to come back for the second dose. The person administering the shot, most likely a pharmacist, will also ask for your cell phone number so they can text you. Because if you don’t come back that first shot is a waste of time.

We don’t know for sure if the single shot gives any protection at all, but the reasonable assumption is that it doesn’t.

This means you need to get your ass back in there for that second shot. And while you are waiting for that shot, you are not protected.

This means you should continue to wear a mask, etc. In fact, if possible, you should be even more careful, because if you get sick and can’t come in for that second shot? They’ll most likely have to start over. The trial included longer periods between the two, so you might be fine, but there is a risk here.

And once you have had that second shot?

It’s going to take two to four weeks to build antibodies, during which time you will have lower, but increasing, protection. They’ll tell you what it is…that data hasn’t been released yet, but will be.

So you should still continue to be careful for those weeks.

Finally!

We don’t know if these vaccines provide what is called sterilizing immunity, meaning you can’t be infected and can’t pass it on.

They may only provide functional immunity, meaning you get infected but don’t get sick. You could still transmit COVID-19 to others, although the risk is lower.

Which means?

Yeah, the masks have to stay on until the case numbers and other metrics are looking good.

Please don’t be those people who get that first shot and go throw a wild party. Have a bit of patience.

I want to mourn her death. I want to honor her. I want to pay tribute to who she was as a woman, as a mother, as a lawyer, as a fighter, as a wife, as a justice, as a patriot. 

I want to mourn her and celebrate her and thank her for everything that she did, all the decisions that she made that helped me grow up in an America where I was safe to pursue all the things I wanted. 

Instead the first emotion I felt wasn’t sadness, or humility, or solemnity. It was fear. Chill down the spine, tears in the eyes, heart racing, muscle clenching fear.  

And I will never forgive them for that. 

Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation

By John Lewis

Published in the New York Times, July 30, 2020

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, though decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

Mr. Lewis, the civil rights leader who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death, to be published upon the day of his funeral.

Watch: George Carlin spoke the truth about pro-lifers in 1996 — and it’s still being proven today.

Read this again.

Read this to others.

Force the idiots, read it to them

JK Rowling is being terf-y and awful on Twitter again, so I just want to remind everyone of a few things:

1. Death of the Author is a beautiful, beautiful thing. You can still love the world she created (I do), and can still draw hope and inspiration from it (I do), while acknowledging that she is acting terribly. 

2. Trans rights are human rights. Trans HP friends: you matter, you are worthy, you are loved, you are wanted. I am your mom now. I am the Lord of Hogwarts now. Everyone gets free matching pajamas. Slumber party in the Great Hall, happy Pride month, I love you.

gandalf relaying an important message to remember during these scary times ♡

Run me my happiness

You know what I would do if i was rich? LEARN

Cooking classes all over the world, dressmaking classes, sommelier classes, history lectures in St. Petersburg and in Bogota, painting classes in France, calligraphy lessons in China, ink painting in Japan, learning about cultural preservation in Angor Wat Cambodia or Macchu Piccu Peru, learning to make beautiful alpaca tapestries and woven cloaks in Peru and Bolivia, learning about environmental preservation in the Amazon River Basin, learning about zoology in Australia….

There is so much in this world that I want to know and understand and SEE, so much that rich people could learn if they gave a DAMN

This! So damn much!

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

This is so well put I am stunned

I wish more cartoons taught young girls that if a man harasses you or annoys you or whatever you should blow him up with a bazooka and feel no remorse :)))

Ivy leaned back to avoid the propulsion blast. They’ve done this before.

CBC made a good documentary on adult ADHD and part of it really caught me off guard because i swear they repeated verbatim my life story for the past 3 years

full programme here:

http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/adhd-not-just-for-kids

My ADHD manifested in excellent in-class work. Excellent understanding in discussions. Excellent participation. 

My ADHD manifested in piles of homework left undone until the last possible minute, while I stared at them, thinking; “I want to get these done. I understand the theory. It would take 10 minutes. I want to start, why can’t I start?” 

My ADHD manifested in fantastic reading comprehension - nigh impenetrable focus on interesting topics the first time I’m reading about them. 

My ADHD manifested in a complete inability to focus on reviews or re-reads, mind skittering sideways and away whenever anything was boring or repetitive. I sat down to study, my books open, my eyes on the text, and my brain clawing its way out the back of my head to focus on something else - anything else. Focus, focus! [No.]

My ADHD manifested in Articulating wings half-finished but still beautiful, in beautiful lineart and half-hearted coloring. In stories written passionately for days until I forgot it existed and never returned. In projects started and forgotten and started and forgotten a thousand times until my bins of project supplies piled up and my bank account shriveled down. No, it will be different this time - I LOVE this new thing. This new thing is my world, my destiny, my Everything. I CREATE and CREATE and CREATE and never FINISH. 

My ADHD manifested in confusion and surprise as time slithered away, hours passing like minutes and minutes seeming endless by contrast. An inability to gauge how much time had passed, was left, a task would take. An inability to hold dates in my head, because time didn’t feel consistent or even real.

 My ADHD manifested in watching someone talk and not understanding a word they said - literally hearing sounds and translating out only nonsense. In thoughts so loud I couldn’t speak coherently. In a conversation across the room shattering an idea I was trying to hold. It’s hard to think when you’re already thinking about everything around you. 

i don’t know what else to do

Fuck, yeah.