The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 474 (974)

A dreary wet and cold day. We may have bypassed autumn and gone straight to winter. By Son #1's metric of is The Family Dog wearing her coat, we are indeed in winter. The local community continues to recover from the events of Sunday night. The weather argues against another candlelight vigil on the lawn at the center of the university, as was held last night. Attendance was mentioned in one source as being in the thousands. No word has been given on whether the last two football games will be played. There is also no word on if the second injured victim was a football player. There is still a lot to learn.

Coronavirus is still here. Around 315 Americans die daily, and there are over 27,000 Americans in hospitals with COVID. Only half of the Americans eligible for boosters have gotten them, and only 10 percent have gotten their most up-to-date ones. I trust the people coming for Thanksgiving and won't mask then, but if I were eating out, even outside, I definitely would. Is it possible that the winter surge will not be as severe as in past years? That may well depend on whether a new variant arises.  

A 2021 study reported that over half of American adults reported symptoms of major depressive disorder after having COVID. The risk of developing depression or some other mental health problems remains high for up to a year after the COVID infection. A clinical epidemiologist explains, "There's something about the coronavirus that really affects the brain. Some people get depression, while other people can have strokes, anxiety, memory disorders. and sensory disorders." Some people, of course, have no such symptoms. 

One theory behind the development of mental health problems post-COVID is that the immune system may be overreacting and causing inflammation in the brain. One of the biggest risk factors for developing post-COVID mental health issues is having a diagnosed mental health disorder before getting sick. Other risk factors according the WHO include age; young people are at the greatest risk of suicide or self-harm. Women are more likely than men to report mental health conditions, but the psychologist in me asks whether this is because women develop more conditions or are more comfortable reporting them. Finally, people with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, cancer, and heart disease are at greater risk.

It's a good thing I can no longer be mistaken for a young person. If that were so, I'd check all four of the risk boxes: a woman who suffers from depression and who has asthma and high blood pressure. 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 473 (973)

No coronavirus news today. While today has not been as bad for the community as August 12, 2017 was, it hasn't been a good one. We think it can't happen here until it does. Late last night, a bus returned to The Local University from a class trip to a play in Washington, DC. As the bus was unloading, one of the students pulled out a gun and started shooting. Three young men were killed; two were injured. One of the injured students is in critical condition. It seems that all five of the victims were on or had connections to the university's football team, as did the shooter, also a student. The shooter was not apprehended until about noon today. Classes were cancelled (for tomorrow as well), and students were told to shelter in place. That order was lifted after local and state police had thoroughly searched the university. 

Motive? It's not clear. There was a suggestion on a sub-Reddit that the shooter had been hazed by some of the students he shot, that the hazing involved the football team. We may never know for sure unless the young man in custody, charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony, tells us. 

Even though I was nowhere near the university and the news came early enough that The Professor stayed home, that it happened here is unnerving and upsetting. I cannot imagine what the parents of the victims, dead or injured, are feeling. They trusted the university, city, state, other entity, to take care of their children, and that trust has been violated. I feel also for the parents of the shooter. They, too, have lost a child, though in a much different way. 

COVID sucks, but this sucks more. 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 472 (972)

In response to the lack of coronavirus news newsworthy enough on which to expound, I did a little searching on the coronavirus situation in Turkmenistan. WHO reports:

In Turkmenistan, from 3 January 2020 to 5:01pm CET, 11 November 2022, there have been 0 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 0 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 4 September 2022, a total of 13,514,000 vaccine doses have been administered.

China should feel no small degree of jealousy in another country's success when it comes to zero COVID. While there have been no confirmed cases, there have been reported ones. The Wikipedia entry on "COVID-19 pandemic in Turkmenistan" has some details on these, and is well worth reading. I particularly liked this paragraph:

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Reporters Without Borders reported that the government of Turkmenistan had banned the word "coronavirus" and that people could be arrested for wearing masks or discussing the pandemic.^[39][40] The organization later corrected their report, clarifying that the word itself was not banned, but maintained that it had been removed from informational brochures and that the government was restricting information about the virus and providing "very one-sided information".^[41] According to Chronicles of Turkmenistan, state media did not begin reporting on the measures that had been taken until 25 March.^[42]

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Things seem so much simpler in an autocracy, right? If you read to the end of the Wikipedia entry, it mentions the nationwide vaccination mandate. Not hard to get one of those through in an autocracy. As much as I think Americans should be savvy enough to get vaccinated, I don't want the right to choose vaccination to go the way of the other major choice recently taken away. Choice. It matters.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 471 (971)

It was another slow news morning. If news continues to be thin and/or too technical to summarize easily, I may think of stopping posting every day or at all, but only after I've hit Day 500 (1,000) in about four weeks. I would be able, then, to write about the other things I find myself thinking about. Or not. I have a few weeks to think about it and, who knows, there may be another winter surge that merits attention.

China is keeping its zero COVID policy even as it eases some other restrictions. People entering China now must quarantine in a hotel for five days followed by three days isolation at their home. It used to be 10 days of quarantine followed by seven days at home. The penalty for airlines bringing in travelers with COVID has been scrapped while the requirement that airlines test all passengers has been reduced. The government has limited contact tracing and eased some lock-down measures, though local governments can override this and keep in place some restrictions such as mass testing. China is still the last country adhering to strict pandemic rules, and it is not clear how long zero COVID will remain in effect. There were over 10,000 local cases Thursday, the highest daily count in over six months. The pandemic is not seen as over in China.

