I have a lot of covid-related anxieties right now. I've known for a while (mostly by watching my home country's case numbers) that this wasn't over in the US, but knowing in advance really didn't alleviate any of my anxieties.

I'm just so glad that we got to celebrate littleun's birthday properly; if she turned five even two weeks later, we probably wouldn't have been able to do much.

The easiest way to process all this emotionally would be to just pretend it's not happening, and contribute to more pointless deaths.

The second easiest would be to say "I did my part, wore a mask everywhere, socially isolated for a year, didn't let my kid see other kids, got my vaccination and now I'm done, the unvaccinated can die or not die and it's a shame but it's not my problem." But that'll kill children, and people who've been lied to by psychopaths.

What's gonna cause the least amount of suffering is to continue to coddle the deliberately unvaccinated, treat them with as much compassion and understanding as possible while appealing to their values in order to convince them to get the shot (because calling someone an idiot over the internet has never changed anyone's mind), continue wearing a mask (although tbqh that's really nbd), head back into lockdown... all the emotionally-hardest things.

Telling the littleun she couldn't go to school after all was the hardest thing so far. Even though she took it in absolute stride.

On convincing the conspiracy-minded to get the shot:

It's easy to infer, from watching republicans flip a sudden 180 on vaccinations, that there's something Big and Bad about delta that we're not being told.

It's likely that the situation is much worse than the government is claiming.

It's starkly clear that the government has no idea what it's doing (and pretty much never has in our lifetimes).

This is conspiracy, and resonates with their values, but likely true...

Anyway, I'm done with listening to the CDC. They haven't got a bloody clue. I'm just gonna continue operating on these assumptions:

* The disease spreads through your breath. Avoid breathing others' breath. Ignore all that 6-foot bullshit, if you're in a room with someone you're gonna breathe their breath no matter how far apart you are.
* Getting vacced won't stop you getting it or spreading it, but will most likely stop you from dying or ending up getting intubated.

* If the CDC comes out with a new recommendation, it's one they should've come out with last month, and it's better to err on the side of caution.
* The US government won't even stop children from getting shot in their schools, won't stop companies charging thousands for an ambulance ride, won't stop child poverty or misinformation or electrocution or any other easily-preventable everyday tragedies. It's not going to be able to help much with this. It's up to us.