Day 394 – Bending the rules

Remember this?

Upon which I wrote this:

I’m not saying that there is any danger or risk in how those people are gathered on the lagoon on the left. But instead of choosing to understand that there was a reason that they weren’t allowed to gather on the beach on the right, they simply chose to just gather somewhere else close by.

In this case, it’s not the virus being “clever”, it’s the people being obtuse.

Well, this weekend, school rugby is back. And with it are the entitled Karens and Gavins of the Southern Suburbs Private School Set. Because while school rugby is back, spectators of school rugby aren’t allowed. For this reason, our local school – hosting matches today – closed its entire campus for the day, so that the rugby was played behind closed doors… er… gates. Karen and Gavin didn’t like that idea of no spectating though, so they just stood directly outside the fence and watched from there instead.

Genius.

Now, I’m not saying that I agree or disagree with the rules and regulations. Nor am I suggesting that these people are breaking any law. But given that there has been no school sport for over a year now and students and parents alike have been telling us all how much they have missed it, surely some degree of caution to help prevent another lengthy lay-off would be common sense? And while it would be wrong to say that there wasn’t a mask in sight, there were very few, and they were notably absent on the more bellowy, steroid-fuelled pumped-up fathers.

But, much like the beach and the lagoon above, it’s not the virus that’s “clever” enough to know on which side of the fence these parents are standing, rather it’s those parents not thinking (or more likely simply not caring) about the implications. Or maybe just thinking that the rules are for someone else, because yes, these were mainly Karens* and Gavins from Bishops School and generally, they are of the opinion (and theirs is the only opinion that matters) that rules and regulations don’t apply to them.

You know the sort.

With our R numbers steadily rising over the last two weeks, with school holidays and colder, damper weather just around the corner, with no vaccination programme even starting for another 3 weeks – and with this sort of behaviour ever more rife – it could be a fairly miserable winter for SA.

* I promise that there were several Karens in there, despite what the photo might suggest.

Day 377 – Wizard Poison

I spotted this on Twitter and it made me smile.

“Wizard poison” – what a lovely turn of phrase.

The latest anti-vaxxer (for it is they that Patton is referring to under his “idiots” tag) arguments demonstrate a couple of their usual methods very nicely. I thought I’d run through them.

Firstly, there’s their claim that the vaccines amount to “gene therapy”. Nope.
What they’ve done here is looked at the vaccine, seen the acronym “mRNA”, extrapolated the N and the A to give themselves the phrase “nucleic acid” which they then associate with genes (even though genes are actually made up of DNA, not RNA) and then somehow leapt to the assumption that the vaccine will in some way replace the genes within their and your DNA, thus altering their and your genetic code. wut?
This is plainly incorrect, but – as we’ve discussed many times on here and everywhere else – that simple fact will not stop the rumours from being spread far and wide across the internet.
There’s a further point to this as well, though: the suggestion the gene therapy is a bad thing. Not so. Gene therapy will save countless lives, but that’s very much a secondary issue here, because none of the Covid-19 vaccines are gene therapy.

So that’s the one tactic: getting things completely wrong without any care or repercussion. The second one is cherry-picking the data to suit their narrative.

There may be a problem with the AZ vaccine in that there seems to be a link between it and instances of blood clots in patients. That’s clearly not a good thing, and because of that, the anti-vaxxer brigade have joyfully leapt all over it.

The thing is that we’re looking at 30 suspected cases in the UK, after 18 million doses of the vaccine in question. That amounts to 1 case for every 600,000 doses administered. Those are the numbers, and that’s what’s prompted a full investigation.

However…

Blood clots are also a side-effect of Covid-19, possibly by triggering an autoimmune antibody. The instance of this is approximately 1 in 6,000 cases (nice number). So while you might – possibly – suffer from blood clots as a result of having the AZ vaccine, if you get Covid-19 as a result of not having the AZ vaccine, you’re about 100 times more likely to have problems with blood clots.

Surprise surprise, this is the bit that the anti-vaxxers choose to omit from their shitty monologues.

You can’t believe everything you hear. Or indeed anything that comes from their mouths.

Take it from me: the vaccines are far safer than running the risk of getting Covid, which is very much not safe.
And they contain very, very little wizard poison. Promise.

Day 321 – Tenuous

It’s Day 321 of the SA lockdown. And so Ted Rogers’ bizarre 1980s game show “321” (secondary presenter Dusty Bin – a er… bin) has been invoked.

Part quiz show, part game show, part variety show, it had the weirdest riddles with the most tenuous connections. e.g. 

wut?

Still, if you’re looking for really tenuous links, then come right back to the present day, with this gem (which apparently still needs explaining to some people).

Oh dear.

Day 283 – Sorting out the mess

We are back in Cape Town. We love being in Agulhas very much, but with there being no access to the beach, it was getting frustrating, and there’s plenty to be getting on with back in Cape Town.

And so we are back in Cape Town.

This seems like something of a waste though, given that it would seem that we’re not getting on with very much except lazing around the house and not going to the beach, which was pretty much what we we (and weren’t) doing in Agulhas.

Still, there’s the opportunity to get stuff done, should we feel like it. And with The Move now just a few weeks away (Covid-willing), there are certainly several (or more) boxes to pack.

But in the meantime, there are Youtube videos to catch up on, blog posts to read, some radio to listen to and some (phone and internet) calls to make.

Oh, and this – shared on a local whatsapp group yesterday – to look at…

which definitively and conclusively ties current Covid-19 hotspots to 5G coverage* in South Africa.

 

 

* if you ignore the current Covid-19 hotspots which don’t have 5G coverage.**
** and the areas which aren’t covered by 5G, but which are currently Covid-19 hotspots.***
*** but otherwise: yes, absolutely.