Here’s how I see it

Bivalent COVID boosters are available & exciting

willo Here's how I see it Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

An article I read in the New York Times says that many Americans aren’t even noticing that the new, bivalent COVID-19 vaccines are now available. The public has lost interest in all things coronavirus, and the government is running out of funding for effective reminders or elaborate, coordinated delivery campaigns.

It falls to us, concerned citizens, to spread the word about how we can protect ourselves and others. In the interest of fighting misinformation, I will also share reputable resources for those wishing to do their own research.

The new boosters, authorized by the F.D.A. last month, are “bivalent” because they protect against:

  1. the Omicron subvariant still circulating in addition to
  2. the original version of the COVID-19 virus.

The Latin root bi– means two.

Merriam Webster dictionary page highlighting prefix definition of BI means TWOPut simply, a single shot now offers two kinds viral defense: more of the same protection from the original booster, plus, for the first time, the specific power to fight Omicron. That named strain of the virus, also known as lineage B.1.1.529, caused the enormous spike in coronavirus cases early in 2022. It’s estimated that the “mild” Omicron strain was responsible for killing 117,560 people in America. Source: MedRxiv.

More than one million Americans have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. This virus has been far deadlier than any recent influenza outbreak. The worst annual flu statistics in the past decade saw 52,000 people die in the US, for comparison, while an average year sees  ≈34,000 flu deaths. Source: CDC.

Allow me to do the math for those who struggle with the subject: with COVID-19 having a major impact over the past three years, one million lost lives (1,000,000) averages out to roughly 333,000 American deaths in a single pandemic year. (1,000,000 ÷ 3 = 333,333 ¹⁄3) This means COVID kills 10× as many as an average annual flu does in the U.S.A.

  • 34,000 × 3 = 102,000 this is how many flu would probably have killed over three years
  • 102,000 × 10 = 1,020,000 this is how many flu would probably have killed if it were 10 times worse
  • 1,020,000 is close enough to one million to be considered the same for this kind of analysis

Flu vs. COVID death rate comparisons are usually the work of the innumerate… or liars.

“It’s vaccination, not vaccines, that saves lives.”

Personally, I’m with Zeynep Tufekci, whose opinion piece in the Times marveled at the awesomeness of vaccination’s potential… while exploring the inadequacy of current messaging to motivate our citizens.

Tukekci writes: “[I]t’s vaccination, not vaccines, that saves lives.”

And she’s right about that.

bandage on upper armThe most impressive technology can solve no problem if it isn’t deployed where it is needed and at the right time. Safe, modern, effective vaccine boosters against COVID are being provided at no cost by the U.S. government. Those shots are available today.

As of now, everyone over age 12 in America is entitled to a free bivalent booster shot as long as at least two months have passed since the most recent dose.

Boosters reduce your chance of catching Omicron, and they substantially reduce an infected person’s risk of being hospitalized with—or dying of—COVID-19. Sources: New England Journal of Medicine, CDC, United Kingdom Health Security Agency.

Boosters will also help you avoid long COVID. Source: JAMA.

Aside from spreading personal misery, long COVID is also costing our economy hundreds of billions of dollars, with just lost wages from the disease estimated between $170-230 billion annually. Note that this figure approaches 1% of the total U.S. gross domestic product. Sources: World Economic Forum, Brookings Institution, Federal Reserve Bank of MN. 

Getting vaccinated and boosted is a patriotic choice as doing so protects our faltering economy.

I was delighted to take my teen in for a bivalent booster dose this week. His previous shot was last winter, he attends classes in person while being the only kid in most rooms electing to mask, and our household includes a high risk loved one. A few hours with a sore arm and one long nap later, my child has no lingering side effects, but he can more safely spend time with his grandparent.

There’s no way to put a price on the value of those hours. COVID vaccines are a miracle, a blessing, and quite literally wonderful.

The rest of my family will be getting bivalent boosters soon, having had age- and risk-related doses more recently than a healthy teen.Redacted official CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card

Opting in for your bivalent booster dose is choosing life over death, wellness over infirmity, civic engagement over cynicism, and family values over selfishness. Vaccination protects our society by safeguarding both individual health and overall economic function; sick people are less productive.

I’m fully vaccinated—and boosted—because I love America, and because my religion teaches that life is a sacred gift.

What’s your reason?

♦

When life gives you foghorns, count your blessings?

willo Here's how I see it, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

There are realities in every life utterly beyond anyone’s control. Consider the foghorn.

Under certain weather conditions, a ship has an obligation to blast its foghorn at regular intervals. It does so to keep the seas safe for other vessels.

