#pandemic is spreading faster

[nyxfaei]

We should have never stopped fucking masking. We should have never fucking started pretending that the pandemic was over.

Not even my dad will mask around and for me ugh

[covid-safer-hotties]

The next pandemic is inevitable. Australia isn’t ready - Published Sept 23, 2024

(Before you Americans yell at me, It's already the 23rd in Australia. This is very late-breaking)

I thought this was a really good breakdown of the current situation given the government-approved covid denial we live in. Long, but worth a read.

By Kate Aubusson and Mary Ward

Top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against COVID-19 are sounding the alarm.

NSW is less prepared today to fend off a deadly pandemic despite the lessons of COVID-19, say top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against the virus.

And we won’t have another hundred years to wait.

NSW’s gold standard Test-Trace-Isolate-Quarantine and vaccination strategies will be useless if a distrusting population rejects directives, refuses to give up its freedoms again, and the goodwill of shell-shocked public health workers dries up.

A panel of experts convened by The Sydney Morning Herald called for a pandemic combat agency akin to the armed forces or fire brigades to commit to greater transparency or risk being caught off guard by the next virulent pathogen and misinformation with the potential to spread faster than any virus.

“It’s inevitable,” says Professor Eddie Holmes of the next pandemic. A world-leading authority on the emergence of infectious diseases at the University of Sydney, Holmes predicts: “We’ll have less than 100 years [before the next pandemic].

“We’re seeing a lot of new coronaviruses that are spilling over into animals that humans are interacting with,” said Holmes, the first person to publish the coronavirus genome sequence for the world to see.

“People are exposed all the time, and each time we are rolling the dice.”

The independent review of NSW Health’s response to COVID-19 opened with the same warning: “No health system or community will have the luxury of 100 years of downtime.”

Pandemic preparedness needs to be a “permanent priority”, wrote the report’s author, Robyn Kruk, a former NSW Health secretary, “rather than following the path of those that have adopted a ‘panic and forget strategy,’ allowing system preparedness to wane”.

Why we don’t have 100 years to wait for the next pandemic The World Health Organisation has declared seven public health emergencies of international concern since 2014, including the current mpox outbreak.

Climate change is turbocharging the factors that coalesce to create the perfect breeding ground for a pandemic-causing virus, including population increases, bigger cities, and better-connected global markets and migration.

“Animals will be forced into more constrained environments, and humans that rely on those environments will be again constrained in the same environments. There will be more wet markets, more live animal trade that will just increase exposure,” Holmes said.

“It was clear that we weren’t ready [for COVID],” said Jennie Musto, who, after seven years working for the World Health Organisation overseas, became NSW Health’s operations manager for the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, the team responsible for NSW’s COVID-19 contact tracing and containment.

“Everyone had preparedness plans gathering dust on a shelf, but no one was actually ready to respond, and so everyone was on the back foot,” Musto said. “Perhaps none of us really thought this was going to happen. We were waiting 500 years.”

Who would willingly become the next doomed whistleblower? Eddie Holmes, known for his repeated assertion that SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a lab, is deeply concerned that when the next pandemic-causing virus emerges, chances are it will be covered up.

“My worry is that if the virus appeared in a small population, say, somewhere in Southeast Asia, the people involved wouldn’t blow the whistle now, given the fact that you would get blamed,” he said.

Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who tried to raise the alarm about a virulent new virus, was reportedly reprimanded by police for spreading rumours and later died of COVID-19.

The global blame game, culminating in a deep distrust of China and accusations that the virus was grown in a Wuhan lab, is why Holmes believes “we’re in no better place than we were before COVID started, if not worse”.

“I work with a lot of people in China trying to keep the lines of communication open, and they’re scared, I think, or nervous about saying things that are perceived to counter national interest.”

From a vaccine perspective, our defences look strong. There have been monumental advancements in vaccine development globally, driven by mRNA technology. In Sydney this month, construction began on an RNA vaccine research and manufacturing facility.

“But the way I see it is that nothing has been done in terms of animal surveillance of outbreaks or data sharing. The [global] politics has got much, much worse,” Holmes said.

Combat force Conjoint Associate Professor Craig Dalton, a leading public health physician and clinical epidemiologist, called for a dramatic expansion of the public health workforce and the establishment of a pandemic combat force that would routinely run real-time pandemic simulations during “peacetime”.

“No one is upset with fire brigades spending most of the time not fighting fires. They train. A lot. And that’s probably how we need to move,” he said.

“We need exercise training units so that every major player in pandemic response is involved in a real-time, three to four-day pandemic response every three to five years at national, state and local [levels].”

The federal Department of Health and Aged Care recently ran a health emergency exercise focused on governance arrangements involving chief health officers and senior health emergency management officials, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Mark Butler said. The outcomes of this exercise will be tested later this year.

Dalton said desktop simulations and high-level exercises involving a handful of chiefs didn’t cut it, considering the thousands of people working across regions and states. He instead suggested an intensive training program run in the Hunter New England region before the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provided a good model.

“We were ringing people, actors were getting injections, just like a real pandemic,” said Dalton, who once ordered a burrito in a last-ditch effort to contact a restaurant exposed to COVID-19.

Our heroes have had it The expert panel was emphatic that our pandemic response cannot once again rely on the goodwill of the public health and healthcare workforce.

According to the Kruk review, what began as an emergency response ultimately morphed from a sprint into an ultra marathon and “an admirable (yet unsustainable) ‘whatever it takes’ mindset”.

They were hailed as heroes, but the toll of COVID-19 on healthcare workers was brutal. Workloads were untenable, the risk of transmission was constant, and the risk of violence and aggression (for simply wearing their scrubs on public transport in some cases) was terrifying.

“We got through this pandemic through a lot of people working ridiculous hours,” Dalton said.

“You talk to a lot of people who did that and say they could not do it again.”

Tellingly, several expert personnel who worked at the front lines or in the control centre of NSW’s pandemic defences were invited to join the Herald’s forum but declined. Revisiting this period of intense public scrutiny, culminating in online attacks and physical threats, was just too painful.

So long, solidarity Arguably, the biggest threat to our pandemic defences will be the absence of our greatest strength during COVID: the population’s solidarity and willingness to follow public health orders even when it meant forfeiting fundamental freedoms.

The public largely complied with statewide public health orders, including the stay-at-home directive that became the 107-day Delta lockdown, and other severe restrictions prevented many from being at the bedside of their dying loved ones, visiting relatives in aged care homes and attending funerals.

“My worry is that next time around when those sorts of rules come out, people may say, ‘Well, don’t worry about it.’ They relax it in the future. Why don’t we just not stick to the rules?” said Professor Nicholas Wood, associate director of clinical research and services at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.

“I’m not sure we quite understand whether people [will be] happy with those rules again,” he said.

Dalton was more strident.

“I tend to agree with Michael Osterholm … an eminent US epidemiologist [who] recently said the US is probably less prepared for a pandemic now than it was in 2019, mostly because the learnings by health departments in the COVID pandemic may not make a material difference if faced with a community that distrusts its public health agencies,” he said.

“If H1N1 or something else were to spill over in the next couple of years, things like masks, social distancing and lockdowns would not be acceptable. Vaccination would be rejected by a huge part of the population, and politicians might be shy about putting mandates in.”

As for the total shutdown of major industries, people will struggle to accept it unless the next pandemic poses a greater threat than COVID, said UNSW applied mathematician Professor James Wood.

The risk of the virus to individuals and their families will be weighed against the negative effects of restrictions, which are much better understood today, said Wood, whose modelling of the impact of cases and vaccination rates was used by NSW Health.

“Something like school closure would be a much tougher argument with a similar pathogen,” he said.

A previous panel of education experts convened by the Herald to interrogate pandemic decision-making in that sector was highly critical of the decision to close schools for months during NSW’s Delta lockdown.

Greg Dore, professor of infectious diseases and epidemiology at the Kirby Institute, said the public’s reluctance to adhere to restrictions again may, in part, be appropriate.

“Some of the restrictions on people leaving the country were a bit feudal and too punitive,” he said. “Other restrictions were plain stupid, [for instance] limitations on time exercising outside.”

Meanwhile, the delays to publicly recognise the benefits of face masks and the threat of airborne transmission “ate away at trust”, Dalton said.

“We shouldn’t make those mistakes again,” he said.

Transparent transgressions Uncertainty is not something politicians are adept at communicating, but uncertainty is the only constant during a pandemic of a novel virus.

Vaccines that offered potent protection against early iterations of the COVID virus were less effective against Omicron variants.

“[The public], unfortunately, got hit by a rapid sequence of changes of what was ‘true’ in the pandemic,” James Wood said.

Political distrust can be deadly if governments give the public reason to suspect they are obfuscating.

The expert panel urged NSW’s political leaders to be far more transparent about the public health advice they were given before unilaterally enforcing restrictions.

There was a clear line between public health advice and political decision-making in Victoria. The Victorian chief health officer’s written advice was routinely published online.

In NSW, that line was blurred as Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant stood beside political leaders, most notably former premier Gladys Berejiklian, at the daily press conferences.

Public health experts said that they looked for subtle cues to determine the distinction between the expert advice and the political messaging during press conferences, paying attention to body language, who spoke when and who stayed silent.

“It is fine for public health personnel to have a different view to politicians. They have different jobs. What is not OK is to have politicians saying they are acting on public health advice [when they are not],” he said.