It will be interesting to see how the relaxation of the restrictions meshes with continued zero COVID. It would be interesting if some objective criterion were to emerge showing that China was right all along in suppressing as much COVID as they could. And then there's Turkmenistan, a country that as far as I can tell has reported no COVID. It's an autocracy, with pretty tight restrictions. The Professor and I actually had a 2020 trip that included Turkmenistan cancelled by the pandemic. The requirements to get a visa were onerous, and it looked as if visitors had to be accompanied by a guide. Now, the tour company has reworked that tour and replaced Turkmenistan with Kyrgyzstan. I think I'll dig around and see if I can find anything out about COVID in Turkmenistan. It's not as if I have something else to do. NOT!

The Road goes ever on an on ... Day 470 (970)

Today is Veterans Day to honor all who have served in whatever service in whatever role. If you can't thank someone in person, thank someone via email, or just with appreciative thoughts. We who did not serve owe them a lot.

I read a couple of studies this morning with information worth remembering. Reading about the first told me that still masking in public is a good thing for me, especially given that I've had one round of COVID. That statement gives away that the study had to do with repeat infections. A paper in Nature Medicine reported a study of some 40,000 reinfections among over 440,000 COVID cases and over five million controls. I should say up front that the subjects were at Veterans Administration hospitals meaning that they are not representative of Americans in terms of age, sex, or race. 

Reinfections are bad for your health. A second or third infection was more closely associated with worse acute and post-acute (long COVID) outcomes than was a single infection. The study looked at a range of factors including hospitalizations, presence of at least one symptom, cardiovascular, coagulation and hematological, diabetes, fatigue, gastrointestinal, kidney, mental health, musculoskeletal, neurological, and pulmonary. For all of those factors, two infections were worse than one infection, and three infections were worse than two. Vaccination had no substantive protective effect in reinfected people. 

In other words, the more times you have COVID, the greater the odds that you'll have some or another problem later. I've had it once, and my plan is not to have it again. I'll be getting my third booster around the end of the year, about when the experts say the natural immunity from my case will be wearing down. Masks will be my friend for quite a while. 

A German study on long COVID looked at 157,000 people, 12,000 of whom were children or adolescents. There were five times as many matched control subjects. Rather than give the details of the study, I'll jump right to the conclusion: "The results of the present study indicate that post-COVID-19 cannot be dismissed among children and adolescents." 

The bottom line is you don't want to get COVID, and if you do get it, you don't want to get it again. And if you're wearing a mask somewhere, any kids going with you should be wearing one as well. 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 469 (969)

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine sheds some light on the value of mask mandates in schools. The researchers looked at case rates in districts in the Boston area after school mask mandates were lifted in February of this year. Two of the districts maintained the mask mandate for the course of the study. Before the mask mandate was lifted, the case rates for all the districts were very similar. When the mandate was lifted, case rates went up quickly, and about 30 percent of all of the cases during the study period were attributable to the dropping of the mask mandate. Interestingly, the districts that kept the mask mandate in place on average had buildings in poorer condition, more crowded classrooms, and a higher proportion of individuals with underlying risk factors. Dropping mask mandates, therefore, was not in the best interests of the children or staff. In other words, masks offered protection even with conditions that otherwise would be expected to lead to more cases. 

Another new study compared initial COVID infections with repeat ones. Hospitalization and death rates were more likely to rise with repeat infections; long COVID was also more likely. In other words, "...cumulative risks and burdens of repeat infections increased according to the number of infections."

A New York Times virus briefing discussed planning for the upcoming holidays. For people believing the pandemic is over, this is a moot point. For the rest of us, planning for holiday events should center around the highest risk person attending. A week-long mini-quarantine period is also useful staying in as much as possible for the week preceding an event. Finally, a person who has any symptoms at all should stay at home. One Times reader offered the following: "I will not travel or interact if not feeling well. I will home-test if there are adults over the age of 65 attending any gathering. I will not attend any event in which a mask is required." The last thought might mean that the person will not attend any event risky enough that the organizers are requiring masks. At least I hope that is how the statement is intended and not as an anti-mask thought.

JAMA Network Open has a report on research being done at Northeastern University. So far, that research suggests that women are at higher risk of long COVID than men are. As one of the researchers put it, "You're almost twice as likely to get long COVID just being a woman, controlling for everything else." Now that's a cheery thought. That said, the only person I know who has suffered from long COVID is a woman. If not, it would be fascinating to know why. I wonder if men simply ignore or repress symptoms more than women do so that their cases are not recorded.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 468 (968)

I did not sleep well Monday night before yesterday's 15-hour Election Day, nor did I sleep well last night. My post today will be somewhat selective. I don't have the energy to get too far into too many things. Yesterday tired me out more than usual. I was shadowing the precinct chief whom I am replacing rather than my usual job of being ballot officer. We also had a very unexpected turnout, as many as we would expect for a presidential election. We started the day with 700 ballots; a mid-day delivery of extra ballots was the only way we could give out over 800. We finished the day giving out pre-folded ballots that had been prepared for absentee ballot mailings. As for results, the candidate of my choice did not win in my precinct or overall. I will have to live with that. The fact that the predicted "red wave" did not sweep over the country is noteworthy. Our constitutional republic might survive after all.

There are a couple of results from recent polls not on the elections but on the coronavirus. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in mid-October found 23 percent of respondents saying that the COVID outbreak would be "very important" to their vote. In an October Gallup poll, only one percent of voters thought that the COVID virus was the most important problem facing the country. Many Republican candidates attacked the Democrats' COVID funding and promised to get rid of various mandates including the military vaccination one. At the state level, many Republican incumbents campaigned on how quickly they had reopened their districts or states.

Alcohol-induced deaths skyrocketed during the pandemic. Over 49,000 people died in 2020, a 26 percent jump over 2019. The National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers said alcohol abuse was "already a crisis" but "exploded" due to the pandemic. Alcohol abuse and more sexually transmitted diseases. Hasn't the pandemic been wonderful?