Friday, January 14, 2022

Friday links: 14 January, 2022

 Happy Friday, friends! Be safe if you’re in the path of that giant snowstorm. All we might get are a few flurries, so that’s nothing to worry about.

I definitely need to get the living room tidied up today. My daughter, bless her messy little heart, is a Level A Destructor and can bring down a clean room in seconds. If I want what’s left of my sanity to last throughout the weekend, I need to get this place in better shape before she gets back home from school today, so that’s what I’ll be doing this morning. Wish me luck!

Not many interesting links this week; I haven’t spent too much time online. But here’s what I found!

 

Hospitalizations skyrocket in children too young for COVID vaccines

Oof. So scary. While most of the time kids aren’t hit quite as hard with COVID, it’s not true for all kids. (One of the prevailing hypotheses right now is that there’s something genetic that may contribute to some people getting a worse case than others; I’m wondering if this holds true for kids as well.) I read a story last year of a mom who was an anti-masker, who yelled from the rooftops that COVID was no big deal, and then the youngest of her kids, her two-year-old, ended up intubated in the ICU with emphysema after the family came down with COVID. Protect the little ones in your life; their pulling through this unscathed isn’t guaranteed, and we don’t know the long-term effects. (Post-polio syndrome, anyone? Measles’s SSPE?)

 

The coronavirus may cause fat cells to miscommunicate, leading to diabetes

A fascinating article on how COVID may lead your body down a path no one wants (or no one should want. Trust me on this; my father is a Type 1 diabetic). This is something that worries me deeply, since here in the US, we’ve basically given up and are just sentencing everyone to whatever those long-term effects, including diabetes, may be (and here, diabetes can be a quick death sentence if you can’t afford insulin).

 

Every parent I know wants to walk into the sea right now.

I could have written this. There’s nothing fun about being a parent right now. We’re asked to go against every parental instinct we’ve ever developed and send our children into a building where several kids per day, on average (for my daughter's school; the middle school in town has dozens of kids testing positive each day), test positive for a virus that can have devastating effects- on them, on us if we catch a breakthrough case, on others if we unknowingly spread it (husband and I are double vaxxed and boosted, but it’s those long-term effects I worry about. Long Covid isn’t my idea of a good time, thanks). And we’re losing years of our children’s childhood without being able to make fun memories- or really, any decent memories. My daughter hasn’t eaten in a restaurant in two years. She hasn’t played at a park with other kids or gone into a grocery store since before March 2020, she hasn’t gone to the zoo or the swimming pool since before this started, she hasn’t had a birthday party with friends EVER. We could get a handle on this as a country, but our leadership (from both parties) has actively chosen not to, and we’re all paying for it. Be kind to the parents in your life; we’re all at our breaking points and are being demanded to sacrifice our kids to this. Just over 130 days until school is done for the year for us…

 

Hang in there, friends. Things are so, so hard right now. (Anyone need a partner to walk into the sea with???) This will end eventually, although it’s sure taking its sweet time.

Love and peace to you all, and I wish you a relaxing weekend.

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