I see what you’re saying. There’s nothing wrong with hiring someone as long as you can trust their advice. Deciding who that is, is the hard part.

The best thing you can do is to educate yourself. Otherwise, an advisor/planner could take advantage of what you don’t know or understand. They also might not thoroughly understand the pros and cons themselves. My husband (retired now) was very involved in these areas and this is the advice he gives. It may seem overwhelming to you initially but if you devote some amount of time each week to learning more, you’ll begin to figure things out. You could still use someone’s services but you’d be better off having a better understanding yourself.

More available doses for everyone. They should be able to churn out a lot eventually. One dose might be good enough. One month after the vaccine, about 90% of participants had antibodies and after 57 days, 100% had antibodies. J&J will be releasing more data very soon, possibly within days to a few weeks. Fauci is very optimistic about it. Much easier to store and transport. Could be given from mobile clinics. My guess is that Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax (DNA vaccine) will be given to the elderly and J&J will be given to under 50s. So crossing fingers that it’s approved soon.

Moderna is saying they will be able to deliver 100 million doses to the US by end of March. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-provides-us-covid-19-vaccine-supply-update/ Johnson & Johnson, if approved (very likely), has stopped producing other pharmaceuticals in one of their factories so they can devote their production to the vaccine. They also built another factory which is expected to eventually triple their supply of vaccines. Initially, they will probably not have as much as we’d like but it should eventually ramp up. J&J’s is supposed to be a game changer.

NIH recently changed its stance on using ivermectin to treat Covid. https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FLCCC-PressRelease-NIH-Ivermectin-in-C19-Recommendation-Change-Jan15.2021-final.pdf NIH Revises Treatment Guidelines for Ivermectin for the Treatment of COVID-19 Ivermectin is Now a Therapeutic Option for Doctors & Prescribers NEW YORK, N.Y. — JANUARY 15, 2021 One week after Dr. Paul Marik and Dr. Pierre Kory—founding members of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC)— along with Dr. Andrew Hill, researcher and consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), presented their data before the NIH Treatment Guidelines Panel, the NIH has upgraded their recommendation on ivermectin, making it an option for use in COVID-19. This new designation upgraded the status of ivermectin from “against” to “neither for nor against” which is the same recommendation given to monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma, both widely used across the nation. By no longer recommending against ivermectin use, doctors should feel more open in prescribing ivermectin as another therapeutic option for the treatment of COVID-19. This may clear its path towards FDA emergency use approval. Ivermectin is one of the world’s safest, cheapest and most widely available drugs,” noted Dr. Kory, President of the FLCCC Alliance. The studies we presented to the NIH revealed high levels of statistical significance showing large magnitude benefit in transmission rates, need for hospitalization, and death. What’s more, the totality of trials data supporting ivermectin is without precedent.” In its ivermectin recommendations update, the NIH also indicated they will continue to review additional trials as they are released. “We are encouraged that the NIH has moved off of its August 27 recommendation against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19,” continued Kory. “That recommendation was made just as the numerous compelling studies for ivermectin were starting to roll in. New studies are still coming in, and as they are received and reviewed, it is our hope that the NIH’s recommendation for the use of ivermectin will be the strongest recommendation for its use as possible.” Current meta-analyses of studies of ivermectin from around the world show a compelling trend towards the drug’s potent benefits against SARS-CoV-2. Ivermectin, developed in 1975, led to the eradication of a “pandemic” of parasitic diseases across multiple continents and earned the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for its discoverers, Dr. William Campbell and Dr. Ōmura Satoshi. In related news, the manuscript written by the FLCCC has been accepted for publication, following a rigorous peer review, in Frontiers in Pharmacology. The full paper will be published within the next couple of weeks, however the preview can be found here.

I’ve been reading more about these crazy scams. https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/comments/em395a/scams_involving_cheap_items_with_tracking/ https://community.etsy.com/t5/Managing-Your-Shop/Possible-New-Scam/m-p/129036187#M1087605 https://www.bbb.org/article/scams/21097-scam-alert-tracking-code-trick-costs-online-shoppers

It was pretty easy to set up and manage an account years ago but I was doing this over ten years ago, iirc. I’m guessing they’ve changed. All sales and shipping were handled by me which was a hassle. Sending it all off to Amazon would have been much easier. That’s what I would do nowadays if I were selling.

Years ago, I sold books and CDs. Creating a seller’s account was easy. No problems with buyers, either.

Here is another situation that was discussed on a reddit forum for etsy: https://www.reddit.com/r/Etsy/comments/knop52/someone_keeps_opening_dozens_of_ghost_shops_with/ Maybe these are shops that eventually will be sold by the person creating them to banned ip addresses? Like @gardenmom5 said as a way to skirt etsy’s rules?

