The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 249 (749)

Any coronavirus news was good news today; it distracted me from the genocidal images coming out of Ukraine. Even the verbal descriptions of the images sickened me. I am at a loss for what little I can do to help. We have donated generously to several humanitarian efforts, but what I'd really like to do is help pay for whatever weaponry can hurt the Russians the most. The Professor made an interesting comment about the fact that in the very early days of World War II, German soldiers had to be ordered to commit atrocities such as mass killings. I wonder if the Russians had to be commanded or did it willingly.

Okay, back to the pandemic, the other matter of global importance I feel powerless to help. I read a quick blurb that noted that in Massachusetts, the case incidence rates right now are higher in wealthier suburbs with higher vaccination and booster rates. This seems a bit counter-intuitive until the point is made that the wealthier suburbs are dropping pandemic precautions faster than lower-income areas are. I wonder if there's a sense that financial security itself offers additional protection. 

In the vein of "I never would have thought of that," the pandemic has led to a shortage of surrogate mothers meaning, among other things, that the price to be one is rising. One issue is vaccination. A potential surrogate may not want to be vaccinated, but vaccination might be a requirement of the parents-to-be. The surrogacy contract may now contain other conditions such as crowd avoidance. As travel becomes safer, many potential surrogate mothers may not want to commit to the nine months to one year that surrogacy requires. Finally, as if the other bits weren't interesting enough, by some estimates the largest surrogacy hub in the world is Ukraine. Right now it is said that there are around 20 surrogate-born babies hiding with in Kyiv with the nannies who, were it not for the war, would be taking them to their future homes.

In Massachusetts and other states, protests against pandemic precautions are still happening outside the homes of local and state government officials. Nova Scotia and Alberta in Canada are seeing similar protests. Protesters outside the home of the Boston mayor have called her "Hitler" and yelled to her children that their mother should be in prison.

The British government has shut down or cut back its covid surveillance programs. The data from these were used by the US and other countries to track the emergence and strength of variants as well as the strength of vaccines. As covid monitoring systems become weaker, it will be harder to predict new surges and assess new variants as they emerge. The key to tracking change in Britain has been the testing of thousands of people randomly each month. This turns out to be the most rapid indicator of the appearance of new variants. 

An average of 11,860 Americans were hospitalized with covid in the past week, the lowest value since 2020 and down from a peak of over 145,000 in mid-January. The previous low was 12,041 in June, before Delta took hold. 

Finally, a little food for thought from an Irish researcher: "For us, living with Covid  does not mean ignoring Covid." As much as we might wish we could, there is no ignoring either the pandemic or the war.