When one sits on a deck in the vicinity of said sonic safety device, the resulting report can be… distracting… to say the least.

It startles me enough to make me jump the first several times at least that I hear a foghorn during any given hour. It is sufficiently loud that my instinct is to clap my hands over my ears like a toddler would. I tend to let out a nervous giggle with every sonorous report. Conversation must stop.

While on vacation, at sea, in the North Atlantic Ocean, we’ve encountered more than our fair share of fantastic conditions, but there have been plenty of overcast hours. As it happens, our favorite place to spend the non-wind-whipped ones has been a Retreat Cabana we reserved for our voyage. These amenities are situated on deck 12 of 14 of our temporary home-away-from-home.

From the sound of it, these otherwise luxurious rentals sit directly under the ship’s foghorn. Without a doubt, the source is nearer deck 12, forward, than our staterooms on deck 4, aft.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the frequency of the foghorn blasts was dictated by a ship’s speed or other specific conditions, but I know almost nothing about maritime rules. What I can say is that the foghorn sounds at an interval just long enough that one forgets it is coming, right up until it trumpets its way back into your ears and central nervous system.

My husband, it’s fair to say, is not a fan of the foghorn. He spends more time outdoors than I do, and he frequents the Cabana more often than I do. Thus far, he’s tried noise concealing headphones and foam earplugs to dull the noise and continue on with his work, but the distraction continues.

I’m absolutely sympathetic to the necessity and value of the foghorn, and all the other safety innovations that make a modern cruise safer than the maiden voyage of the Titanic. I hope this post comes across as something absolutely distinct from a compliant! That said, my heart kept stopping and my ears kept ringing on our foggy Cabana mornings, and I wasn’t sure that was optimal, either.

On about the third day that the foghorn menaced my peace of mind, I had an epiphany. It’s stentorian reverberations, after all, meant we continued on our way, all systems go, all of the important stuff quite right with our isolated little floating world.

I decided, with every foghorn blast, to adjust my reaction into counting my blessings.

Loud noises shut my eyes and often prompt me to clasp my hands at my heart. Why not follow that lead and take a moment in gratitude for the gift of safety, the ability to hear a warning offered with beneficent intentions, and the joy of my functional if reactive body?

I can’t say that the foghorn is my favorite aspect of traveling by sea, even so, but our relationship has improved.

I love the waves. I find the atmosphere and pace of cruising conducive to contemplation. I marvel every day aboard a ship at the luxury of having the time and funds to see the world this way.

And, now?

I hear the blast of a foghorn, and I’m reminded to count my blessings. They’re as myriad as the waves in the sea.

And, if occasionally obscured by the mist, my other faculties remain to offer clarity.

What’s a clarion blast if not a call to action?

What better action to take than finding the good in an inconvenience?

I still prefer a clear blue sky, but I’ll hearken to the value of the foghorn.

♦

Supreme Court deprived me of religious liberty today

willo Here's how I see it, Opinions Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

In America’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers stated that each of us was “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Today, the United States Supreme Court issued a deeply flawed decision that deprives American women of all three inalienable rights—by forcing unwilling pregnant individuals to carry unwanted embryos to term, violating what should be the inviolable sovereignty of the body itself—while simultaneously depriving Jewish people of their religious liberty.

This is an activist Court, wantonly sullying America’s most cherished ideals. Here’s how Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett deprived me, today, of my right to freely exercise my Jewish religion:

According to thousands of years of Jewish understanding, a fetus is not yet a person (נפש‎)‎, though it holds the potential to become one. Instead, an embryo is a part of its mother’s body. Until 40 days after conception, Judaism considers the contents of the womb “like water” or “mere fluid.” Explicitly stated, abortion is not murder under Jewish law.

Jewish law actually requires that a fetus be surgically excised from the womb if a mother is imperiled during its delivery and the majority of the baby’s body is not yet delivered outside her body. There is Biblical, Talmudic, and rabbinic support for this position, though obviously individual Jews may hold different personal interpretations.

Here’s a good overview of this difficult topic from the Jewish perspective.

The highly partisan Supreme Court of 2022 is trampling on my First Amendment right to freely exercise my religion by forcing its distinctly Christian interpretation of their own poorly translated from the Hebrew and Aramaic Bible upon everyone in the U.S.A., regardless of the faith—or lack thereof—of each person affected by their decisions.