The ‘whys’ behind the decisions being made were missing from the daily press conferences, which created “a vacuum for misinformation”, said social scientist and public health expert Professor Julie Leask at the University of Sydney.

“The communication about what you need to do came out, and it was pretty good … but the ‘why we’re doing this’ and ‘what trade-offs we’ve considered’ and ‘what dilemmas we’ve faced in making this decision’; that was not shared,” Leask said.

The infodemic In the absence of transparency, misinformation and disinformation fill the vacuum.

“We had an ‘infodemic’ during the pandemic,” said Dr Jocelyne Basseal, who worked on the COVID-19 response for WHO in the Western Pacific and leads strategic development at the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute, University of Sydney.

“The public has been so confused. Where do we go for trusted information [when] everyone can now write absolutely anything, whether on Twitter [now called X] or [elsewhere] on the web?” Basseal said.

A systematic review conducted by WHO found misinformation on social media accounted for up to 51 per cent of posts about vaccines, 29 per cent of posts about COVID-19 and 60 per cent of posts about pandemics.

Basseal’s teenage children recently asked whether they were going into lockdown after TikTok videos about the mpox outbreak.

“There is a lot of work to be done now, in ‘peacetime’ … to get ahead of misinformation,” Basseal said, including fortifying relationships with community groups and teaching scientists – trusted and credible sources of information – how to work with media.

In addition to the Kruk review’s six recommendations to improve its pandemic preparedness, NSW Health undertook a second inquiry into its public health response to COVID-19, which made 104 recommendations.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said: “We are working hard to ensure the findings and recommendations from those reports are being implemented as quickly as possible.”

The expert panellists spoke in their capacity as academics and not on behalf of NSW Health or WHO.

The ‘As One System’ review into NSW Health’s COVID-19 response made six recommendations 1. Make governance and decision-making structures clearer, inclusive, and more widely understood 2. Strengthen co-ordination, communication, engagement, and collaboration 3. Enhance the speed, transparency, accuracy, and practicality of data and information sharing 4. Prioritise the needs of vulnerable people and communities most at risk, impacted and in need from day one 5. Put communities at the centre of emergency governance, planning, preparedness, and response 6. Recognise, develop and sustain workforce health, wellbeing, capability and agility.

[tomorrowusa]

Four years ago today (March 13th), then President Donald Trump got around to declaring a national state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration had been downplaying the danger to the United States for 51 days since the first US infection was confirmed on January 22nd.

From an ABC News article dated 25 February 2020...

CDC warns Americans of 'significant disruption' from coronavirus

Until now, health officials said they'd hoped to prevent community spread in the United States. But following community transmissions in Italy, Iran and South Korea, health officials believe the virus may not be able to be contained at the border and that Americans should prepare for a "significant disruption." This comes in contrast to statements from the Trump administration. Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Tuesday the threat to the United States from coronavirus "remains low," despite the White House seeking $1.25 billion in emergency funding to combat the virus. Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange” Tuesday evening, "We have contained the virus very well here in the U.S." [ ... ] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the request "long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency." She also accused President Trump of leaving "critical positions in charge of managing pandemics at the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security vacant." "The president's most recent budget called for slashing funding for the Centers for Disease Control, which is on the front lines of this emergency. And now, he is compounding our vulnerabilities by seeking to ransack funds still needed to keep Ebola in check," Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday morning. "Our state and local governments need serious funding to be ready to respond effectively to any outbreak in the United States. The president should not be raiding money that Congress has appropriated for other life-or-death public health priorities." She added that lawmakers in the House of Representatives "will swiftly advance a strong, strategic funding package that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called the Trump administration's request "too little too late." "That President Trump is trying to steal funds dedicated to fight Ebola -- which is still considered an epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- is indicative of his towering incompetence and further proof that he and his administration aren't taking the coronavirus crisis as seriously as they need to be," Schumer said in a statement.

A reminder that Trump had been leaving many positions vacant – part of a Republican strategy to undermine the federal government.

Here's a picture from that ABC piece from a nearly empty restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown. The screen displays a Trump tweet still downplaying COVID-19 with him seeming more concerned about the effect of the Dow Jones on his re-election bid.

People were not buying Trump's claims but they were buying PPE.

I took this picture at CVS on February 26th that year.

The stock market which Trump in his February tweet claimed looked "very good" was tanking on March 12th – the day before his state of emergency declaration.

Trump succeeded in sending the US economy into recession much faster than George W. Bush did at the end of his term – quite a feat!. (As an aside, every recession in the US since 1981 has been triggered by Republican presidents.)

Of course Trump never stopped trying to downplay the pandemic nor did he ever take responsibility for it. The US ended up with the highest per capita death rate of any technologically advanced country.

Precious time was lost while Trump dawdled. Orange on this map indicates COVID infections while red indicates COVID deaths. At the time Trump declared a state of emergency, the virus had already spread to 49 states.

The United States could have done far better and it certainly had the tools to do so.

The Obama administration had limited the number of US cases of Ebola to under one dozen during that pandemic in the 2010s. Based on their success, they compiled a guide on how the federal government could limit future pandemics.

Obama team left pandemic playbook for Trump administration, officials confirm

Of course Trump ignored it.

Unlike those boxes of nuclear secrets in Trump's bathroom, the Obama pandemic limitation document is not classified. Anybody can read it – even if Trump didn't. This copy comes from the Stanford University Libraries.

TOWARDS EPIDEMIC PREDICTION: FEDERAL EFFORTS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN OUTBREAK MODELING

Feel free to share this post with anybody who still feels nostalgic about the Trump White House years!

[siriusleee]

i. hidden caches

Zombie Apocalypse AU | SIMON RILEY x f!READER

↳ SUMMARY: The world is trying to knit itself back together after fracturing apart. You're trying to put yourself back together with it; Simon Riley is just trying to stay alive. ↳ WORD COUNT: 2.2K ↳ TAGS: mentions of cannibalism, mentions of shooting things, mentions of dying. smut to come. canon typical violence to come. additional tags to come as the story progresses. female reader. no mentions of "your name". reader is given a nickname later on. nc-17. ↳ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to the lovely anon who asked for a scene from an apocalypse au, and this idea was born. If you'd like to donate to my Ko-Fi (my bed frame broke this week and a new one was $200 I didn't have), I would appreciate it. ↳ TAG LIST: There will not be a tag list for this story, as Tumblr has issues with letting me tag people. To get notifications of updates, please subscribe on AO3 or turn on notifications for my blog.

additional chapters | ao3

The ending had come quicker than anyone expected. The epidemics and endemics and pandemics of the years past had given false confidence to everyone. We survived the last thing, the news reporters had said, gray building beneath their eyes, and we can survive this. Behind them images of towns being devoured played. 

Bodies can decompose in as little as nine days. The first to go is the soft tissue: the eyes, the tongue, the soft flesh of the cheeks. When bacteria and insects are introduced, the flesh breaks down faster. Bones take longer - sometimes years to fully wear away into the dust that collects underfoot. But these things - whatever turned them kept them covered in a thin layer of adipocere to protect them from the elements. They kept shuffling along long past the time when they should have reverted back to a primordial soup where they lay.

But they still decomposed. The trick was to stay ahead of them, away from the gnashing teeth that transmitted the virus, away from the hands and feet that never seemed to tire. So few people could. Whole towns and cities were decimated, felled beneath the hordes of horror that ambled slowly past, swallowed up by the feet that didn’t stop moving until they wore themselves down to stubs, which were them pulled forward by hands and knees that never tired. 

But yours did. The familiar path towards the north was more overgrown this year than in the past. For a few years, there had been wary companions, eyes that lingered until the snow and frost rolled in to freeze the Biters where they stood. But as the years wanned on the crowd grew smaller and smaller until you only caught hints of others moving north: horse prints, trash left behind, the occasional Biter left decomposing in the bushes. 

This year there was nothing. Either you had moved too early or there was no one left. The latter is too terrifying, so you push it away and think about whatever groups may wander through here after you.

The woods loom tall above you, the snow that fell earlier in the morning just barely dusting the branches above your head. None of it had reached the leaves that are too waterlogged from recent rains to crunch beneath your feet. A blister is rubbing itself raw at your ankle; you know that if you don’t stop to treat it, it will be unbearable tomorrow, but you brush the thought off. You need to reach the marker before nightfall.

The markers had appeared between one trip north and your trip back down. 

West Village - 20km

The first year it had appeared left the group you were with in a tizzy. The group had fractured down the middle. If all of you found each other, how hard was it to think that a larger group had finally banned together? Civilization needed to rebuild eventually.

You didn’t trust the shaky scrawl that printed the words, so you had been with the group that refused to go. The next year there was another marker tacked to the first.

Body snatchers. Beware.

It was amazing to you: how well rumors could start and spread without phones or the internet. For months, every person you and your group came across would give the same warning, and ask you all the same questions. Have you seen the body snatchers? Are you the body snatchers?

Humans turned cannabolids. Farms where people were forced to reproduce. Spits with babies roasting above the fire. You wanted to think that it was the stuff of fiction.

In the third year, there was another argument. The group cleaved in half again when the promise of civilization reared its head. Your group had divided again at the markers, disappearing into the thick woods. 

