Category: Coronavirus

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Viruses Are a Species – Pandemics Are No Monopoly

image of people standing in queue for a vaccineMaking the vaccination mandatory was high time. Here in Austria it will become so in February 2022. I am grateful even if one might wonder if it is not a little late.

We have seen similar laws before, for example in connection with the plague, lockjaw (Tetanus), and last but not at all least polio. All of them are dreadful diseases.

COVID-19 is no different. The sickness makes breathing a pain, weakens the whole immune system, weakens the heart, and more. People die, every day. Since the pandemic started, millions of people have died all around the world.

‘Long-COVID’ is known already as a combination of conditions that persist often more than a year after getting through the sickness: Breathing impediment, a weak heart, weakened immune system and more. For all those who actually caught the disease it means: More pain.

It is an almost noble idea to try and get people who are doubtful or even in denial to be vaccinated without making laws to ultimately punish.
But there are limits to everything.

Children as well as grown-ups suffer from these lockdowns, close, open, close again. Wear masks, observe physical distance.

Of course there are those that are lucky: They know what working in the home office means. Who have devices all around them.

But a pandemic and people’s lives as well as businesses are no game, no monopoly!

Let’s remember for all those details we get every other second on all channels:
Viruses follow patterns. They have for millions of years on this planet.

This grave sickness is real and it is severe, not just a photo on Instagram.

To get vaccinated is a social and communal duty!

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Make Vaccines Mandatory Against the Corona Virus!

animated image of ICUs in several countries
Free images of ICUs in times of Corona from online sources via Ecosia search engine

Mandatory Vaccines against the Plague, Poliomyelitis or Lockjaw (Tetanus) are basics. No one doubts for one minute how important they are. Dreadful diseases, each and every one of them.

The plague was a scourge – and still would be if people hadn’t been mass-vaccinated into the 1970s when I was still a child. It was considered a merit, not to say a virtue to be vaccinated against it. Since then the plague has been basically extinct globally.

But the Corona-virus vaccines are still a matter of discussion in political bodies – as regards making them mandatory?

How is it possible?

Haven’t we seen enough people dying – or seriously sick with dreadful symptoms, especially in the respiratory system?

Isn’t ‘Long-Covid’ – as a summary of symptoms persisting months up to a year after an infection and surviving it – ‘plague’ enough?

What has to happen in terms of costs, billions and billions all around the globe, dollars, euros, pounds, you name it… until proper laws are made, at last?

How many doctors and nurses have yet to be brought to their knees, figuratively speaking, in terms of severe fatigue, burnout, and eventually quitting their jobs?

Does no one have a heart for them?

It’s incredible – tragic, not to say cruel.

What are legislative bodies afraid of, really?

The official WHO (World Health Organisation) video on how it is faster and still safe in these times to approve new vaccines:

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Dignity – The ‘Top’…? – Unique Humans

people in sea water harvesting salt
“Strive not to be a success, but to be of value.”
(Albert Einstein)

He was right.

It’s an age-old desire, a human aspiration, you might say, to be appreciated. Acknowledged. In that respect we are all more or less the same. In some cultures more than in others.

The difference starts with the values and means that are used to measure the level of acknowledgement reached.

In many Western countries you learn that the highest appreciation of society around comes with wealth. With the best possible results in learning and work. Being ‘at the top’. Wherever that is….

In other countries, being the ‘best’, being appreciated is based on the idea that you actually are a good part of the family and friends, society, around you. Learning, an ‘education’, might be part of that, too. Trying to do your best. But not in order to outshine everybody else, but to be the best possible, and responsible, caring person inside the group.

Why would we want to strive to be a ‘success’ in the eyes of the world around us at all?
Appreciation is a type of love, too. And love is the life-generating force in humans. Without it, we die. Some sooner, some later.

Life can be hard, sometimes almost unbearable. Many of us get the worst of it, in these pandemic times. So, to understand that feeling connected to people – feeling close perhaps, if you are lucky – can make life bearable again; but that may need suffering or sorrow.

The internal ‘glow’ starts here, the realization of yourself as a unique human being and at the same time a part of a group, a society, with values.

Those values that make life bearable and better, each day a little. The Human Rights Declaration has them.

That’s why once you understand what is really important, in hard times as well as in the good, easy, light-hearted ones, you will come to realize that Einstein was right:

“Strive not to be a success, but to be of value.”

