The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 487 (987)

Let's start with some non-coronavirus quickies. First, a monkeypox one, or, an mpox one. Worried about the negative aspects of the "monkey" part of monkeypox, WHO has replaced "monkey" with "m." There is some sort of one-year transition period, but the article from which I pulled this bit of info was already using mpox. Measles is becoming an international threat due to the healthcare disruptions during the pandemic. That's all we need--another highly contagious virus with an effective vaccine people may or may not be getting. Merriam-Webster has declared its word of the year to be "gaslighting," referring to deliberate efforts to manipulate another person into distrusting their own judgment. Could that word have been chosen in response to all the divisiveness in today's world, with one group calling into question another group's belief about science, vaccines, or other relevant topics?

As for divisiveness, Dr. Fauci spoke about it on his Sunday-talk-show retirement tour yesterday, saying he is very troubled by today's divisiveness and its effect on public health. He blamed the divisiveness on anti-science, anti-vaccine thinking. Appearing on a different show, he said he  was maintaining a "completely open mind" about the possible laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2 while also believing that the evidence for a natural origin "is pretty strong."

China remains on edge. While authorities have put up barriers and patrolled streets where protests have been held, they have also eased some restrictions. The gates blocking access to some apartment complexes in Beijing have been removed, and some cities are scaling back or ending mandatory testing. The COVID wave continues with over 40,000 new cases Monday. Of these, over 36,000 are asymptomatic. There is some concern about what happens if China backs off zero COVID. Chinese people have no real "wall of immunity" citizens of other countries have due to vaccination or infection. Right now, there are no mRNA vaccines available in China without which a giant COVID wave could produce newer, more dangerous variants. The countries that have been most successful at dealing with COVID, including New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, and Denmark have followed a pattern of containment (2020), vaccination (2021), and treatment (2022). China's pulling off all three of those at the same time would require a miracle.

Finally, here's some new evidence that might actually persuade some men to get vaccinated or at least to avoid catching COVID. It seems that men infected with COVID have one third less sperm compared to uninfected men over six months later. And of 100 men infected but not hospitalized, four had no visible sperm, something not seen in 100 men who were not infected. Serious male contraception or a blow to someone's masculinity? I'm a woman, so I wouldn't know.