Almost no one survived the winter that year. You’d held the hands of all the dying and covered them under a thick blanket of snow before dividing their possessions up between the remainder of the group. In the end, there were just three of you. And when the winter rolled away you all broke apart, whatever ties that held you all together broken by the cold. 

The next year you were the only one in your camp. 

The markers had become a sort of prayer to you, that one day you’d meet someone else on the road - some scream and shout that there were others out there even if you were too wary to speak to them.

But it’s been two years - the crude paint of the West Village sign fading, the body snatchers warning falling to the earth unceremoniously. The wood started to rot. 

And you were utterly alone. Around you, the sound of nature getting ready for the winter fills in the ever-present silence that usually surrounds you. It’s been weeks since you’d last seen a person: a lone traveler moving in the opposite direction as you. And you’d hid from them, worried that they were the sort of feral people turned into when they were alone for too long - a body snatcher. Worried that you were that kind of feral. 

You know the markers when you approach them like your body’s memorized the number of steps it takes to reach them. Your chest thumps as you approach the spot where they should be nailed to a tree, growing taller into the air each year. Your boots falter against the wet leaves as you approach the place. 

The markers have been repainted. Or at least the West Village one has. This time it’s nailed to a post in the ground; you bend down to inspect the dirt around the post. It’s packed underneath a thick layer of loam - whoever put it up must have put it up much earlier in the year. The thought sends a shiver down your spine. You wonder if any members of your former group are still there. 

For half a second, you think about following the arrow, but before the thought can fully form in your head, you let your feet carry you forward on the path. Just ahead is the rest area you’ve always used. Your tree, one with branches high enough that the only things who can see you are the birds whose nests you disturb, erupts from the ground ahead of you.

You climb up like you were taught; throwing your rope onto the first branch you can physically reach and lash it to yourself. It’s more difficult to climb the tree with your pack and bow, but you don’t want to risk leaving it behind for anyone who may come through after you. When you reach the point where the rope reaches the tree, you pull yourself onto the branch. The blister on your ankle is screaming, but you don’t pause until your hammock is secure and your harness is wrapped around you. The cool wind cuts through the thin fabric of the hammock, but it’s not too cold as you peel back your socks to reveal an angry raw spot crawling across your ankle.

Too tired to do much more, you slide your other boot off, tying them together and then to your pack. The gentle sway of the trees makes your eyelids heavy, and you let yourself drift off into the first good night's sleep you’ve had in a while. 

The bitter cold wakes you up, the wind moving your hammock back and forth gently. The darkness spins above you, clouds backlit by the moon. Not for the first time you think about how easy it used to be, curled up with another warm body beneath the thick blankets - how easy it was to switch on the percolator in the morning and wrap your hands around a warm cup of coffee, how easy -

You press the heel of your hands into your eyes and try to press away the thoughts that are racing through your brain. Remembering the before drives people crazy; you’ve seen how it can eat people up and you refuse to let it eat at you. So you pull your thermal blanket closer around yourself and try to get some sleep.

But the sun rises earlier than you expected and extra sleep never comes. 

It doesn’t take long for you to pack what little you have back in your pack and descend back down. At the bottom you dig out the little bit of jerky you still have saved from the summer months; it’s disgusting, but it’s enough to push you forward to the next place. 

You walk the entire time with your bow in your hand, waiting for some animal to run out in front of you and meet its mark, but the forest is silent today as you push towards the next stop in your journey north, a small nameless village secluded away from the rest of civilization - just good enough to sleep in for the night. 

The sun has just started to sink below the treeline when the village finally springs into view. The blister on your ankle has popped, and you think you can feel blood rushing into your sock, but you don’t dare stop and check; you don’t want the scent of fresh blood to attract any Biters that may be hidden away for now. Your fingers cramp around the bow and your stomach growls. You’d picked a smooth rock up from the ground hours earlier and popped it into your mouth to try and trick yourself into thinking you were eating something, but it hadn’t worked. If anything it made your hunger worse.

There was salvation coming - on your second year coming through here you’d snuck off from the group and buried a cache. Each year you did your best not to touch it unless it was to refill something inside of it, but this year you knew you’d have to empty it. 

You crunch over tire tracks that crisscross over each other on the main road into the village; they’re dry enough that you know whoever managed to scrape up enough gas to drive in and out was gone, but the thought of someone driving up on you made you nervous, and make your steps quicken. If people were driving through here then you needed to be gone before sunlight tomorrow. 

Weary, you push yourself towards the back half of the village to a little two-story you know well. It had been the same house your group, and then yourself, slept in each year on your way to the north camp; in the back, beneath an overturned chair that was slowly rotting with time, your little cache was stored. 

You shoulder your way through the half-rotted back gate and freeze. The chair is tossed to the side, rusted parts puzzle pieced across the ground. And directly where your cache had been buried is a hole, smoothed over from time and rain. 

You could cry if you had any water left in you to cry. So instead you walk numbly into the house - habit making you click the lock on the door even though it’s long since stopped working. The same thick dust that was here last year is still across the floor, so thick your steps don’t even disturb it. You pass through the living area and up the steps. On the landing, you don’t pause - to the left of you is the nursery that’s always been empty. The first few times you’d stopped here the sight of the broken-down white crib and sage walls made something ache inside of you, and you’d learned not to look. It’s better to just let things alone and try to stifle your imagination.

The attic ladder swings down with ease and you test your weight on the rungs before climbing up - any broken bones and you may as well just shoot yourself where you lay. It creaks ominously beneath you but keeps as you clamber through the hole. You let yourself collapse on the floor beside the ladder after pulling it up, and wrapping a rope around the ladder to keep anyone from pulling it down in the night. All at once, hunger and exhaustion pull you down towards the floor. 

You’ll have to shoot something tomorrow and check the well for fresh water. There are still to many miles before you make it north enough to be safe for the winter, and you won’t make it without water and food. 

You try to distract yourself from the cramping of hunger and how little water is left in your jug by peeling your boots off. As you’d thought, the blister had split and bled, but thankfully your sock had caught most of it. 

You clean up the best you can in the dusty light filtering in from the little window that looks out the back garden and wonder who could have known the cache was there. An old group member who spotted you checking it in the past? Or was it a lucky guess, someone who came through after you and spotted the freshly disturbed dirt and came to the right inference?

You try to tell yourself it doesn’t matter as you pull your thermal blanket from your pack and lay down, but you can’t quite convince yourself of that lie. 

[l-in-the-light]

Hey 😊 I read your answer about Law wanting to help people because of his trauma. I know about his fear of touch but wouldn't it help him to overcome this when he realizes that his touch can bring other people immense pleasure (when he's giving oral or bringing his partner to orgasm while sex)? 🤔 Besides sex is very good for the health 😎.

Okay, I admit I didn't really know what to do with your ask at first. Are you serious when you're suggesting he can just overcome his PTSD because he wants to make someone happy or because sex should help him feel better and recover faster? Because if you do, we need to talk. Like, seriously talk about this.

First of all, yeah, sex can be good for you. Physical affection in many ways is neccessary for good well-being (that's why touch starvation and stuff like that became a popular discussed topic after pandemic's outbreak). But you know what else is healthy besides sex and physical affection? Good food. Taking a walk. Enjoying the sea breeze. And do you know what those things have all in common? They can't heal or cure anyone out of literally anything. The only thing they can do is to boost your mood and give you physical exercise, which is good for the body, but it's not a therapy and it's not a medicine. In other words, it will not cure you from PTSD, depression, anxiety or anything else besides a foul mood, perhaps. PTSD is not a matter of having a foul mood. Even if your mood is great, you will still have PTSD and you can still experience triggers no matter how happy you might have felt a moment ago. And also sometimes not every food you eat is gonna be good for you. Bread is tasty, right? But it's bad for celiacs. Sex is good, right? Unless it triggers you or you're sex-repulsed. Not everything is good for everyone, period. And you can live without bread and you can live without sex.

Secondly, Law has two triggers we know of: feeling helpless (for example: when he's pinned down or when people are dying and he can't do anything about it) and touch. He overcomes first one by saving lives, not by "helping people" in general. If you're referencing some post I wrote, I'm pretty certain by him swearing to help people I meant "saving their lives", not doing sexual favours for them ;) also saving lives has nothing to do with Law's fear of touch.

Third of all, please don't say stuff like this about PTSD. It's spreading misinformation. You can't recover from it just by wishing for it or pushing forcefully through. If you put Law in the scenario you just described, he would be terrified and then try to force the closeness (because if he truly wants someone to be happy he needs to ignore his own discomfort, right?) and in the end he will just escape, feeling pathetic and blaming himself. He would end up thinking that his love for people isn't strong enough to overcome his own trauma (and the sad part is: it will never be, that's why it's a trauma after all). In other words, putting a person with PTSD in this scenario you described, would do them more harm than good.

And yeah, Law is just a fictional character, you can imagine him in any scenario you want and write fics in which he never develops PTSD and is touchy-feely, and that's fine. But PTSD happens to be a very real condition, so please never say things like that to real people. It's giving a very harmful message - they can end up believing they are broken, because they can't spontanously or by sheer will overcome their own triggers to make someone else happy. Always be respectful towards people suffering from past traumas. No matter how well you mean it, don't tell them to just "get over it", saying it will be helpful for them if they just change their way of thinking about it and do it for someone else's sake. The best result you will achieve is them selfblaming themselves when they inevitably fail.

