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This weekend I had two antivaxxers trying to enlist/convert me, one of whom was also a Putin defender going on abouto how the "mainstream media" was reporting it all wrong. But at least I'm related to neither of them; a friend of mine has to put up with his own daughter insisting that covid does not exist. Meanwhile, I, alas, had it (with symptoms) last month, despite having been vaccinated because of the new Ommicron variant, and I can tell you, fun this was not. Have some Ukraine related links:
Ukrainian demonstrations in Russia-occupied Kherson
Article about Natalya Sindeya, the founder of Dozhd, one of the last independent Russian media which was just shut down.
Profile of Volodymyr Zelensky, one of several to be published in the last ten days; this one in the New Yorker
Ukrainian demonstrations in Russia-occupied Kherson
Article about Natalya Sindeya, the founder of Dozhd, one of the last independent Russian media which was just shut down.
Profile of Volodymyr Zelensky, one of several to be published in the last ten days; this one in the New Yorker
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And thank you for the links, I'd not seen the New Yorker piece before.
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I hope your Covid doesn't outstay its initial visit; I have a vague feeling that my current bouts of fatigue and flash exhaustions are bit of a long tail. *shrugs* It could be worse, though, so: small mercies, in the light of general fear and insanity. Hold on tight!
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a friend of mine has to put up with his own daughter insisting that covid does not exist
Ugh, that is the worst, when someone you care about falls down that rabbit hole. :(
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My friend‘s daughter: yes, so much this. Poor guy. He‘s old enough to be a high risk group, and she‘s even refusing to wear a mask in addition to refusing vaccination, and so he hasn‘t seen her in a while except via zoom.
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Here's hoping at least the cold will get better quickly.
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This trend to deny reality that you don't like is maddening. And wtf even is this "mainstream media" argument? By now everyone who hasn't lost somebody to covid at least knows somebody else who has lost somebody close to them, and it's obviously more death and illness than in pre-covid times. And right now in my city there are Ukrainian refugees sheltering in our central exhibition hall, because they fled being bombed. Do they think somebody hired over a million "crisis actors" as fake refugees?? I know that there's some bizarre disinformation campaign that claims Ukrainians are blowing up their own cities or some nonsense, but this is just ridiculous.
I mean, I wish we had managed to create a different, more stable and ideally nuke-free security architecture in the 90s when maybe there had been a chance for it as much as the next person who does not want to be in our crapsack timeline, but clearly in the "pick your protector umbrella" reality we go stuck with, any Eastern European country that successfully managed to push to get in NATO had very good reason to do so, as events now show, so these "it's all NATO's fault" Putin apologists who thinks some people just need to be resigned to be an imperial sphere of interest without their say-so, should dare to tell that to anybody from say the Baltics to their face.
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„Mainstream media“ is one of those terms, like „Impfdiktatur“, which has me stop listening at once anyway. If the person in question is coming from a right wing instead of a left wing corner, they usuall add something about „Gutmensch“ and „linksgrün“, but the two who contacted me over the weekend were, as I said, more the Sahra Wagenknecht type. Orwell, thou shouldst be living in this hour.
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TBH I don't know how disproportionate the influence of right wing extremists in Ukrainian military or militias might be compared to their tiny electoral success (I mean clearly extremists can leverage their influence, even with smallish percentages, as can be seen all over the EU) but from the outside Ukraine doesn't seem to have a larger Nazi problem than, say, France with its multiplying right wing extremist blocks. Or you know, Germany. And even if it was a significant problem, clearly Putin has no issues with that ideological bent, with that disturbing philosopher he's a fan of, Ilyin? Or being previously cozy with occasional Horthy fanboy Orban. Who incidentally doesn't get bombed or invaded for aggravating the US and the EU. Or for harassing gay people. (Apparently the Russian Orthodox church now says Ukraine has to be bombed to fend of the gays or something?? And yet, NATO members in reality much less pro-gay...)
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Sort of. If I understood it correctly, to save Russia from having to stage Gay Pride parades, which are the sinister loyalty test the West puts on all its enclaves. Yes, I know it isn't funny, but allow me some bitter laughter. Of course, Putin being hand in glove with the Russian Orthodox Church isn't new - remember that Femen activist band who got imprisoned for screaming "Mother of God, damn Putin" in a church? And given the patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church were pissed off when the Ukrainian Orthodox Church declared independence and were recognized by the Greek Orthodox Church as such, they have even more motive to fall in line with the Czar.
I really hope they STFU about that now.
Alas. It's more like "they mistreated and killed the Donbass population first, and no one is talking about that!"
but from the outside Ukraine doesn't seem to have a larger Nazi problem than, say, France with its multiplying right wing extremist blocks. Or you know, Germany.
Yes. I'm still cringing in shame every time I think of us having the bloody AFD in parliament. Partially financed by Putin, btw. If there is one cheering thing about this is that he won't be able to afford to pay them as well as he used for in the foreseeable future right now.
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You know, I've been in a Russian language course for a few years now. I just for fun, but many are learning for family because they married a Russian speaker or are enganged and want to raise their children bilingual, talk with in-laws etc. And that includes some with family from Ukraine, but Russian speakers obviously, this being a Russian course, not Ukrainian.
So through that I have met somebody with in-laws in Eastern Ukraine, and over the years (all post-2014) they mentioned them every now and then, and they were actually "pro-Russian" in that they would have rather liked to keep close integration and open-borders with Russia, not the EU, if it was binary. They were close to the separatist area but not quite in it, but a bit to the North. It was impacted, but my classmate could still visit and she went there for their honeymoon when she eventually married her Ukrainian boyfriend and it was all "normal" despite the war nearby. As of last week her in-laws were now hiding and their area being bombed by the Russian army. They hadn't wanted to come to Germany when their family here tried to convince them that Russia planned to invade and they should get out "just in case" (though my classmate and ger husband didn't really believe it would be *this* bad either). They didn't believe anything bad would happen to them, are older and didn't want to abandon their place etc.
