Happy New Year, everyone! I made it! 6,000+ blog posts over 15 years. I never thought, way back on January 4, 2007, that I would actually still be blogging in 2022. A large part of the credit for this longevity goes to all my readers, many of whom have been following me for years. Without your loyalty and support, this blog will not have endured as long as it has. So my deepest and humblest thanks to each and every one of you!
Grab a cuppa. This is a long read.
We are still in a pandemic as the Covid virus continues to circulate especially in large pockets of unvaccinated people, particularly in poorer countries who have not been able to get enough vaccines. The difference is stark – the orange line shows how much low income nations trail richer ones.
Viruses mutate all the time. The longer the virus remains in human circulation, the higher the chances new variants will appear. Covid is no different.
The public health restrictions being reimposed will not stop omicron but to slow it down.
People are urged to get vaccinated and boosted and to switch from cloth masks to better ones like the N95’s to limit transmissions. Vaccinations are key to reducing severe illness and fatalities. The unvaccinated are at the greatest risk for hospitalizations and intensive care.
Vaccines improve your chances of survival and help protect the vulnerable – the very young, the elderly, who often have other health conditions and the immunocompromised.
Caring for someone in intensive care and providing long term after care if they survive, is extremely expensive.
There is a popular misconception – if one is young, fit and healthy – then there is no need to get vaccinated. It is your individual genetic makeup which determines how your immune system reacts to the virus – whether it makes you asymptomatic and a potential carrier, mildly sick with some symptoms, sick for a long time (long haul) or become very ill and perhaps die.
mRNA vaccines
Messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA for short, is a single-stranded molecule that carries genetic code from DNA to a cell’s protein-making machinery. Without mRNA, your genetic code wouldn’t be used, proteins wouldn’t be made, and your body wouldn’t work. If DNA is the bank card, then mRNA is the card reader.
Once a virus is inside our cells, it releases its own RNA, tricking our hijacked cells into spewing out copies of the virus – in the form of viral proteins – that compromises our immune system. Traditional vaccines work by injecting inactivated virus proteins called antigens, which stimulate the body’s immune system to recognise the virus when it reappears.
The genius of mRNA vaccines is there’s no need to inject the antigen itself. Instead, these vaccines use the genetic sequence or “code” of the antigen translated into mRNA. It’s a ghost of the real thing, fooling the body into creating very real antibodies. The artificial mRNA itself then disappears, degraded by the body’s natural defences including enzymes that break it down, leaving us with only the antibodies.
It is, therefore, safer to produce, more quickly and cheaply, compared with traditional vaccines. You no longer need huge bio-secure labs growing deadly viruses inside millions of chicken eggs. Instead, just one lab can sequence the proteins of the antigen and email it around the world. With that information a lab could make “a million doses of mRNA in a single 100 ml test tube.”
History Repeats Itself
The measures being used today to reduce the spread of disease were also used long ago. Diseases become widespread because of human movement. In the past, trade and sometimes war were the catalysts.
 |
| 13th century Mongols using a counterweight trebuchet (a type of catapult) |
 |
| Emergency Army Hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas |
The example given in the video is Philadelphia. As with other US cities, Philadelphia did not heed public health warnings. The whole city basically shut down and ceased to function for a while. Some orphaned children starved because people were too afraid to go near them. It is a terrible view of what happens when a deadly virus overwhelms.
This 1918 flu documentary was released in 2018 and the narrator ended it with these words : “The way we respond to the next epidemic could be the difference between life or death.”
As the 1918 ravaged populations, measures such as quarantines and masks were brought in. Then as now, people soon realized the virus was transmitted via aerosols and poorly ventilated, crowded indoor spaces exacerbated the spread. These 100-year-old do’s and don’ts also apply today :
Archival images from the 1918 Flu pandemic show familiar measures :
Like the making and wearing of masks ….
 |
1918 – Red Cross workers of Boston, Massachusetts, removing bundles of masks for American Soldiers from table where other women are busily engaged in making them #45499363 |
 |
| People lining up for masks, Montgomery Street in San Francisco in 1918. Photograph: Hamilton Henry Dobbin/California State Library handout/EPA |
Events and activities were moved outdoors ….
 |
| San Francisco: The congregation of the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption praying on the steps, where they gathered to hear mass and pray during the influenza pandemic of 1918. |
 |
| Outdoor Barber Shop, University of California, Berkeley 1919 |
When the smallpox virus arrived in Montreal in 1885, the English speaking population in the west end, rushed to get themselves vaccinated. But the poorer French Canadians who lived in the east end, were suspicious and bitterly resisted. The contemporary illustration below showed how families of the infected fought off efforts to take them to the smallpox hospitals.