J&J’s data readout is supposed to come out very soon, within two weeks, and is looking promising from what I’ve read. It takes awhile to develop an immune response but it’s only one dose. (They are also testing two doses but that is not this trial.) The difficulty will lie with meeting production and administering. We will have to wait and see how that transpires. https://www.jnj.com/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-interim-phase-1-2a-data-published-in-new-england-journal-of-medicine The Phase 1/2a interim analysis showed that the Company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate induced an immune response and was generally well-tolerated across all study participants. Data demonstrated that, after a single vaccination, neutralizing antibodies against COVID-19 were detected in over 90 percent of study participants at Day 29 and 100 percent of participants aged 18-55 years at Day 57. These neutralizing antibodies remained stable through Day 71, currently the latest timepoint available in this ongoing study, in all participants aged 18-55 years. Data on durability of immune responses in trial participants aged over 65 years will be available in late January and longer-term follow-up to one year is planned. The Company anticipates announcing topline Phase 3 data for its single-dose Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate in late January 2021; however, as this trial is dependent on disease events, the timing is approximate. If the single-dose vaccine is shown to be safe and effective, the Company expects to submit an application for Emergency Use Authorization with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration shortly afterwards, with other regulatory applications around the world to be made subsequently.

Covid and the vagus nerve are being studied as well as some of the devices that stimulate the vagus nerve. I’m not really following it for Covid, but here are some articles and studies, if interested: https://www.google.com/search?q=covid+vagus+nerve&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

For vaccines in general, 95% efficacy is quite high but there is still a small chance to get Covid even after getting vaccinated, hopefully a milder version. I’m sorry about your father, too, Janeway.

How can a buyer avoid these scams? Buy from someone with a lot of good ratings?

In the 70s we called them prairie dresses. To finish the look — a pair of cowboy boots. And Farrah Fawcett or Dorothy Hamill ‘do. Famolare shoes with the wavy soles were popular. And the uber-ugly earth shoes. I’m hoping the old school, button-fly, 100% cotton Levi’s will make a come back.

Somatic therapy might be worth a try just to see if you find it helpful. I agree that you could also try leaving the door open to your other counselor as well in case you want to go back. Hopefully they’ll get their system running better more sooner than later.

The swelling sounds like dactylitis which they are seeing occasionally in cases of Covid. Any chance she might have Covid? You might want to monitor her kidney function because the damage can lead to later health problems. Earlier treatment is better. ETA They are usually seeing redness along with swelling but even without redness, Covid could possibly be behind it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7744858/ 4.10. Acral erythema and dactylitis In one study, 20% of cases had dactylitis presenting as erythematous inflamed digits. Both fingers and toes were involved with females being slightly more affected (female to male ratio of 3:2). 28

She could also have chronically low levels of intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP) which can occur after even short-term, low-grade salmonella infections. The salmonella increase neurominidase activity in the small intestine which quickly “ages” the IAP causing rapid turnover. This doesn't correct itself on its own and the result is chronic inflammation that can lead to IBD. You could try giving her a good quality curcumin supplement like Thorne Meriva and also a small amount of food-grade diatamaceous earth (must be food-grade). If you eventually do go to a gastro, you might want to bring this research in and ask their opinion. Results came out in 2017, I think, so pretty new-ish. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-12/spmd-grr121817.php Small bacterial infections that may go unnoticed and which the body easily clears without treatment, such as occurs during mild food poisoning, nevertheless can start a chain of events that leads to chronic inflammation and potentially life-threatening colitis. These new findings may also help identify the long-mysterious origins of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). ... "We have discovered an environmental and pathogenic origin of chronic intestinal inflammation in the course of modeling human food poisoning as it occurs repeatedly over the adult lifespan," explains Marth. "Remarkably, Salmonella have figured out a way to disrupt a previously unknown protective mechanism in the gut that normally prevents intestinal inflammation." The disease mechanism was linked to an acquired deficiency of intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP), an enzyme produced in the duodenum of the small intestine. Salmonella infection elevated neuraminidase activity in the small intestine, which in turn accelerated the molecular aging and turnover of IAP, resulting in IAP deficiency in the colon. IAP is important because its job is to remove phosphates from molecules such as the pro-inflammatory lipopolysaccharide (LPS) -- which is produced by various resident bacteria in the colon -- thereby transforming LPS from a toxic to nontoxic state. "These findings are of potential great concern to the human population," adds Marth. "Food contamination at these low bacterial levels is likely to be more common than we recognize, while symptoms could be nonexistent or mild and disappear in a day or two without treatment. Repeated over time, we find that such minor infections are sufficient to trigger disease months and perhaps years later, depending upon the number and timing of infections an individual has experienced over his or her lifetime." The good news is that ways to boost IAP levels and inhibit neuraminidase activity exist. IAP augmentation can be as simple as adding the enzyme to drinking water. Neuraminidase inhibition can be achieved using a currently marketed antiviral neuraminidase inhibitor, a drug that is used to prevent influenza viral infections. Mahan says, "We found that both treatment approaches were similarly effective at preventing the onset of colitis. In fact, published studies by others have recently reported IAP deficiencies and high neuraminidase levels in IBD patients." Adds Marth, "There is an unexpected additive effect of previous infections in the likelihood of developing colitis. This environmental factor may be responsible for triggering disease among some segments of the human population."