What you can do for them instead, to show your support, is to assure them they're fine no matter what, that they're good people even if there are things they can't handle, that every step in their healing process is important even if "the final goal" (never getting triggered again) will never get achieved. And always, always remember about their triggers and by all means avoid forcing a person with PTSD to face them head on. What you can do for someone who suffers from a trigger, is to make sure not to make it worse. Is the trigger a loud noise? Take them immediately to a quiet place instead. Is the trigger a touch? Definitely don't try to hug them to make it better, give them some space instead. After they manage to calm down, you can give them something they like that they find soothing and comforting (listen to a favourite song, offer a drink they like etc.) and ask if both of you should just go back home or do something else. This is something you can do for someone suffering from a PTSD. But it's only one possible, hypothetical example, there are other ways to show support and not leave the suffering person on their own.

There is a study proving that adults who were traumatized as children may be more likely to keep a greater physical distance between themselves and strangers, and may also find touch stimuli less comforting than people without a history of trauma. Apparently trauma alters the brain so it's possible the body also gives a traumatized person less gratification from physical affection. If you want to read more about how trauma alters the brain, I reccommend checking out this article: Traumatized Adults Might Find Touch Less Appealing. I didn't know about that before, but it makes sense, because trauma is just a natural response on it's most extreme. That's why I think Law's touch starvation is probably not such a big deal that people want it to be, in comparison to his PTSD. His brain would adapt, and he has Bepo for comfort, which is a safe, not triggering closeness and touch for him. Traumatized people might have bigger issues on their plate than your typical post-pandemic touch starvation, just saying.

Now let's talk more about triggers, because I feel like this needs to be elaborated on. A trigger is involuntary reaction (can be body reaction, can be emotional) you definitely can't control, that is caused by some outside source of stimuli. Those reactions alert us to perceived threats in our environment. Triggers can be anything that reminds someone of the traumatic event, it can be more obvious like revisiting the location where the trauma occurred, being alone, seeing the same breed of dog that bit you, or hearing loud voices, small touch, a grab, even a certain smell. For example, if the trauma is related to being stuck in a locked place, it doesn't matter what place it is or that it's different from the very first place you got accidentally locked in. Any place in which you're locked up will trigger you, like bathroom stalls in which the latch doesn't budge, broken elevators stuck between floors etc. Triggers are also often associated with (but not limited to) the time of day, season, holiday, or anniversary of the event.

When touch has been associated with fear, pain, or violation in the past, it can naturally become a trigger. Childhood trauma, especially sexual, physical or emotional abuse, can imprint deep-seated associations between touch and danger. The fear of being touched is so strong that it is often paralyzing. It can cause physical symptoms like hives, hyperventilation or even fainting. The fear of being touched becomes a phobia when symptoms develop nearly every time you are touched. It becomes a disorder when it lasts six months or longer.

To reduce the emotions caused by a trigger people can become avoidant (of anything even remotely reminding them of the trauma, for example: any touch in general), self-medication (like alcohol abuse, to numb yourself and not feel anything anymore), compulsive eating, self-injury. Sometimes people can even become aggressive or repeat the events of the trauma (for example, hypersexuality as the result of sexual assault, or becoming the violent oppressor themselves; they just repeat the traumatic event over and over again, it's not a healthy way of dealing with trauma).

Most important in recovery is learning to manage triggers, memories, and emotions without avoidance (avoidance is the initial response in PTSD). You can think of it as becoming desensitized to traumatic memories. There isn't really a “cure” for triggers. All we can do is identify when we're upset, try to understand why, and manage our emotional reactions. With practice and proper treatment, the reaction to your emotional triggers could dimnish and become manageable, but the triggers themselves might never go away. Thankfully, even the most intense trauma triggers can be managed.

At first a traumatic response can be hyperventilation to the point you almost suffocate, shivering that don't want to stop for hours and very high level emotional distress that makes you detached from the present and trapped in the past in your head. After therapy and learning how to manage your responses, you can instead apply breathing techniques to reduce hyperventilation, know what to do so that shivering doesn't go for hours but instead fades in the span of half an hour, and you ground yourself in the present (there are many methods for it, for example doing a soothing motion). So, after "getting healed" it doesn't mean the triggers magically don't happen anymore, you just manage them more effectively. And perhaps some of them can be reduced so much that instead of triggering one of the physical symptoms it only makes you very distressed. Who knows, it's a very individual thing, after all.

How to know if someone is suffering from PTSD? The DSM-5 (the official criteria for PTSD classification) identifies four symptom clusters for PTSD: presence of intrusion symptoms (like frequent, vivid flashbacks: sudden intrusive thoughts about the past events), persistent avoidance of stimuli (like avoiding closeness and touch), negative alterations in cognitions and mood (low self-esteem, self-blame etc.), and marked alterations in arousal and reactivity (like lashing out). Which is exactly what I wrote about in detail when answering to this ask.

Let's take a look at Law's trauma symptoms again: we see Law having tremors and quickened breath (sometimes to the point of wheezing), and freezing up when he's triggered (at least in the manga). Whenever someone is trying to touch him or comes really close, his response is to move away. He's also emotionally distant and avoidant. What are his triggers? We saw Doflamingo grabbing his wrist forcefully which caused a freezing reaction (Law couldn't even move to free himself). We saw him also freeze up when Mingo set up his birdcage. When Law was trapped with Luffy and Mingo's clone in the well, he was wheezing and shivering. There are few situations in which Luffy touches Law or Law touches Luffy, but even if those situations don't seem to overwhelm him, he still struggles in each and every single one of them. Which means they're kinda managable for Law, as long as he puts some time and effort into it (that's a sign that he is working through his trauma and knows quite a lot about managing his triggers already).

But how would he react if Luffy forcefully grabbed Law's wrist, for example, which is his confirmed trigger? Probably not too well. I can't imagine sex being comfortable in such conditions. Can you? Sex would feel very unnatural if Law had to brace himself to that extent every time he tries to touch someone and there's no guarantee that none of the touch he receives doesn't trigger him. And no, cuddling him won't help him get over it. If touch is triggering to you, more touch is not gonna solve the problem. Also hugging or other forms of physical affection aren't a magical solution to every emotional problem in the world.

There's also something called resilient responses to trauma, which are basically healthy ways of coping that some people naturally adapt. And I think Law slightly shows signs of it too. It can be things like:

increased time and bonding with family and friends (Law's commitment to his Hearts Pirates and also bonding with Penguin, Shachi and Bepo right after losing Cora-san; he spends time with them almost exclusively)

strong or increased sense of purpose and meaning (Law is always very goal-oriented)

commitment to a personal mission, revised priorities (Law trying to save people's lives no matter what)

charity work and volunteering to help other people (Law taking care of the Strawhats lol)

If anyone wants to know even more about PTSD, I reccommend this link, it really gives a good and detailed guide to all the basics and even includes notes about treatment.

Now I feel inclined to say this to everyone: sex is fine and can be good, but not having sex is also fine! Sex isn't the best thing in the world and no one is missing out if they're not having any, there are so many other nice things. And just because someone is attractive or handsome doesn't mean they absolutely have to have sex, like to prove that they're not wasting their body (whatever that would even mean) and not sharing with the world. It's your body and your choice, no one has any obligation to give sex to others, never ever, for any possible reason you can name. You don't have to have sex just to prove something to others, no matter what it would be (to be cool, to be accepted, to prove others you're a good person and a good lover or not a loser etc.). You're a worthy human being even if you don't have sex, no matter what's the reason for not having it. You're a good person even if you don't want to give someone else a sexual service, give them a blowjob or bring them to orgasm, or even touch them at all. You can show your love in different ways than by having sex. Not having sex with someone also doesn't mean you don't love them. Sex is just one part of life and it's optional. People can have good lives, have fun and be healthy without it. You can even have PTSD but choose not to have sex just because you don't like it.

Now, do I think Law will never have sex? I don't know, that depends on his healing process. For now, I'm not seeing it and he's also perfectly fine even if he will never have sex in his entire life. If one day he manages his triggers so well that he can even have sex, great for him! I still think he will be taking a risk at being triggered every single time he makes his decision to pursue partnered sexual adventures. Simply because touch can't be completely avoided when having sex. It can be worked around in quite a number of ways, but sex basically is about touching various body parts together, prove me wrong if that's not the case* ;) also we don't have to fear or try to erase the PTSD from the characters who can't deal well with touch as the result. That's kinda not exactly considerate or nice to them, won't you agree?

*disclaimer: yeah, I am aware there are other sexual actitivities that don't involve touch. Two people can just voyeuristically look at each other when they masturbate, for example :P why is this word so ugly btw. The stigma around sex-related words needs to finally die and we need more judgement-free words for sexual activities.

I hope this post helped you understand PTSD and triggers a bit better, anon!

[angsttronaut]

A story about a prion disease apocalypse could be so fucked up fun.

Perhaps the disease has been spreading for a while, but appeared to not harm humans like CWD, or it's an entirely new one that a cow just developed one day. It can spread through their waste, their spit, their blood. Quite a few animals have already been infected by the time the first few enter the human food chain.

