It was reported that 2,153 people in Japan committed suicide in October this year compared to fewer than 2,000 died from coronavirus infections. (1)
“Experts say the pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues due to prolonged lockdowns, isolation from family members, unemployment and other financial concerns, and a lack of school structure.”
Well, that and a culture that has traditionally condoned suicide.
Some reports have it that the suicide rate in the USA is up, also.
Grumpy Uncle Dave.
More people died of suicide in Japan in one month than the entire coronavirus pandemic.Vandana Rambaran. Foxnews.com. November 28, 2020. Retrieved November 29, 2020 from https://www.foxnews.com/world/more-people-died-of-suicide-in-japan-in-one-month-than-the-entire-coronavirus-pandemic.
On November 25 I drove across 3 states to violate all the expert’s warnings and see my family. Perhaps for the last time. On the trip, I noticed that all of the Department of Transportation texting devices had messages to we weary travelers that had a Thanksgiving theme.
Gravey Holiday, buckle up and save lives
If you gobble too much and wobble, don’t drive
Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. So these DOT texting devices were not state controlled enterprises. Must be National. Federal.
But for weeks, all the politicians, all the experts, and all the media have been hammering us to cancel Thanksgiving. Because of coronavirus and it’s new upsurgance (I know it wasn’t a word, but it is now).
In one respect, this is reassuring. It means that somewhere, someone knew that we were going to ignore their advice.
Prior to Coronavirus, someone with a college degree, let’s say a Bachelor’s degree, could expect to earn $40-60,000/yr plus benefits. In some industries, say business, a masters degree would double that. Think MBA. Now, I have 2 relatives that have had to go to work for $12/hr with advanced degrees and work experiences that would have put those jobs out of consideration as beneath them.
What the hell happened?
Coronavirus hit, that’s what happened! But, why would the occurrence of a naturally occurring biological entity that happened to go viral (pun intended) do such damage to the culture of the world. Affecting social, economic, medical (other than the medical needed to treat the specific virus), travel, resources, staples and every other aspect of human existence that I can’t enumerate off the top of my head right this minute. Ebola didn’t a few years ago. Influenza hasn’t for about 102 years. Cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc. haven’t forever. In fact, the later diseases have been a boon to economics for centuries. It has produced resources from government taxation, profit, jobs, marketing, and education for longer than I’ve been around.
So, what the hell happened?
Something about this event, coronavirus, has been different that prompted our government to institute such severe sanctions on it’s populous as to destroy it’s way of life for the foreseeable future. It has politicized the event to the point that it is just a talking point in the near elections (November, 2020). It has made the news cycle (I’m talking about the hot topic of the hour on cable, TV, social media and in bars and restaurants everywhere in America, every day). And, rumor has dominated every inch of the way.
So, what the hell happened?
So Where Did COVID-19 Really Come From?(1) Somewhere in China. Wuhan which is a little over 300 miles west of Shanghai, in which is a civilian research institute responsible for dealing with agriculture viruses and environmental microbiology. It has been there since about 1956. But, within that institute is a P-4 laboratory (charged with developing and studying weapons grade biological entities), within yards of the index case of COVID-19.(1)
Oh, didn’t I tell you that I’d changes tracks? Well, it seems that the world has more than one entity looking at where this novel-virus came from. There are the Medical and there are the Intelligence aspects. They are neither collaborative nor mutually exclusive. The Medical side tells all, or at least tries to. The Intelligence community tells nothing. It’s against their religion, so to speak. They say that to tell all, would be self-defeating and doing so would inform the ones they are spying on what they know. OK, I get that. Let’s look at what they do know and have shared.
The virus that causes COVID-19 has been known since the 1950s when it infected 3 laboratory workers exposed to bats that were suspected of having the virus (the bats that is).
Almost all of Medicine feels that the current outbreak, 60+ years later, did not originate from a wet market (meaning having live or dead animal products for sale to the public for food) in Wuhan, China. The one’s that might consider this think that a Wuhan Institute of Virology worker sold infected animal products on the sly to merchants on the market. So, still not from the market.
Almost all of Medicine and Intelligence agree that creation of the virus de novo is not technically possible at this time.
Influencing the direction and type of mutation of the native virus once in captivity by man in the laboratory is possible at this time. Has been for awhile.
The Chinese government has refused to allow independent investigators into China to investigate the source/possible source of the outbreak.
So! What the hell happened?
I don’t know and I venture to guess that no one will for about 50 years. That’s about the life cycle of most spy-like stuff.
From your grumpy Uncle Dave, not purporting to any conspiracy theories.
Where Did COVID-19 Really Come From? Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,664, July 28, 2020. Retrieved 10/23/2020 from https://besacenter.org/ (Lt. Col.(res)
Dr. Shoham is a former senior intelligence analyst in the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry. And, he is a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar Ilan University, Israel and specialises [SIC] on [SIC] biological and chemical warfare in the Middle East and worldwide. )
Diplopia, seeing cross eyed or double like when you’re drunk. But I’m not had a drop to drink.