We love them! I bought one for a son and then had to buy one for myself. They are very well designed and almost fool-proof. The seeds grow in brown plugs of coco-coir or peat inside little plastic baskets that are immersed in water. The water circulates so it doesn't get stagnant. Every so often, the display will tell you to add fertilizer or top off with more water. You can reuse the plastic baskets but not the brown plugs. You can also buy the plastic baskets and plugs separately if you want to grow your own seeds. Cheaper and more versatile. That’s what I do. @Pam in CT Aerogardens now have a separate lid for growing seedlings that you can transplant outdoors. You just have to make sure you get the size that fits your Aerogarden. Pretty nifty! https://www.aerogarden.com/accessories/garden-seed-starting.html

My husband used to be involved with nuclear fallout shelters decades ago and said it’s likely there are a number of bunkers in place for the President and Congress as well as others. We also have movable, underground missile systems.

Most people who get Covid naturally are not making enough antibodies and memory cells. The vaccines cause the immune system to make magnitudes more antibodies and memory cells. The antibodies break down after a number of months, which is normal, but the memory cells will move into the bone marrow where they will remain long-term ready to make antibodies if an individual is exposed to the virus again. The vaccines are looking effective so far.

I’m lurking on a forum for MDs who are discussing vaccine experiences. They are noticing that younger people often have stronger reactions than the elderly. Also, people who had Covid who then got vaccinated, often have the stronger reactions right after the first dose. ETA: a strong response is not bad, either. After getting vaccinated, I plan to have a clean house, my favorite food and hope to finally finish watching Mad Men unless I wind up sleeping. Also, Johnson & Johnson should be releasing their results soon and that could end up being a one-and-done. Could be two also. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I want it all! Beach, mountains, canyons, waterfalls and why not a volcano? Hawaii for me.

Have you tried the Feliway plug-in diffuser? My youngest introduced a second kitten to his older cat and Feliway helped stop the fighting. Now they even cuddle. Amazing stuff.

Yes, it's possible to recover. The dengue virus can cause either a mild illness or a bad flu-like illness which sometimes evolves to a much worse infection called severe dengue. People can get very sick from the severe disease. The problem with dengue, is that it has four distinct serotypes, DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4. All four types are similar enough to cause Dengue Fever but different enough to cause ADE or antibody dependent enhancement. ADE is what is so troublesome. Here's a very general, overly simplistic explanation of it: First infection with DEN-1 You get infected with DEN-1. Your body detects the virus and kicks in your immune system to fight it off by making antibodies and later memory cells specific to DEN-1. (Memory cells stick around a long time and are basically the "recipes" for making antibodies.) The antibodies will cover the virus and lead it into a macrophage, a type of white blood cell that will engulf and destroy the DEN-1 virus. Okay, so you survived the first infection but then you get a second infection a few years later. Second (or subsequent) infections with DEN-2, (-3, or -4): You get infected with DEN-2. Your body detects it and recognizes it's similar to DEN-1. So the DEN-1 memory cells begin the process of making antibodies specific to DEN-1. But you have DEN-2. Unfortunately, the DEN-1 antibodies do not bind well to the DEN-2 virus. Nevertheless, the antibodies bring the DEN-2 virus into the macrophage, the white blood cell that should destroy the virus; however, it can't destroy the virus because of the inadequate binding of antibodies to the virus. Once inside the macrophage, the virus is able to release its RNA and replicate. This is what they mean by antibody dependent enhancement. Remember, though, that vaccines are in the works that are working against even the ADE seen with Dengue Fever and that's pretty astounding! ETA: Some people somehow manage to survive multiple infections. Go figure.

Yes, the virus can mutate whenever it moves on to a new host. The farmed minks probably caught Covid from a human, then infections in minks rapidly spread with the virus mutating along the way, and then the mutated virus infected humans. The level of mutation is a big concern but coronaviruses tend to be stable. The virus often corrects its own mutations. Also, as a virus spreads, it tends to become less deadly so that it can continue infecting. If the host died too quickly, the virus couldn’t spread. This is what almost all viruses do although it can take awhile for the virus to become less deadly. Another concern is ADE, antibody dependent enhancement, which is seen with Dengue Fever. That has not been observed and is unlikely to be seen with Covid. Even so, Dengue now has a second vaccine that is in Phase 3 trials which they believe will protect against ADE. It is being manufactured at risk, meaning they will eat the losses should it not work. (But, they are confident it will work.) So, researchers are even learning how to design vaccines for the few viruses that cause ADE. Amazing.