It's another while before the new prion disease is noticed; people aren't getting sick, and it takes a while before infected animals show symptoms. Eventually the weird symptoms are noticed, and the new disease is found, but it's already too late. It's spread so far that it proves very difficult to stamp out no matter how many infected animals get destroyed, and every day it isn't wiped out means more humans coming into contact with the prions. Although right now, no-one knows for sure if it can even jump the species barrier.

A few years later, it starts. A few people with mysterious and deadly neurological issues here and there, who's autospies reveal their brains have been turned to sponge. The numbers slowly climb upwards with each year. It's still spreading in farm animals.

Efforts to resist the disease increase; there isn't any treatment, but there are better tests. Through these it's discovered that not only are carrier animals that can spread the disease everywhere, but an eyewatering percentage of the population harbour the abnormal prions too- spreading not just through tainted food at this point, but also blood transfusions and surgical instruments. Even the water in the worst affected places isn't safe any more. Reassurances that not everyone will develop the prion disease are no comfort for many.

Every year the numbers climb. It goes from a very rare illness, to an unusual one, to one that's so common that you probably know someone who got killed by it. Attempts at a cure all fail, no matter how promising they seem. A suffocating cloak of dread falls over the world, even as many people try to ignore it and go about their daily lives. It isn't uncommon now to see someone with obvious symptoms who is in denial. Not that confronting their death head on would help; healthcare is underfunded and overwhelmed, they would be waiting months for anything that might alleviate their suffering.

The collapse begins a decade into the pandemic. People are dying left, right and centre, even children who weren't born when it first began to spread; it might have spread to them in the womb, but there are so few scientists left and they're so focused on finding a cure that not much research is done. Take a walk in a city and you'll see dozens of empty buildings and massive queues by the hospitals. Walk in the countryside and you'll probably see a half dead animal wracked with spasms. Mammals have become rarer; even dogs and cats are a bit unusual to see. Anything that hasn't reduced in numbers is studied intently to discover its secrets, all to no avail.

Infrastructure begins break down; there aren't many people left to maintain it, and a lot of them aren't well. Medical care is borderline impossible to get because there's so many people and so few living doctors and nurses; more and more people are dying of curable afflictions without ever being seen. Food is scarce because animal products are off the menu and it's nigh impossible to transport and grow food when so many people have died. Costs shoot up, and people protest because no-one can afford the prices- especially when not that many people work any more, being too ill to work or having to care for their ill loved ones. The only thing that gets cheaper is housing.

Protesting does help, and resources are more evenly distributed in the last few years. But there's still nothing that can be done for the illness, and the sick are actually dying faster because some places now have no medical staff. Medicines get scarce as manufacturing plants shut down for want of staff. Whole regions lose their electricity as the final workers are forced to turn off the grid lest the power plant cause a disaster once the prion disease has killed them. Governments can't fill the empty seats in their parliaments, and high voter turnout amounts to thousands of people casting their ballots. Quite a few governments just throw in the towel at that point. In places with newspapers, it isn't uncommon for them to run emotional stories about people from areas so badly hit that they thought they could be the last living people.

Eventually things begin to level out. A couple of people were lucky enough to never be exposed, or to have some resistance. It's the same for other mammals, although they're scarce and many are extinct. Most areas are forced into subsistence farming on poisoned land, without the help of domesticated animals. Most strive to rebuild, but to some it seems like the final, tortured days before the end.

[mariacallous]

What would you want to tell the next U.S. president? FP asked nine thinkers from around the world to write a letter with their advice for him or her.

Dear Americans,

You will soon go to the polls to elect your next president. And once again, the rest of the world will be holding its breath. I will be following the vote count with a mix of admiration, expectation, and concern: admiration for your democracy and its ability to reinvent itself even when faced with serious challenges; expectation because the United States is a model that we all want to follow; concern about your temptation to isolationism. In a nutshell, your choice matters to you and your future but also to millions of people around the world, including in Europe. I hope, therefore, you will not mind me humbly providing unsolicited advice.

Your biggest asset is trust: the faith you have in yourselves and your ability to overcome and the confidence that your friends and allies around the world place in you—the dynamism of your economy, your capacity to innovate and develop cutting-edge technologies, the strength of your defense sector, the checks and balances of your democracy, and your support for international cooperation to address collective challenges, from nuclear proliferation to climate change and from poverty eradication to pandemics.

But that trust has been severely dented in recent years. At home, some of you depict a nation in decline, portraying a scared mouse where we see a roaring lion. And these last years have seen a serious erosion in the trust that many around the world have in the United States, too. We have seen unilateralism and economic protectionism and have been confronted with a purely transactional approach from some of you, including in the sacrosanct sector of defense in NATO. We have seen the United States undermining the same multilateral system that it helped build.

It is time you double down on regaining the trust of your friends and allies. They will make you stronger and safer. Investing in developing the European pillar within NATO and cooperating on the defense industry with European nations will not only ensure that Europe takes responsibility for its defense, but it will also strengthen the United States to project its power globally, particularly in the Asia-Pacific. Joining hands in the decarbonization of the trans-Atlantic economy, as opposed to deploying unfair schemes against European companies, will help us all reduce our carbon emissions faster and provide greater benefits to our companies. Helping to craft global rules on digital trade at the World Trade Organization stands to benefit, first and foremost, U.S. tech giants operating worldwide. Taxing and regulating the tech sector as well as building guardrails for artificial intelligence will be more effective if done in concert and will also be fairer. Leading in the United Nations or in international institutions on issues such as financing the green transition in developing countries will help stabilize the economies of many of your friends and neighbors. When they do better, the United States benefits, too. In a world more intertwined than ever before, isolationism doesn’t protect. Disengaging from Ukraine sends a message not just to Russia; China reads it, too. Disengaging from NATO is heard not just in Brussels; it is felt in the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan as well as the Middle East.

And the denting of U.S. democracy is not just an issue in Washington; it resonates across Europe, too. Your biggest weakness is your democracy and open society. I say weakness not because I would wish for an authoritarian America but because openness makes you—as well as us—more susceptible to disinformation and manipulation. As in much of Europe, democracy in the United States faces challenges of election interference, growing polarization, threats against journalists, and the spread of manipulative information. AI has helped magnify this challenge with the exponential capacity to develop lifelike fakes aimed at misleading citizens. The enemy is within, and it is very good at finding like-minded allies across Europe. But foreign interference abounds as well.

It is worth investing in a shield that would protect and preserve democracy for future generations. This will require a combination of measures including bolstering cybersecurity; regulating social media platforms and introducing transparency in algorithms; providing warnings and counterarguments for misinformation before citizens face it; and strengthening U.S. election systems, including election certification processes and protecting the right to vote. Ultimately, it is about empowering each and every citizen to serve as a custodian of democracy. Democratic forces in Europe and in the United States could benefit from joining hands and sharing experiences.

You have in your hands the decision about who will be the next president of the United States. As you prepare to vote, Europeans will start a new political cycle, too, with a recently elected European Parliament voting on the program of work to be led by the European Commission. The uncertainty around us has made us realize that our destiny will be shaped by what we do next. We are determined to protect our democracy, step up our defense, and bolster our prosperity for the benefit of all citizens. We know the task is daunting, and we will have to show strong determination and unity to meet it. I am confident we will. But I also know that we will both be stronger if we trust and respect each other, if we work hand in hand to protect our democracies, and if we can still count on the United States as our ally.

Arancha González is the dean of Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs and a former Spanish foreign minister.

[bopinion]

2024 / 33

Aperçu of the week

“All we have to do is call our opponent a communist or a socialist or someone who will destroy our country.”

(Donald Trump. We'll see about that...)

Bad News of the Week

Since the end of the coronavirus pandemic - although there hasn't actually been one - I've been waiting for its successor in a slightly anxious mood. Another rapidly infecting virus that spreads worldwide, is potentially deadly and, above all, restricts all our lives again. Now it's here: Mpox. For the first time since Corona, the WHO (World Health Organization of the United Nations) has declared the highest alert level, a “public health emergency of international concern”. Because of the virus that was previously called “Monkey Pox”. Discovered in Congo at the end of 2023, it has now also broken out in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya.

The initial figures spoke of 14,000 suspected cases. Based on the usual 50% rate and the reported 500 deaths, this means that one in twelve people who become infected will die. That's a lot. So it's certainly a virus that should be taken seriously. One day later, it was reported that the first case in Europe had emerged in Sweden. Then the first three in Asia in Pakistan. It's the usual pattern: on the one hand, every infectious disease spreads faster and more uncontrollably in times of international travel. On the other hand, specific cases are only discovered when they are specifically sought or tested for. So the numbers will now quickly go through the roof. Because the spread is already more advanced than we know.

What will happen now? What will the states do? How will society react this time? And above all: what have we learned? There is a lot of talk in Germany about the need to come to terms with everything that has happened around COVID. Also to learn from the mistakes. There is a lot of need for clarification - for example with regard to the procurement of masks, the closure of schools, compulsory vaccination, curfews and unequal treatment in the retail sector. And what has happened since (drum roll please!): Nothing. What applies to politics also applies in private life. Some friends turned out to be conspiracy theorists, others were law and order hardliners, most were simply irritated and unsettled. There were even rifts right through families. Rifts that still exist.