I’m seeing double driving into town early one morning. Well actually, I have been seeing double for a few years, now. But this particular morning, I come upon an exit from the road that I’m on, across a rural stretch. Meaning that until this intersection, there are no lights and its as dark as a witches heart. I see double. There are tall light poles at each exit, one on my side of the cross road and one for the traffic coming from the way I’m headed. And far up ahead, there is another vehicle, red tail lights barely visible but double. I have found, by accident, that if I force my eyes to cross, like we did as kids for a good laugh, my double vision will briefly correct itself and I can see a single entity for a few seconds immediately afterward.
Remember when we were kids, too, that falling down was funny? It ain’t any more. As we age and loose our agility and resiliency, falling has become the real threat to our physical well being that medical statistics report. Injury and death are a high on the risk list for the elderly. The specialty of geriatrics spends a lot of time in designing ways to prevent falls and guard against the injuries that occur from falls. Nursing homes have devices that monitor whether a resident gets out of bed or not. Like a baby monitor we put on those precious little bundles of joy we create. But, this monitor sends an alarm to the nurse and staff if the resident becomes vertical, allowing staff to rush into the room to prevent grandpa from getting out of bed. What a life? Not only do our kids banish us to a nursing home from the comfortable surroundings that we have lived in for umpteen years, they force us to stay in bed for the remainder of our life. But I digress, we were talking my diplopia.
So, I cross my eyes. No luck, still seeing double. I do it again a couple more times and I still see 2 of the lights ahead. Oh well, I guess the diplopia is progressing. When it comes to health in the elderly, it’s always something new. Id relate that to a comedic icon of the past, but you wouldn’t know her.
And then, I come closer to the intersection, close enough that I usually don’t see double. Then closer. Then I notice that I’m not seeing double, there are actually 2 lights atop each light pole and that the vehicle now not-so-far ahead of me actually does have 2 tail lights.
Well, as they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Just don’t expect any sugar with it!
From your grumpy Uncle Dave, more a fan of grapefruit juice than lemons.
The wearing of face masks to prevent disease transmission is now called masking.1
“We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection … The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal … In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.” From a New England Journal of Medicine article.2
“outside health care facilities” What is different about the encounter in a medical facility and out? Of course, other than the fact that HCFs are cesspools of contagion, disease and filth.
Why does the first statement lead directly without further consideration (“is therefore”) to the second statement?
I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with the third statement except I prefer the wearing of masks to “masking”.
But then they recanted because they felt readers were misinterpreting their intended message.3 I didn’t, I agree with Mr. Batura
Has anyone heard of the research that shows that in certain situations the wearing of a mask increases the chance of becoming infected with coronavirus? Me either. But consider this. You are wearing a mask in a situation where the ambient air is very saturated with microscopic water droplets carrying the coronavirus. Some of that air infiltrates into your mask in areas that are not well sealed. (Oh yes, all these wonderful home made, Walmart purchased, sold-as N-95 equivalent’s have gaping holes at the side of the nose and cheeks. Not to mention the idiots that wear their masks covering their mouth but not their nose!) Now,you get to breath a super concentrated coronavirus air mixture deep into those not-so-protected lungs.
And consider that persons wearing a face mask touch their face many more times than when not wearing a mask. Touching the face increases the chance of transmitting the coronavirus from a fomite (non-living surface) to the mask wearer. This is one of the common ways to get COVID-19.
A study I participated in through the American Board of Pediatrics monitored hand washing by clinicians before and after patient care. I recognized, early in my career, that I was particularly susceptible to viral infections. I became a fanatic hand washer and did well in the study. But I , and others, have noticed that the majority of my colleagues are not. In fact, I have observed that about 30% did not wash their hands once during a 12 hour shift.
As to the other direction of this article, I have a post to come about lying.
BTW, as of July 19, 2020, the world has had 14,317,239 cases of coronavirus with a reported 602,865 number of deaths giving a reported death rate of 4.2 % (down from 6+%). The USA has 3,712,604 cases and 140,120 deaths giving a reported death rate of 3.7% (also down from 2 months ago). What is causing the declining death rate? Increased testing.
You really don’t want to get COVID-19? Become a hermit, I mean a real hermit. Wear a body condom.4
From your grumpy Uncle Dave.
Paul Batura. Coronavirus masks spark controversy, but what about the invisible ‘masks’ we all wear? Foxnews.com. July 19, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2020 from https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-masks-invisible-masks-paul-batura.
Klompas M, Morris CA, Sinclair J, Pearson M, Shenoy ES. May 21, 2020. Universal masking in hospitals in the Covid-19 era. Retrieved July 19, 2020 from N Engl J Med 2020;382(21):e63-e63.
Klompas M, et al. Letters to the Editor regarding Universal masking in hospitals in the Covid-19 era.Retrieved July 19, 2020 from N Engl J Med 2020; 383:e9
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988).
