24 September 2020
It’s finally come to this. The Washington Post has an article today about a Houston study which shows the Covid-19 virus mutating and one of the mutations may make the virus more easily transmitted. The article gets a little technical for most but they are specifically looking at the changing of the amino acid aspartic acid into glycine by the mutation. The amino acids affect the structure of the protein spikes on the coat of the virus.
What does that mean? The article goes on to say not all viruses mutate as frequently as others Covid-19 may mutate more frequently and this may lead to a new Covid-19 vaccination every year just as we do with the flu vaccine. A major reason is the spread of the virus all through the U.S. which is enhanced by interactions between people which enhances the variations of the virus to spread among the population and mutate. Coincidentally, if the U.S. population took seriously the idea of wearing masks and social distancing, this would not have enhanced the viruses’ ability to mutate. In essence, we have been hoisted on our on petard by our ignorance and stupidity.
Of course, the only people who are saying this are scientists from several different universities and research organizations and we know they have no idea what they are talking about.
Anyway, the idea is vaccinating against one strain of virus may increase the chances of the virus mutating around that vaccine thus necessitating new vaccines every year – again like the flu vaccine. And we thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse.
It’s another blah day for me. At least I didn’t wake at 3 am. Instead, it was 4 am but I immediately went back to sleep, thank goodness. I was up at 5:30 am. I managed my long walk (2 miles) and did my yoga stretches and even got enough energy to start my laps in the pool but I quickly called a halt to that. Maybe the overcast day with threat of rain had something to do with it and then again, maybe it was just the year 2020.
I can think back on some bad times in my life, some hard times, and some times I didn’t think I would survive, but 2020 is going to be in my top 10. In reality, I guess I’m far luckier than most – my house is paid for, my jeep is paid for, I have steady retirement income and with the exception of the biceps tendon fiasco, I’m in relatively good health.
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I think that’s why I like hiking so much. Hiking up the side of a mountain is certainly challenging physically but it is as much an emotional climb as it is physical. You start off in good spirits and if the mountain is any challenge at all, you begin to wonder why you started this idiotic journey in the first place.
After a while it becomes a “put one foot in front of the other” effort. The physical gives way to the emotional. Just when you might be ready to chuck it all you round a bend and see a sight that simply stuns you with its beauty. It doesn’t even have to be dramatic. It can simply be the ten thousand hues of green being played upon by sunlight and shadows along the trail. It can be a small herd of deer that aren’t afraid of you and slowly go about their feeding. It can be a sunrise in the Rocky Mountains that takes your breath away.
The trick is to keep putting that one foot in front of the other and looking for the next surprise around the bend in the trail. Eventually, you’ll get to the apex and you’ll realize all the sweat and doubt was worth the effort.
Let’s hope all this effort we are putting into the pandemic is worth it. Stay tuned and stay safe!
