Author Archives

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Wise fear

I don’t think the team of four taking down the four trunks of this cedar were fearless. They were sensibly afraid and stopped between each trunk. They discussed the next step and had all the safety gear in place that was possible. It was still very dangerous.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: fearless.

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Numbers game #7

For Judy’s Numbers Game: 128.

I have enough showing up that it can be all beach. Brandt geese out in the early morning.

Let’s look closer at the eagle in the tree. Splotchy feathers, not quite fully mature.

Rocks and logs and sand.

The deer come down too.

A gull in the evening as the light falls.

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Who is the scamp?

Is the sea lion the scamp? Or the ocean wave splashing up? Or the cormorant in front of the right hand sea lion?

These are sea lions rather than seals, in Puget Sound. The small ear flaps give them away. They are also just bigger than most of our local seals. Males are bigger than females, up to 390 pounds, while the females are up to 110. Here: https://www.eopugetsound.org/articles/california-sea-lion

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: scamp.

We learned this one as kids and sang it very happily.

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Goosesit

I goose sat last week, for friends going out of town. The geese knew I was a stranger and they were unenthused. I sang “Go tell Aunt Rhody”, but they didn’t like it. I tried “Molly Malone” on the second visit, but this was not received with joy either. I gave them fresh water and food anyhow.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: goose.

I didn’t think they would appreciate “The Fox” either.

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Andrews creek

Andrews Creek flows from up in the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. It empties into Crocker Lake. Andrews Creek exits Crocker Lake, empties in Snow Creek and Snow Creek empties into Discovery Bay.

I took the pictures and video yesterday.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bubbles.

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Less Long Covid if vaccinated

My cats are pound kitties, rescues that were still half-starved kittens when they arrived. They were supposedly six weeks old when I got them, so born in August 2021. This photo is from February 2022. They are still exploring and fascinated by water and faucets and showers. They are doing cat research. Meanwhile, Long Covid research continues.

https://dgalerts.docguide.com/ncov-home/article/lower-long-covid-prevalence-symptom-severity-in-vaccinated-individuals

This is a report on a study which started in October of 2020. “Participants were actively followed for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) infection. In the study, Hannah E Maier, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and colleagues compared the prevalence of symptoms and symptom severity between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.” People were enrolled for a year as they got infected, with demographic and health information recorded as they enrolled. They turned in information every two weeks and had blood draws every two months. After a year they were invited to continue for a second year. 3375 were enrolled, more than 1370 filled out Long Covid forms, and 1007 of the 1370 were vaccinated. Long Covid was defined after 90 days.

“At 30 and 90 days post infection, 38% and 13% of individuals reported persistent symptoms, and 6% and 2% reported ≥5 symptoms, respectively. Fatigue (19%), cough (15%), and cognitive dysfunction (12%) were the most commonly reported symptoms at 30 days, whereas loss of smell/taste (8%), fatigue (6%), and cognitive dysfunction (5%) were the most commonly reported symptoms at 90 days. The mean score of symptom severity was 3.6 and 3.9 at 30 days and 90 days post infection, respectively.

At 90 days post infection, 8% of vaccinated individuals reported persistence of any symptoms compared with 27% of unvaccinated individuals (relative risk [RR] = 0.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.22-0.42). Similarly, vaccinated individuals were less likely to have ≥5 symptoms compared with unvaccinated individuals (RR = 0.34; 95% CI, 0.15-0.79).

Furthermore, vaccinated individuals had significantly lower average symptom severity scores at 90 days post infection compared with unvaccinated individuals (relative severity [RS], -2.70; 95% CI, -1.68 to -3.73).“

There also was more Long Covid in the pre Omicron group than Omicron and beyond.

This study is community based and most of the patients were not hospitalized. Overall it has a lower estimate of how common Long Covid is than studies in hospitalized patients. It is reassuring that Long Covid symptoms and prevalence are lower with vaccination, but some people are still severely affected even with vaccination. Vaccination does not stop Long Covid completely though I certainly wish that it did. Mixed good news, but vaccination still looks like the best bet other than moving to a bunker permanently.

The study is published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases: https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ofid/ofae039/7585852. The quotations are from the DGAlerts article.