Our teacher (a Russian from St. Petersburg) has a cousin living in Kyiv, as of last week hiding in some bomb shelter with his young family, while the teacher's (anti-war, all internet savy) friends in St. Petersburg are now fearing arrest, and his parents (currently living in Moscow) fear for their savings...
Our course last week was half taken up by just catching up with what horrible new reality people are suddenly finding themselves in now.
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Uh, no. While I know a lot of people who have gotten covid (some of whom were extremely sick), I don't know anyone who has died of it, and if any of my friends or close acquaintances has lost someone due to covid, they haven't mentioned it to me. We're a rural area with just enough sensible people that things haven't gotten as bad as elsewhere. People in the community have died of covid, but nobody I was connected to even at second hand. Now, I don't need to have someone I know die of it to know it's real and masks are good and so is vaccination. But if I didn't believe the media or the CDC or anyone else, my personal lived experience would not be enough to convince me that covid was especially dangerous. (Thank God.)
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Serum (blood) vaccines generally won't stop you becoming infected with any disease that primarily colonises the upper respiratory tract (which is why it was never considered economical to create a vaccine for the common cold), but they will definitely help stop the disease from colonising deeper into the body and help prevent both the serious and long term effects from catching it. [And speed the reduction in your viral load once it does trigger.] But as with all vaccines, your response depends on the strength of your own immune system, so if you are old or immunocompromised you may still need hospitalisation despite being vaccinated (although you probably won't need intensive care).
It basically has to do with the different mechanisms by which the secondary immune system is triggered in each part of the body. [While many immunologists mentioned this fact it was generally ignored by the politicians who wanted the problem gone, and seized upon by the anti-vaxxers (although they themselves naturally didn't actually understand what they were talking about).]
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IgA is a poor activator of the secondary immune system (the lymphocytes that do the majority of work in destroying the invader) anyway, and the cells that produce it does not get good exposure to blood-based vaccine, which means that they are not particularly sensitised to the attacker. They will still respond, but they are not as effective at it.
IgG and the cells that secrete naturally do get a good exposure to the vaccine, so the body produces many of them specifically designed to identify and attack the virus as a result of being vaccinated. This is important since in the process of doing this they signal the body to start producing the lymphocytes that actually attack the invader. [And, as an added bonus once you have had the disease or the vaccine the secondary immune system remembers the most effective type of cells to use to attack the virus and doesn't have to discover how through trial and error.]
When the coronavirus starts colonising the upper respiratory tract (particularly the nasopharynx region), it primarily encounters IgA. It is only when it essentially moves deeper into the body that it encounters IgG which then triggers the full immune response, before it can effectively colonise the lungs and enter the blood (both of which are where it causes serious health problems).
Note that once the secondary response fully awakens it attacks the virus both in the body and in the upper respiratory tract. Which is why you may start out with the same viral load when infected, but you reduce that load a lot quicker than an unvaccinated person (and thus get better sooner). [As well has having less risk of complications.]
The omicron strain has several mutations from the base strain that make it particularly good at initially colonising the upper respiratory tract. Which is why it is spreading a lot easier - an R of between 4-7 with a mean of about 5.5 has been reported (amongst a theoretical unvaccinated population, which is why the variation in results). [The original strain had an R of about 2.7.]
There are currently trials being undertaken with a nasal spray vaccine to sensitise the IgA, to get a better immediate immune response. However it is likely that these will only be available to front line medical personnel and those that can afford them, as they probably will have an effectiveness of only 3-6 months and the standard vaccines should protect against the serious side-effects of catching COVID. [We are seeing an effective six-fold reduction in the need for hospitalisation amongst those who are vaccinated.]
This is all highly simplified. Key words for more information are immunoglobin (IgA and IgG), complementary activation, lymphocytes (T-cells and B-cells), primary and secondary immune response, and memory cells.
Hope this helps.
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It can be frustrating trying to find reliable news on Ukraine from the lefty outlets. I can find it hard to tell if they focus on the U.S. potentially contributing or causing problems because U.S. citizens have more theoretical power to stop their government or they fall into the "If U.S. bad, rival/enemy country good" trap, failing to realize that multiple countries can suck in varying and different degrees simultaneously.
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We have thankfully a great many outlets who do report on Ukraine covering the entire spectrum between (old school) conservative, moderate left and old school left, and even the last one have stopped with the "but Nato/the US!" for now. However, social media are something else...
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Fortunately, the lefty news source I watch is actually bringing on Russian and Ukrainian people to interview to give their perspective. They started doing it somewhat before for Russia and a few others but I like this change. Some of the guests might disagree a bit about details or what to do but it's much more informative about what's going on in those two countries (Now I wish this news source does more for countries like North and South Korea, Cuba, Taiwan, etc.).
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Re your third link: ngl, one of the reasons I wanted to read the Zweig was that Zelensky made me want to read about people who got thrust into impossible situations and were heroic in response, which I remembered you'd said about Marie Antoinette. (I mean, obviously very different situations and responses, of course!)
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It doesn't surprise me that the anti-vaxxer was also a Putin apologist. Once you decide you can pick your own reality because you don't like the liberal bias of this one, why stop at just one issue?
Thanks for the links. I'm trying to thread the needle between staying informed and doomscrolling on Ukraine.