No state can be allowed to trample the religious liberty of its inhabitants. Isn’t that the promise of the U.S. Constitution? Are these justices actually so blinded by their personal faith that they’re rejecting its most basic protections? If so, these six are unfit for the job. If they’re dismantling the Constitution intentionally to promote their Christian faith, they are as traitorous as the January 6th seditionists and should be prosecuted accordingly.

I am an American, Jewish woman. I demand both personal sovereignty over my own body and freedom to practice my religion.

♦

Only Alaska & SW want mask scofflaws off flights

willo Here's how I see it, Travel, You might find this helpful Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

According to an Associated Press article I read in the Boston Globe, most of the major U.S. airlines are welcoming mask scofflaws back with open arms. This includes American, United, and Delta airlines.Disposable surgical mask

Quoted from the piece by David Koenig:

“Airlines have banned several thousand passengers since the pandemic started for refusing to wear masks. Now they want most of those passengers back.

American, United and Delta have all indicated that they will lift the bans they imposed now that masks are optional on flights.”

Putting that another way, American, Delta, and United do not care that passengers purposefully broke the law, disobeying the direct instructions of flight attendants, and putting other passengers at risk.

American, Delta, and United are choosing the potential profits to be earned off of contemptuous criminals ahead of the safety of everyone else in their planes.Pile of money

Message received, American, Delta, and United! You don’t want my business. I believe in the rule of law and the importance of passenger adherence to the lawful instructions of highly trained aircraft crew members. American, Delta, and United do not.

I pity the employees of these airlines, working for an employer taking the first opportunity to bring back customers who have demonstrated a willingness to violate §46504 of U.S. Code.Screen shot of U.S. Code section relating to interference with flight crew

Two smaller airlines—notably those known for more customer-friendly policies overall—took a different approach. Alaska Airlines* and Southwest both announced that law-breakers who refused to follow the instructions of flight attendants remain barred from their flights.

From the same article:

“Alaska Airlines said this week that banned passengers won’t be welcomed back. Southwest said a judge’s ruling that struck down the federal mandate won’t change its decision to bar an undisclosed number of passengers.”

Again, I have a simple takeaway here. Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines put passenger safety first. These are companies who value the health and safety of the people who board their planes, whether as paying customers or paid employees.Tail of Alaska plane visible on tarmac through airport terminal window

I will fly with Alaska or Southwest Airlines before ever again considering those other major domestic carriers. My sympathies are with the flight attendants who had to put up with selfish jerks intentionally breaking the rules; my dollars will fund companies that don’t reward churlish boors.

♦

* I’ve written many times before that Alaska Airlines is my favorite domestic carrier. I have maintained frequent flier status with them for many years and frequently discover new reasons for this preference.

Happy Passover 2022

willo Here's how I see it Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Tonight, my family celebrated our freedom with a Passover seder.

Every year at this time, Jews around the world thank God for being personally liberated from slavery. It’s a biblical story, but, according to Jewish teachings, that liberation still belongs to every one of us on an individual level, now, in this moment.

That’s the guidance offered to us by our religious tradition, and I deeply appreciate the reminder of the abundant blessings of my own daily life.

Without a doubt, in 2022, my family bowed our heads with specific thanks for the wisdom shown by my father-in-law way back in the 1970’s when he brought his wife, child, and mother-in-law out of bondage from the Soviet Union to the U.S.A.

He had no idea what to expect when he got there, but he trusted in the expansive nature of the big ideas in the “great works” of European literature that he’d read (illicitly, since they were illegal in Russia) to imply that something better existed outside the narrow intellectual constraints of 20th Century Soviet communism.

I daresay he’d say he was right to follow those instincts. I’m in total agreement.

Tonight, we prayed for those who live with less freedom than we are privileged to have. We thanked God for the exodus of DH, his parents, and his grandmother from the U.S.S.R., to the U.S.A., by way of a European refugee camp.

Parallels to today’s crisis in Ukraine are not lost on us. We bow our heads to those still suffering. We look at our beautiful children and acknowledge how easily they could have been born there instead of here; in servitude instead of free.

We are warm and safe and free to worship—or not—as we choose. What a wonder! What a privilege.

Table after meal with seder plate containing maror, vegetables, charoset, egg, etcGenerous sponsors in Europe and the U.S.A. helped bring my husband and his family forth from oppression to independence many years ago. The world must take similar steps to ease the way for Ukrainians fleeing Russian aggression today.

Moses said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” My father-in-law said something similar, via his actions, to Brezhnev.

Now, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is saying the same to would-be Czar Putin, the killer of children, bomber of innocents. It behooves every lover of liberty, democracy, and personal freedom to support Ukraine in this effort.

Chag sameach! Happy Holiday!

♦