Links

[selenak]

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

Comments

[elisi]

Sorry to hear you caught covid! We all caught it last summer - Delta - despite being vaccinated. Dread to think what it'd have been like if we'd not had the vaccine.

And thank you for the links, I'd not seen the New Yorker piece before.

[liriaen]

Thank you for the New Yorker link; hadn't seen this.

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!

[trobadora]

So sorry you caught covid! I hope you're feeling better and aren't having any long-term effects.

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. :(

[ratcreature]

Sorry to hear you got sick, and fingers crossed you won't get hit with any nasty longterm effects

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.

[reverancepavane]

...despite having been vaccinated...

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).]

[likeadeuce]

Thank you for the links. I'm so sorry you were ill and I hope you make a full recovery but I can see how it's hard to sort out illness from everything else that's making it hard to rest well these days.

[tree_and_leaf]

Sorry you've been unwell, and wishing you a good recovery. Take it easy - it does often have a long tail...

[davetheanalyzer]

Hope you're doing well. If possible, maybe limit news consumption to an hour a day. I heard that advice from author NK Jemisin and I found it helped improve my mental health a lot.

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.

[cahn]

Oh ugh, I'm sorry to hear that, both about the antivaxxers (which sounds rather distressing) and the covid, which sounds just vastly unpleasant. :( <3 (I remember you were ill but hadn't realized it was covid.) It sounds like a lot of people have lingering effects for a while -- take care of yourself <3

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!)

[jesuswasbatman]

Sorry to hear you got covid, and glad you're better now. As I probably told you my Bavarian boss caught it very early on during a trip home, and his very nasty symptoms ensured that I took it seriously.

[bobbiewickham]

Sorry to hear you caught COVID; hopefully it is gone and you are recovered.

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.