The slide scanning continues. Each slide reminds me of the pre-digital, film days. What do you mean I only took six photographs there? Oh yeah, I only had one spare roll of film with me and there was no convenient place to get more. That shot is so over- or under-exposed, or there are people in it and wouldn't it look better without them? Same old sad song of not enough film or not realizing the exposure was as off as it was. In Vietnam, Son #2 took some 70 photographs in a storm until he got the lightning shot he wanted, something not really possible with the uncertainty inherent in film that had to be developed. Digital has spoiled us. Film kept us humble.
I jotted down another pandemic phrase and admit to not also jotting down the details of who used the expression.
"Follow data not dates."
Things have been locked down too long based on the calendar? What do the case and death numbers tell us? Maybe things shouldn't open up just yet. Yet another pandemic keeper phrase came from today's Ask Amy column in a question about adapting to a post-covid world. The questioner noted that during the pandemic people have interacted differently. The questioner indicated a preference that we continue
"treating people as human beings--not human-doings."
I have often spoken of vacations that are doing and vacations that are being. I like extending the concept to how we treat each other.
China, in a rare admission of weakness, has said that the effectiveness of the vaccines they have made domestically is low. Researchers in Brazil found the efficacy of one Chinese vaccine to be as low as 50.4 percent. The UAE has invited people to get a third dose of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine after antibody tests indicated insufficient immune response after two doses. China is considering mixing the different vaccines together in hopes that will offer greater protection. China is currently only issuing visas to people who have been vaccinated with Chinese-made vaccines. Yes, I do see a problem with that.
British Columbia is apparently the center of the world's largest outbreak of the Brazil covid variant outside of Brazil, with 877 confirmed cases, 200 of which are in Whistler, Canada's most famous ski resort. How the variant arrived is unknown. At least none of the first 84 cases identified in Whistler reported any travel outside Canada. A factor contributing to the spread in Whistler is a housing shortage. Rents are so high that many young people may occupy a small apartment using even closets as bedrooms.
Finally, research in Germany and Norway has found that people with clotting issues after an AstraZeneca vaccination produced unusual antibodies that activated platelets, a blood component involved in clotting. Younger people are more susceptible to this, though no pre-existing conditions are known to predispose people to this rare reaction.
And now I am off to watch the Masters, the only tournament that I watch voluntarily, especially in the last round. I am rooting for the golfer currently in second place, W. Zalatoris, who sits three shots behind the leader, Hideki Matsuyama. Zalatoris is 24 and playing in his first Masters. He can go out and play a round of golf free from the weight of expectations. We should all be so lucky to be free from expectations at least for a couple of hours.
2 comments:
"Data not dates" is Boris I'm afraid. I suspect that it would only work one way, to delay the timetable that was given and not to advance it. In today's exciting news changing rooms reopen here today for the first time since March last year. I'm not entirely sure why they closed seeing as they can't have been more of a risk than people stripping off in the toilets or buying three sizes and returning two.
I can top you on the old film issue. In the early 1960s, processing color film was so costly that I would switch out the color cartridges for B&W depending on whether the color was that important. Thus a scrapbook page of photos may have a combo of color & B&W for the same scene in the same hour! VA
Post a Comment