And now we could all be facing the same situation, just as ill-prepared. And if Mpox doesn't develop into a pandemic, perhaps swine fever will spread to humans. Or bird flu. Or something else entirely, be it from the South American jungle or from the secret laboratory of some deep state. Or a revenant from the past spreads again - cholera still exists after all and first cases of polio are reported from Gaza. No, I'm not panicking. But I do have one or two worries. After all, humanity has shown itself more than once to be incapable of learning from the past. I would love to be wrong about that.

Good News of the Week

Venezuela is not giving up. It is wonderful to see how the people are fighting for democracy, no longer wanting to put up with the corruption of their “elites” and finally wanting to have a perspective worth living in. Just under a month ago, elections were held in the Latin American country, which could actually live in prosperity and peace but is suffering from dramatic economic decline, inflation and poverty since years. Or as investigative journalist Sebastiana Barráez says in the news magazine Der Spiegel: “Maduro has couped!”

Initially, the state electoral authority declared President Nicolás Maduro Moro, who has been clinging to power since 2013, the winner without providing any evidence - as is actually required by the constitution. The opposition has now had access to more than 80 percent of the printed protocols of the individual polling stations and has made them public. According to these, their candidate Edmundo González won with around 67 percent of the vote - compared to 30 percent for the incumbent head of government. So did Maduro commit electoral fraud? It looks like it.

The United Nations and the Carter Center had sent election observers to Venezuela. They have now criticized the election authority's actions and declared that the official result was not achieved democratically. The panel of experts speaks of an “unprecedented process in recent electoral history”. No wonder that most Latin American countries as well as the USA and Europe did not recognize the “official result”. And Maduro? He doesn't give a damn. The despot has further intensified the repression against the population with the help of the military, the National Guard and other state organs loyal to him. According to the independent rights organization Foro Penal, over 2,000 people have been arrested since the election. These include opposition politicians. And journalists. That speaks a clear language.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the US government has now offered Maduro and close associates of the regime an amnesty if they relinquish power. I wish the Venezuelans would keep up the pressure. And the international stage too. Until Madura and his clan really abdicate. Because then the country, which has already been abandoned by 20% of its population in recent years, could return to better times. In a survey conducted by the Gallup polling institute in December 2012, the country's inhabitants were among the happiest people on earth. It would be nice if this vague memory could become reality again.

Personal happy moment of the week

“Your application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) has been approved. You are now authorized to travel to Canada by air.” Nothing more to add here. Taking off this sunday. Boy am I excited...

I couldn't care less...

...about the discussion that Germany “only” came 10th in the medal table at the Summer Olympics in Paris - behind hosts France and Great Britain, even though their populations are smaller. “What does it take for more medals?” asks the Tagesschau news channel. That is of little interest to me. Much more important is the charisma of athletes as figures of identification for a nation, the role model function for children, the motivation to surpass oneself. After all, it's not for nothing that the Olympic motto is “Taking part is everything”. In that sense, Eddie the Eagle really did fly.

It's fine with me...

...that the Democrats' party conference is now turning into a coronation mass. Because the most important decisions have been made: Presidential candidate and his (better in this case “her”) running mate. Normally, I would now say that political program content should not be completely secondary. But I don't care about that at the moment. The main thing is momentum. The main thing is optimism. The main thing is not to go back. The main thing is that Donald Jessica Trump doesn't triumph in November. Harris Walz!

As I write this...

...we're trying to catch a mouse. Apparently it was raining too hard outside and it wanted to get out into the dry. Now she's hiding behind a bookshelf and is afraid of us - even though we want to rescue her and set her free. Update: we've got her and she's fine. Second update: there seems to be another one...

Post Scriptum

It's good when someone doesn't look away but points. Even if it's about Israel committing an injustice. After all, you are then almost reflexively vilified as an Anti-Semite. In this respect, I am pleased that the European Union is showing more and more backbone in this regard. In this case, I am not referring to the maltreated Gaza Strip, but to the West Bank, where the Palestinian population is suffering more and more from brutal attacks by militant Israeli settlers - who can be sure of the backing of Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly right-wing extremist government.

Once again, there have been attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on the population of the West Bank. And now EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has had enough. He will “present a proposal for EU sanctions against the supporters of the violent settlers, including some members of the Israeli government”. Including the government! That's a bombshell. I very much hope that he finds the necessary support for this. Because this massive problem is currently all too easily overlooked in the great shadow of Gaza.

[macrolit]

Forbes article: "How Struggling College Bookstores Found A Way To Beat Amazon"

Oct 20, 2023,06:30am EDT

A new sales model adopted by hundreds of universities limits students’ ability to shop around for textbooks.

By Lauren Debter, Forbes Staff

As fall semester dawned at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, senior Olivia McFall turned to Amazon to shop for books — not only because its prices were better for certain titles, but so she could get her course materials quickly. The campus bookstore could sometimes take a week or two. Unacceptable.

“Teachers will start assigning reading on the first day,” McFall, a 22-year-old fashion-merchandising major, told Forbes. “You get behind if you don’t have that textbook. If I buy it on [Amazon], it’s usually because I can get it faster than the bookstore.”

For decades, Amazon’s lower prices and speedier delivery have blown a crater in the college bookstore business. Given the option to shop around, students only buy about one-third of their course materials at the campus store.

Now the bookstores are fighting back. They say they’ve hit on a plan that would, almost magically, quash competition from online rivals like Amazon. T.C.U. is among the colleges considering a model that would automatically charge students for textbooks on their tuition bills, which can be covered by financial aid, and get them to students by the time classes begin. Books are typically discounted 30% or more, said the bookstores, who negotiate volume discounts. Students must return materials at the end of the semester.

Despite reservations from education advocates who worry it limits purchasing options for students, the plan, dubbed Inclusive Access, is spreading like kudzu. It rose out of a 2015 rule from the U.S. Department of Education that permitted universities to include the cost of textbooks with tuition, as long as prices were under competitive market rates and students could opt out.

Bookstores latched onto the idea during the pandemic. They were looking to boost sales at a time when they were hamstrung by closures, declining enrollment numbers and the seismic shift to digital textbooks — and still are.

In the 2022-23 academic year, Inclusive Access already captured the business of 44% of students, worth an estimated $1.4 billion annually, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Illinois-based Follett Corp., a privately held company (annual sales: $1.6 billion) that operates roughly one-third of college bookstores, said the number of its campuses that have adopted the Inclusive Access model has tripled to 450 since 2019. New Jersey-based Barnes & Noble Education (annual sales: $1.5 billion), which spun out of the bookseller chain in 2015 and also runs a third of campus bookstores, said it has over 150 schools signed up for Inclusive Access, up from just four in 2019. (The colleges themselves operate the other one-third of campus bookstores.)

Overnight, schools that switched to Inclusive Access brought guaranteed revenue to booksellers. Sell-through rates, which measure the percentage of course materials students purchase at the campus bookstore, skyrocketed from about 30% before Inclusive Access to north of 80 or 90%, according to Follett and Barnes & Noble Education. Few students opt out, the companies said, because they like the prices and convenience.

It’s a clever way to beat Amazon. Unable to compete, Follett and Barnes & Noble Education separated their customers from the open marketplace and bundled their products with something Amazon couldn’t sell — college tuition. The bookstore gets the customer without ever having to go up against the online behemoth, which is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for its own alleged anti-competitive practices. (Amazon has said it disagrees with the allegations, and will contest the lawsuit.)

“It’s a significant volume increase because you’re capturing all of the course material market share in an institution,” Jonathan Shar, who oversees campus stores operated by Barnes & Noble Education, told Forbes. “Plus, it’s much more predictable.”

Amazon Prices

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the impact Inclusive Access is having on its textbook sales. Amazon said it may offer discounts to schools that buy books in bulk, but it’s been winding down certain aspects of its textbook business. In April, it stopped renting physical textbooks to students and in 2020 it stopped buying textbooks back from students.

Last year, 37% of students purchased books from Amazon. That’s down from 46% in 2019, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Selling textbooks isn’t the business it used to be. A decade ago, students spent $4.8 billion a year on textbooks, according to research firm Words Rated. Today, it’s about $3.2 billion. During the 2022-23 school year, students spent an average of $285 on course materials, the lowest figure since the National Association of College Stores began tracking spending 16 years ago.

That’s partly the result of a rapid shift to lower-cost digital textbooks, with 55% of course materials now digital, up sharply from 15% prior to the pandemic, according to Emmanuel Kolady, Follett’s CEO. More textbooks are being made available online for free from sites like OpenStax, too. Nearly three-quarters of students say they were assigned at least one free course material in the latest academic year, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Company’s ‘Cornerstone’

Barnes & Noble Education, a publicly traded company that runs 800 campus bookstores, has described Inclusive Access to investors as a “cornerstone” of its plan to return to profitable growth, noting that course-material revenue rises more than 80% and gross profit nearly doubles after schools switch to the new model.

The company has lost a cumulative $600 million since 2018. Last year’s sales were 23% below pre-pandemic levels. This summer, it had to negotiate an extension on its loan payments because it couldn’t come up with enough cash. As part of the deal, it gave up two board seats and said it would explore selling the company. Its stock price has lost 90% of its value in the last two years, tumbling to less than $1 a share.

“It feels like this is their first, second and third priority,” said Ryan MacDonald, an analyst at Needham who covers Barnes & Noble Education, referring to Inclusive Access, which the company calls “First Day Complete.”

