No excuses necessary

Lately I’m seeing more people posting listsisting the reasons why they might feel the need to keep following pandemic mitigation guidelines. I’m so sorry that people are feeling like they need to apologize or give excuses for still wearing a mask, now that they’re not legally required.

I don’t think anyone should need an excuse for wanting to protect themself and those around them. Especially in today’s environment, where authorities are rolling back protection measures more because of COVID-19 fatigue, than any reduced need for them.

I’ve been seeing stories about it in the news, but this article does a good job of summarizing the concerted effort in progress, to legislatively remove pandemic protections, regardless of their need or effectiveness.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-09-16/over-half-of-states-have-rolled-back-public-health-powers-in-pandemic

Birds love our cold days

Beautiful but bone-chilling -1°F morning in Littleton. The birds seem very happy about our feeders, especially on the colder days. We're enjoying more views of House Finches visiting our tire swing bird feeder today. I created this 2x2 collection of images with the PicCollage app, and adjusted the borders to light blue with rounded corners.

Lockdown effectivity?

Here's an interesting critique of a recent paper about the ineffectiveness of “lockdowns,” that is being picked up and pushed by deniers of anti-pandemic policies. This article, and the paper itself, are both interesting reading. In my opinion, no anti-pandemic policy will work, if you have enough people refusing to follow it. Y'all be careful out there! 

If Your Time is Short:

 

* Three economists affiliated with Johns Hopkins University found that COVID-19 lockdowns barely reduced deaths, but the paper has not been peer-reviewed and is considered a working paper. Johns Hopkins University did not endorse the study. 

 

* Other research has found that lockdown measures have helped save millions of lives during the pandemic. 

 

* Several experts have criticized the paper and point to issues such as the authors’ extremely broad definition of lockdown (to include any government mandate that limits peoples' possibilities), a limited focus on the first wave of the pandemic, a comparison of policies that look very different from country to country, and an exclusion of studies that look at the science of disease transmission.

 

* These authors have questionable credibility in my mind; one of them has expressed his opinion online about "fascist" vaccine policies and has made false claims about the pandemic.

Memories of NYC

I was trying to catch up on one of my recorded sappy movies from late last year... I guess I must have saturated myself over the past few years, as it seems I’m a lot less inclined to watch them these days. Or, it might have something to do, with having a partner that *really* doesn’t like them. Anyway, some of the movies that are set in New York City, like this one, have delightful scenes of the ice skating rink in Rockefeller Center. I was looking at this one, and realized with a STUG, that there was a moment decades ago, when I was sitting with Kristan and her aunt Joan and uncle Sal, at a table behind those darkened windows on the far side of the rink, munching on some delicious NY pizza, and watching the skaters drift by, slightly above eye level, with their big Christmas tree in the background. It felt like a bit of a magical experience. That of course triggered a bunch of other memories of that action-packed trip, all of which had been neatly filed away until this moment. Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded of a few of the many fun experiences I’ve enjoyed over the years. Life is full of little tradeoffs, and if a STUG is the price of enjoying that memory, so be it…

Cold winter morning

It’s an *Arctic cold* -10°F in Littleton, on this Thursday morning. Yes, that’s *minus*, so we’re talking 42° below freezing. 🥶 The birds must be hiding out somewhere staying warm, as we’ve only seen this one House Finch on the tire swing bird feeder, so far. It looks like we got a frosting of snow after I finished shoveling yesterday. Not sure if I feel like braving the cold to knock off that thin layer, even though I know it’s important, as I hate the idea of it melting and refreezing into an icy layer later. I’m sure I’ll get some momentum, after I finish my coffee.