Odds & ends

• Eric Topol at the Substack "Ground Truths" is a great source of science-based information about covid and other viruses (albeit sometimes the reading gets a little dense/technical...!).  His latest post, "The Indomitable Covid Virus" (subhead:  "How to respond without denialism or complacency") is worth a read. Have a look at the graph at the top. (Yikes -- no wonder I'm hearing about so many people with covid recently...!)  Some highlights of what he had to say (boldfaced emphasis mine):  

Fortunately, the rise in levels of the virus, still going up in all 4 major US regions (most recent CDC data below) has not been linked with as much severe Covid (absolute increase) as was seen in prior waves, but compared to last week there was a relative increase of 25% of deaths and 12% increase in emergency room visits due to Covid. No matter how you look at it, this is not a benign wave, folks.

Moreover, besides people getting sick from Covid, typically now from a recurrent bout (often 3rd or more), there will be more people developing Long Covid... less new cases of Long Covid but still a risk, especially in unvaccinated individuals...  

 

Added to problem of the virus‘s evolution and, as a result, is the blunting of our immune response, the big issue of waning immunity... The virus evolves and, at the same time, our immune response wanes. That’s not a good combination.

The other feature that promotes the virus is our complete let down of mitigation that we know (despite misinformation and disinformation) works. Few people are masking. Little has been done to improve air quality or ventilation. Indoor events are being held with big crowds, making believe that the virus has gone away. It hasn’t. It won’t....

Our best defense against Long Covid is not to get Covid. Our second best known defense is to be vaccinated. The better the vaccine, the less Long Covid risk.

• One of my high school friends recently posted on Facebook to wish her son/oldest child a happy birthday. His FORTIETH (40th) birthday. (!!!)  How are we (how am I) old enough to have kids who are 40 years old??!  (We graduated from high school 45 years ago in June!) 
• In a similar vein, my sister told me she's told her longtime best friend they need to plan an anniversary dinner in September. They've been friends since they met in Grade 7 -- both newcomers to town -- 50 (!!) years ago. There are marriages that don't last that long...!  
• World Childless Week 2024 this year is Sept. 16th through 22nd, and the deadline for submissions is midnight on Sunday, August 25th.  (I always have great intentions..!) This year's daily topics/themes are:  
• Our Stories (Monday, Sept. 16th) 
• Childless Person of Colour (Tuesday, Sept. 17th) 
• The Importance of Pets (Wednesday, Sept. 18th) 
• Childless Friend or Foe? (Thursday, Sept. 19th) 
• No Kids!  Do You Want Mine? (Friday, Sept. 20th) 
• We Are Worthy (Saturday, Sept. 21st) 
• Moving Forwards (Sunday, Sept. 22nd) 
• Aunties Day was two Sundays ago (July 28th).  I was in transit between Winnipeg and Toronto, so I kind of forgot about it  (as I often do...!).  But it's nice to have a special day to recognize aunties, and I wish it was better known & more widely celebrated. 
• From the July 9th edition of Stylist, a British magazine: "26 excellent books that explore life as a woman who doesn’t have children." (I've read 9 of the books listed, I think, and have several more in my TBR pile!) 
• Stylist also had two other articles on a topic of huge interest to many of us, I know. (The headlines read "childfree" but both childfree and childless women are included.)  Unfortunately, they seem to be behind a paywall. (Opening them in Pocket, which sometimes works for me as a paywall workaround, didn't work this time.)  Someone on a childless group I'm on posted screenshots of one of the articles -- 21 photos!  and it was interesting, albeit not exactly a smooth read...! If anyone knows a better way, let me know!  Anyway, for those of you who do subscribe, heads up!  The articles are: 
• “I don't want children... why do I feel so much pressure to make up for that?" (Blurb: “As a child-free woman, I feel so much pressure to make my life as big, exciting and impressive as possible to compensate for not having children. Where does that pressure come from? And how do I resist it?”) (Hint:  It has to do with pronatalism!) 
• “I feel like I need to justify my worth:  25 child-free women on the pressures they face." (Blurb:  "We asked 25 women to explore how the pressure to ‘make up’ for being child-free shows up for them, and how they navigate it.") 

I've been reading and saving a LOT of articles and posts about a certain U.S. vice-presidential candidate and his callous remarks about "childless cat ladies," and I'll be posting separately about that soon, with some relevant links (once I manage to go through them all and assemble them into a semi-coherent piece...!). :)