Benefits For Students

The booksellers claim the program saves students money. Follett said that students spend an average of 30% less than if they were to buy new books and are better equipped for classes as Inclusive Access gets them their materials before the semester begins.

At New York University, for instance, where Follett runs bookselling, students are automatically billed for books unless they opt out. Most are digital rentals. A textbook for an introductory biology class is priced at $36.75, which gives students access to a digital copy for the semester. That’s 20% less than if they went directly to the publisher’s website and rented it for the term. It’s 40% less than on Amazon, which only offers the option to buy the digital version, not rent it.

The math, however, is not always transparent. According to a report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, which analyzed 52 book-buying contracts, it’s “hard, if not impossible” to figure out how deep the discounts are because schools don’t make it clear what the discount is based on.

Savings can be less meaningful for students who would have otherwise bought used books or borrowed books, said Nicole Allen, director of open education at SPARC, a nonprofit that advocates for more course materials to be free. The one-quarter of students who intentionally skip buying certain books each semester, usually because they don’t think they need it, are also charged, she said. As more schools migrate to Inclusive Access, Allen questions whether discounts will disappear since publishers have a long history of raising prices.

“This is already a captive market because students are told what to buy,” Allen told Forbes. “Inclusive Access makes it an even more captive market by telling students how they’re going to buy it.”

Even without Inclusive Access, students can be limited in their comparison shopping. More and more professors are assigning books with single-use access codes, available for an additional fee, which students use to access quizzes, homework and other materials online. Promoted by publishers who benefit from the new revenue stream, they’re often sold exclusively by the campus bookstore and cannot be resold.

Follett’s president Ryan Petersen predicts that a newer variant of the model called Equitable Access, where students pay a flat fee for their materials regardless of the courses they’re taking, will be adopted by most schools in the next five years.

“We’re having this conversation with every campus we can,” Petersen told Forbes, “potentially even to campuses who are sick of hearing about it.”

[ladymdc]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤️ (hi I hope you are doing well!)

Ah! Thanks for thinking of me! I'm not good at self-promoting or self-love when it comes to my writing, but how can I say no when it comes from someone I always enjoy seeing around ♥️

**A few of my fav finished works in no particular order:

The Choices We Made -- (Borderlands 3/Rhack fix it) This work got me through the pandemic & set me on the path to make a few of my best friends.

A Memory I Keep Having -- (Borderlands/Rhack whumptober collab with one of those best friends) I put my whole heart & soul into this thing. It didn't do very well compared to some of my other works in that fandom, but the fact that didn't bother me only makes me love it more.

(ngl, I love so many of my rhack works because I worked on so many with friends or for friends, it's hard to narrow that one down, but I did it lol)

Wandering in the Dark -- (DA, f!mage Trevelyan/Cullen,1930s noir/dystopia twist on the events of DAI) I left DA on a sour note, but still made some great friends there & this work was a nice ending note. That said, I fully expect Veilguard to suck me back in.

And then I'm going to add on a couple of my unfinished favs/current main wip to the list:

Hell & You (Tavstarion/BG3 Hades/Persephone AU) This is my self-indulgent passion project. Something I don't expect people to love, but something *I* love dearly. Any given moment I'm currently thinking about this one & wishing I could write faster.

Then another fav/unifinished work is The Empire & the Sun (Borderlands/Rhack Kingpin AU). I'm hoping to go back to this one someday & finish it because it was also a self indulgent passion project. I just got burned out & needed something new

[covid-safer-hotties]

Deaths Are Up Post-Covid, and So Are Funeral Stocks: Prognosis - Published Aug 19, 2024

The Business of Death Aussies, Americans, and Brits — and no doubt people in many other nations — are dying faster than before the pandemic.

Even though Covid waves are becoming less deadly, thanks mostly to increased immune protection from vaccinations and prior infections, the coronavirus remains a significant killer. And stubbornly high all-cause mortality rates indicate that its direct and indirect effects are helping drive a sustained increase in death and disease around the globe.

It’s depressing news, I know.

With death comes bereavement, and there’s been a lot of that since SARS-CoV-2 began spreading widely in late 2019. The number of officially reported Covid fatalities (7.1 million worldwide) doesn’t fully explain the trend in excess deaths. (Neither do Covid vaccines, since body bags were piling up months before the shots were released, and multiple studies show the immunizations protect against severe illness and death).

There’s no silver lining to the tragic loss of life. But if one group sees an upside, it’s those providing funerals, cremations, and burials. Publicly traded companies handling funerals and related services have handed investors an average 79% return since Jan. 1, 2020 — outpacing the 60% gain in the MSCI All Country World Index, one of the broadest measures of the global equity market.

The US highlights the morbid picture. In the two decades before the pandemic, the number of deaths had been climbing at an average clip of almost 1% a year — reflecting population growth and aging, and the devastating opioid epidemic — for a crude rate in 2019 of 869.7 deaths for every 100,000 Americans.

Covid catapulted the rate well beyond 1,000 in 2020 and 2021 before the rate dropped back to just over 984 in 2022. Last year, there were 927.4 deaths per 100,000 people in the US — almost 12% above the 20-year average — for nearly 3.1 million deaths all up.

The coronavirus directly and indirectly contributed to many of them. For instance, a jump in drug overdoses and alcohol use–related diseases during the pandemic likely added to fatalities from unintentional injuries and chronic liver disease in 2023, according to a study this month. Covid also led to more cardiometabolic disease, and age-adjusted mortality rates for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke were above pre-pandemic levels.

Last month, researchers reported similar findings in Australia, where emergency departments have taken longer to hospitalize patients arriving in ambulances — a sign of health-system stress associated with a greater risk of patients dying up to 30 days after their initial medical encounter.

Mortality rates in England have also stayed persistently high since Covid hit, likely reflecting the direct effects of the illness, pressures on the National Health Service, and disruptions to chronic disease detection and management, researchers said in a study in January.

“The greatest numbers of excess deaths in the acute phase of the pandemic were in older adults,” Jonny Pearson-Stuttard and colleagues wrote. “The pattern now is one of persisting excess deaths, which are most prominent in relative terms in middle-aged and younger adults.”

Almost five years into the pandemic, dodging SARS-CoV-2 still remains one of the best ways to avoid adding to the toll — and the frequency of funerals. —Jason Gale

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

“Bets pandemic” spreads faster than COVID-19 outbreak in Brazil

Approximately 25 million people began placing sports bets on electronic platforms in the first seven months of 2024. This averages to about 3.5 million new users per month. For perspective, this growth rate surpasses the time it took for the coronavirus to infect the same number of people in Brazil, which occurred over 11 months, from February 26, 2020, to January 28, 2021.

Over the past five years, the number of Brazilians who have placed bets on various platforms has reached 52 million. Of this total, 48 percent are considered new players, having started betting in the first seven months of this year. This data comes from an opinion poll conducted by the Locomotiva Institute between August 3 and 7.

The habit of placing bets on electronic platforms in Brazil now encompasses a population comparable to the entire population of Colombia and exceeds that of countries such as South Korea, Spain, and Argentina.

Continue reading.

[reasoningdaily]

Pioneered by digital literacy experts, the "Sift" strategy is a technique for spotting fake news and misleading social media posts, says Amanda Ruggeri.

It's no secret that misinformation is rampant on social media. And it's even more so in some subjects than others. Research has found, for example, that around two-thirds of the most popular YouTube videos on vaccines contain misinformation. The fall-out can be dire: an uptick in inaccurate anti-vaccination content online correlates with a decline in vaccination coverage, especially among children. That has led to larger outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases, like measles, than have been seen in recent years.

"Misinformation is worse than an epidemic," Marcia McNutt, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, put it in 2021, implicitly referring to the Covid-19 pandemic. "It spreads at the speed of light throughout the globe and can prove deadly when it reinforces misplaced personal bias against all trustworthy evidence."

HOW NOT TO BE MANIPULATED

In today's onslaught of overwhelming information (and misinformation), it can be difficult to know who to trust. In this column, Amanda Ruggeri explores smart, thoughtful ways to navigate the noise. Drawing on insights from psychology, social science and media literacy, it offers practical advice, new ideas and evidence-based solutions for how to be a wiser, more discerning critical thinker.

There are many reasons why misinformation travels so quickly – according to some research, even faster than accurate information. One reason is that people are far more likely to share a claim when it confirms their pre-existing beliefs, regardless of its accuracy. This cognitive bias may help explain why even more misinformation seems to be shared by individuals than by bots. One study, for example, found that just 15% of news sharers spread up to 40% of fake news.

That's a sobering statistic, but there's an upside. As long as individuals are the ones responsible for sharing so much misinformation, we're also the ones who – by being more mindful of what we "like", share, and amplify – can help make the greatest change.

When it comes to not falling for misinformation, being aware of our human fallibilities, such as our quickness to believe what we want to believe, is a good first step. Research shows that even being more reflective in general can "inoculate" us against believing fake news.

But it's not the only thing that we can do. In particular, researchers have found there are several simple, concrete strategies that we all can (and should) use, especially before we're tempted to share or repeat a claim, to verify its accuracy first.

One of my favourites comes with a nifty acronym: the Sift method. Pioneered by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, it breaks down into four easy-to-remember steps.

1. S is for… Stop

Perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern era is its urgency. Thanks to everything from our continual phone use to nonstop work demands, far too many of us seem to be navigating the world at a dizzying speed.