 |
| An illustration from Harper’s Weekly, 1885 “An Incident of the Smallpox epidemic in Montreal) by Robert Harris New York Public Library |
The divisions were drawn down linguistic, socio-economic class, religious and ethnic lines. The Catholic Francophones back then regarded the mostly Protestant Anglophones as elites who couldn’t be trusted. The French language newspapers of the time all downplayed the epidemic as hype. The Catholic church was very late in recommending vaccinations and was responsible for superspreader events with costumed processions through narrow streets. Misinformation included a claim that the vaccine also causes syphilis. At the height of the epidemic, hotels were lobbying the government to stop releasing epidemic data to the press because it was bad for the tourist business.
In the end, 90% of the deaths were among the Francophones, most of them children under 10.
Misinformation? Nothing new there, either. Fear of change and a lack of understanding of science and technological advances go back a long way. This 1900 anti-electricity propaganda carton is a good example.
It is somewhat an irony people who railed against technological advances are using those same things to promote their beliefs!
Snopes (fact checking website) :
Totally debunked. Why would anyone want to make a vaccine a tracker? O ur phones and computers already do an excellent job at that!
Perhaps schools could do a better job of teaching science and explaining how science works. Also important is critical thinking and asking questions. There is so much unfounded information on the internet, sometimes dressed up to look plausible with a grain of truth but doesn’t hold up with some scrutiny. Social media is not where one should be getting crucial medical and scientific information. When in doubt, ask an expert.
Other Pandemic Effects
The number of times people search for “jewelry” on the internet peaks regularly 3 times a year – the run up to Christmas, then smaller spikes around Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. But when the pandemic began in early spring of 2020, large dip in the search pattern occurred (red arrow below).
That was when nearly everything shut down. Businesses which were most affected were those which relied on foot traffic and had less or no online presence.
A huge shift to the internet began in 2020 – for both sellers and buyers who had nowhere else to sell or to shop due to movement restrictions. The general effect can be seen the Etsy stats.
We also saw shipment delays as postal offices and couriers were and still are overwhelmed.
When the pandemic hit, orders were cancelled and shipments dramatically decreased. Ships therefore stayed in port longer – they would not sail until they were full. Sometimes major container ports were hit by Covid outbreaks and shut down temporarily or had fewer workers available. Erratic shipments ensued, oh joy.
The truck driver shortage also became worse. Many truckers are older and have not been replaced fast enough especially now when the demand for goods and transportation is so high.
We operate in a global marketplace where supply chain disruptions complicate manufacturing. On a simpler scale, let’s look at the raw gemstones mined in Australia. They are not processed there. These are typically cut and polished in places like India, Thailand or China before going to customers around the world. We order Czech beads from Europe and Delica Beads from Japan, freshwater pearls from China – there are no other home grown alternatives for those, and so is the case for many other products we want and need.
Costs are also going up. As demand rises, companies are forced to compete for materials, supplies, products and shipping containers. We, the consumers, will have to pay more.
It will take a while for things to settle down.
The Black Death caused so many deaths in medieval times, there were not enough people left to work the land. The oppressive feudal system which exploited the common people and treated them like slaves, eventually collapsed. The surviving serfs were free to demand better wages and to move to where they were paid and treated better. A renaissance in the arts and sciences followed.
We too, are seeing changes in our time where there are not enough workers willing to return to work for low wages, no benefits, no stability and poor working conditions. Workers also don’t necessarily want more money, but more flexibility for work-life balance and better treatment in their employment.
Again, it will take time to settle down to our new norm.
Let’s hope that this winter’s widespread surge will be the last and that the virus will continue to mutate into a milder disease. And that my annual anniversary post will look a lot different from this on.
In the meantime, I hope you all will continue to craft as I plan to do in the year ahead. It’s my happy place and I am sure it is yours too. At this particular time in our lives, we could perhaps consider crafting enrichment, like for zoo animals!
I think I am ready….
References
Before You Go:
This blog may contain affiliate links. I do receive a small fee for any products purchased through affiliate links. This goes towards the support of this blog and to provide resource information to readers. The opinions expressed are solely my own. They would be the same whether or not I receive any compensation.
______________________________
//<![CDATA[
$(document).ready(function(){
$(".widget h2").wrapInner("“);
});
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
//]]>