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Tu Felix Austria – Lucky Austria, You… In Spite of Corona…

female statue with crown on fountain as Austria allegory
Allegorical Austria – Austria fountain, Vienna (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

In these times I’d like to remind all of us of the ancient saying that stems from the Habsburg monarchy, meaning the tradition of the dynasty not to make war, but love, you might say:
that is, they married smartly throughout Europe in order to tie bonds of kinship with courts all over Europe, to keep the peace rather than make war.
The Latin origin of this actually wonderful concept from the year 1384:

Bélla geránt aliī, tu félix Áustria nūbe.
Nám quae Márs aliīs, dát tibi díva Venūs.

Wars may be led by the others, you, lucky Austria, marry!
‘Cause what to others is Mars, Venus, the goddess grants you.

So, it’s perhaps the earliest possible dictum of ‘make love not war’?

I put this here just for feeding thoughts… and perhaps to invoke a smile on my readers’ lips…

In these hard times, we should remember, it’s not about being best or first in blaming!
Blame politicians for small(er) errors in the face of a pandemic?
Blame officials for being too harsh – or not harsh enough?
Blame hospitals for not saving beds in order to be prepared for taking care of more people?
Blame everybody for lockdown measures, because the economy is suffering worse than ever before?

Yes, it is true, tragedies arise from all of this; many have lost their jobs, their livelihood(s), their prospects of a promising future, for quite some time…

But let’s remember these few very important facts:

    • the lockdowns are about people being kept alive!
    • the economy suffers always, in pandemic times!
    • in ancient and medieval times any pandemic plague wave was so much more worse at every turn!
      • dead bodies literally lay scattered in streets!
      • trade or any other kind of contact practically was impossible, because people would die right there in the room, in front of others, often in the middle of a negotiation (try Giovanni Boccaccio’s “Decamerone“).
      • decades would pass until things were back to something equalling normality.
      • death tolls ran up to millions of people in each realm, leaving whole regions empty, villages deserted.

We should remember how lucky we are, compared, here in the middle of Europe:

    • a high standard of living to begin with.
    • heaps of fast available data, being provided practically every second.
    • technology and research at an all-time peak in order to develop and approve vaccines inside of months!
    • a large part of the population agreeing on the value of each human life!
      • there were times when lives were reckoned by society strata: so much for a worker, so much for a merchant, so much for the king…
    • information based on a huge amount of well-educated reporters, journalists and scientists!
    • even more data available on every aspect of possible business strategies to get us all through this.

I dare anyone out there complaining harshly about measures taken:
be a politician and do it and decide – in ADVANCE!

Tu Felix Austria, remember, this is a wonderful country of ancient history, tradition, innovative ideas, culture and thought, with usually friendly, and very peaceful people, who know how to work – and how to enjoy life!

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Corona: Home Alone – Protect Your Family and the Globe, Stay Safe

Clean empty hospital operating room and hand holding syringe

Think of the consequences, stay safe.

Italy, among others, and its tragic situation make it quite clear: health care, even around here has limits. Each and everyone of us can be responsible for infecting someone else, without our conscious knowledge, due to the Coronavirus’ infection pattern and ensuing sickness.

The Corona pandemic is one of the largest catastrophes yet to hit the nations around the globe. In some countries, situations resemble those of war, in peaceful times. Almost everywhere, you can find information, some more some less reliable. Here, in the middle of Europe, we are comparatively lucky… health care systems are among the best of the world. Planning and information are usually well prepared and easily accessible. Almost too much so.

Some people therefore tend to underestimate their own contribution, but I’d like to encourage all who read this, again:
Think of the consequences, stay safe.

It’s not always just about being ‘brave’ if you are not part of the medical staff yourself. It’s not about proving to be ‘above panicky people’.

Statistics here teach: since we all could infect at least three other people, before we know it, someone because of our carelessness will catch the infection and then has to be treated in a hospital’s intensive care unit. And those are limited even in the richest of nations.

So, if they ask you from your nation’s official channels, stay home, wear masks to go shopping, where required. Stay safe. Be responsible. And remember, one day, the worst will be past. And the stricter we keep to these rules, the sooner.

Thanks to all my neighbours and all others I know and the millions I don’t, who stay home – and safe, for themselves as much as for others!

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