Being online, where both news cycles and content are especially fast-paced and often emotive, can put us in a particularly "urgent" mindset. But when it comes to identifying misinformation, immediacy is not our friend. Research has found that relying on our immediate "gut" reactions is more likely to lead us astray than if we take a moment to stop and reflect. 

The first step of the Sift method interrupts this tendency. Stop. Don't share the post. Don't comment on it. And move on to the next step.

2. I is for… Investigate the source

Posts show up in our social media feeds all the time without us having a clear sense of who created them. Maybe they were shared by a friend. Maybe they were pushed to us by the algorithm. Maybe we followed the creator intentionally, but never looked into their background.

Now's the time to find this out. Who created this post? Get off-platform and do a web search. And because search results can be misleading, make sure you're looking at a reputable website. One that fact-checkers often use as a first port of call might surprise you: Wikipedia. While it's not perfect, it has the benefit of being crowd-sourced, which means that its articles about specific well-known people or organisations often cover aspects like controversies and political biases.

While you're investigating, ask:

If the creator is a media outlet, are they reputable and respected, with a recognised commitment to verified, independent journalism?

If it's an individual, what expertise do they have in the subject at hand (if any)? What financial ties, political leanings or personal biases may be at play?

If it's an organisation or a business, what is their purpose? What do they advocate for, or sell? Where does their funding come from? What political leanings have they shown?

And finally, once you've run your analysis (which can take just a couple of minutes), the most telling question of all: Would you still trust this creator's expertise in this subject if they were saying something you disagreed with?

3. F is for… Find better coverage

If, from the previous step, you find that you still have questions about the source's credibility, now's the time to dig a little further. What you're looking for is whether a more trustworthy source, like a reputable news outlet or fact-checking service, has reported and verified the same claim.

No surprise, but I find Google has some of the best tools for doing this. Obviously, there's Google itself, and if you're specifically looking to see if news outlets have covered something, Google News.

But I sometimes prefer to use the Google Fact Check search engine, which searches just fact-checking sites, specifically. Just keep in mind that Google says it doesn't vet the fact-checking sites it includes, so to make sure your results are reputable, you'll need to do a little further sleuthing – I like to see if an outlet has signed up to Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network, which you can check here.

If it's a photo you're investigating, use a reverse image search tool to see where else the image comes up online. Google has one, but I also like TinEye and Yandex. (You can also use these for video: take a screenshot from the video and put that in for your image search).

Your goal? To see whether there are any credible sources reporting the same information as what you're seeing, and saying that it's verified.

4. T is for… Trace the claim to its original context

Often, you'll wind up doing this at the same time that you're trying to find better coverage, at least if you're using the tools mentioned above. But the idea here is a little different. You're trying to find out where the claim came from originally.

Even if you see that a claim has been reported on by a credible media outlet, for example, it may not be original reporting; they may have gotten that claim from another outlet. Ideally, the original story should be linked – so always go there – but if it's not, you may need to search for it separately.

Crucially, you want to figure out not just whether something like this really is true, but whether anything was taken out of context. If you're looking at an image, does how it was described in the social media post you saw line up with what its original caption, context, and location? If it's a quotation from a speaker, was anything edited out or taken out of context or, when you see their full interview or speech, does it seem like perhaps they misspoke in that moment?

Taking these steps before deciding whether to simply share a claim might feel onerous. But the time investment of just a few minutes may save you not only embarrassment – but help ensure you're not spreading misinformation that, at its most dramatic, can even lead to illness and death.

Today, anyone can make a claim on social media. And anyone can be the person whose re-sharing of that claim is the one who makes it go viral. That means it's the responsibility of each one of us to make sure that what we are posting, liking, and sharing is, first and foremost, actually true.

[marcusrobertobaq]

DBH didn't even have events like the COVID pandemic that forced the automatization and technology to "develop" and spread faster. Imagine if they had - instead of the android peak being in after 2027 it'd be in the very first 2 years.

[ison-ison]

Understanding Misinformation in Today's Media

In our fast-paced digital world, misinformation is everywhere. It’s super important to know what’s true and what’s not. Here, we’ll explore how misinformation spreads, the impact it has, and what we can do about it.

What Is Misinformation? Misinformation is false or misleading info shared without harmful intent. Disinformation, on the other hand, is false info shared with the intent to deceive. Knowing these differences is crucial because it helps us navigate the confusing media landscape. Misinformation affects how we communicate by creating confusion and mistrust, making it harder for people to agree on important issues.

How Misinformation Spreads Misinformation often spreads through social media, driven by algorithms that prioritize engagement over accuracy. For example, platforms like Facebook and TikTok use recommendation algorithms that show you content based on what you interact with. This can amplify sensational or misleading posts because they get more clicks and likes. A video from the Australian Institute of International Affairs explains how this leads to echo chambers, where users only see information that matches their beliefs. This makes it tougher to think critically and consider different perspectives.

Real-World Examples of Misinformation One clear example is the altered video of Dr. Willie Ong, which made false claims about a non-FDA-approved supplement using his likeness. This kind of misrepresentation can lead people to trust unsafe products, putting their health at risk. Another example is the fake broadcast showing Russian President Putin resigning, which was actually a manipulated video. Both instances show how misinformation can create confusion and panic, leading people to act on false information.

Consequences of Misinformation The Brookings Institution highlights that misinformation can have serious consequences for democracy, like manipulating voters and eroding trust in institutions. With digital platforms, misinformation spreads faster than ever, making it harder for people to tell fact from fiction. This isn’t just a modern problem; misinformation has existed throughout history, but it’s become more dangerous with technology. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, false information about vaccines made many people hesitant to get vaccinated, which had real-world impacts on public health.

Combating Misinformation So, how can we fight back against misinformation? Here are some simple ways: Fact-Checking: Organizations that check stories for accuracy help us trust the info we consume. Education: Teaching people how to spot fake news helps them think critically about what they read online. Platform Responsibility: Social media companies should take action to limit the spread of false information or at least label it when they find it. Community Efforts: Encouraging conversations and sharing reliable sources keeps everyone informed and engaged.

The Role of Social Media Algorithms Recent research shows that social media algorithms amplify our natural biases. They push information that aligns with our beliefs, making it easy to fall into echo chambers. Users need to understand how these algorithms work, and tech companies should consider changing them to create healthier online spaces. This way, we can be exposed to a wider range of views and information.

Conclusion In conclusion, misinformation is a significant issue that impacts all of us. By understanding how it spreads and taking steps to combat it, we can create a more informed society. Always question what you see online and strive to share accurate information. Misinformation isn’t just a personal problem. It affects everyone, It spreads quickly on social media, often thanks to algorithms that prioritize engagement over truth. To tackle this issue, we need to be smart about the information we consume. Fact-checking, education, and awareness are key.

Social media companies should also take action to limit the spread of false information. Together, we can work toward a better-informed society by questioning what we see and sharing reliable sources. Staying alert and proactive is our best way to combat misinformation and ensure we’re all getting the truth.

[so-true-overdue]

Vaccines: The Unsung Champions of Humanity’s Health

Vaccines—those minuscule vials of scientific marvel—are nothing short of civilization's most audacious and successful gamble against nature's most sinister adversaries. In an era where misinformation spreads faster than any virus could ever hope to, the importance of vaccines, the very bedrock of public health, cannot be overstated. Yet, here we are, in the 21st century, where the scientific consensus on vaccines is met with the same skepticism one might reserve for alchemy or phrenology.

To speak plainly, vaccines are the embodiment of human ingenuity and resilience. They have eradicated smallpox, a disease that once claimed millions, and have brought polio to the brink of extinction. The statistics are not merely numbers but a testament to their efficacy: the World Health Organization estimates that vaccines prevent 2 to 3 million deaths each year. That's not just a statistic; it's a resounding triumph of rationality over ignorance.

And what, pray tell, are the risks? Ah, yes—the ever-feared “adverse reactions,” that perennial specter haunting the minds of the uninformed. Let us put things into perspective: the risk of a severe allergic reaction to a vaccine is approximately one in a million. To put that into context, you are statistically more likely to be struck by lightning, attacked by a shark, or win the lottery—all on the same day—than to suffer a serious vaccine-related injury. Meanwhile, the diseases these vaccines prevent—measles, diphtheria, whooping cough—have complications and mortality rates that dwarf these negligible risks. But why let facts get in the way of a good panic?

The irony here is palpable. In the midst of a pandemic, where the death tolls are recounted with the same monotonous regularity as the weather, there are those who scoff at the very tools designed to save them. This cognitive dissonance is not only perplexing but dangerous, for it undermines the collective effort required to achieve herd immunity—a concept as pivotal to public health as gravity is to physics.

Vaccines do not merely protect individuals; they shield entire communities. When enough people are immunized, the spread of disease is contained, safeguarding those who cannot be vaccinated due to medical reasons. This is not just a scientific fact—it is a moral imperative. To deny vaccines is not an act of individual liberty but of collective irresponsibility, a dereliction of the duty we owe to one another as members of a shared society.

So, the next time someone questions the importance of vaccines, perhaps we should remind them of the simple truth: in a world rife with uncertainties, vaccines are one of the few certainties we have. They are, quite literally, a shot at life—a shot that, in its most poetic sense, we cannot afford to miss.