I have been watching "Twelve Monkeys," an SF series based on the apocalyptic pandemic movie of the same name. It's a solidly well produced show which does its best to be scientifically plausible (insofar as a show about time travel can be). But it was made 6 or 7 years ago, and what seemed plausible then sounds really dated now.

We've just been ( Read more... )

Clinical evidence that the pandemic from 1889 to 1891 commonly called the Russian flu might have been an earlier coronavirus pandemic



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 ... is right twice a day. And today that stopped clock is the odious Florida Governor DeSantis, who has been saying that the hospitals need to start distinguishing between those hospitalized with COVID and those who "just happen to have it."  He is right. COVID hospitalization numbers have been contaminated by this problem since the start of the ( Read more... )

 The CDC finally updated their guidance on isolation/quarantine for COVID, a move that was long overdue. But to their credit, the new guidelines are presented on the CDC site in a set of clear and concise bullet points. Isolation guidelines (for people who test positive for COVID-19) are:

• Stay home for 5 days.
• If you have no symptoms or your symptoms ( Read more... )

 I waited a few weeks for the rush to settle down. I wasn't particularly in a hurry because

1. My first vaccines were Moderna, which turned out to provide the best immunity overall. 
2. My 2nd shot was April 1, so I wasn't even at 6 months when the FDA okayed the boosters (and it seems to be more effective to wait longer than 6 months before boosting)
3. I ( Read more... )

Even if you have been doing your best to live under a rock you have probably been unable to escape the depressing news that Minnesota is one of the handful of states where new cases have continued to go up weeks after the national numbers have started down the other side of the roller coaster hill. Well, this week's Minnesota numbers finally show a ( Read more... )

I recently spent some time ranting and raving to 
( Read more... )

I haven't posted about COVID for awhile, partly because everyone is sick of the topic but mostly because it seemed pretty clear how the game was going to play out. But just as we were rounding third base and heading for home plate, the delta variant arrived. There were concerning mutations before, but this one is a game-changer. In fact, it has me ( Read more... )

But I think I found the pandemic-inspired part of this poem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
  “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

( Read more... )

 Every year about this time I wander around intoning "April is the cruelest month, breeding // lilacs out of the dead land, mixing // memory and desire, stirring // dull roots with spring rain." Because I became fascinated with T.S. Eliot in high school, even though I rarely had any idea what he was writing about. I did understand that the first ( Read more... )