I never made any secret of how my relationship with her was complicated. Which means that whether I still miss her is ... still complicated. It's not that I don't, exactly. But I have largely moved on, though I still feel for those far more deeply affected by her passing, especially Bill (and god knows my relationship with *him* is complicated in its own way). And still, there are moments when reminders of her make just existing in the world a much more surreal experience than it used to be. Those moments come less frequently now. The anniversary of her death, and especially reading over my posts about it in my Facebook Memories feed, is a pretty big one.
I love that Memories feed, but I think we all know that it can get tricky at times like these.
What I can say for sure is that I am very happy that her memory lives on in my pretty extensive journal, social media, photo and video records of her.
Thu, 9:25: Okay I keep running into this idea that certain changes to COVID precautions around the U.S. are in contradiction to the WHO guidance, and that is not necessarily so. I feel compelled to make some simple clarifications (with the help of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and several online health department data trackers):
*The World Health Organization provides guidance for the whole planet—hence the word "World"—and they are naturally still going to urge massive caution when all of about 10% of the world is currently vaccinated.
*The recommendation to wear a face mask in indoor public spaces, even if you are fully vaccinated, still makes sense for many areas of the U.S. where vaccination rates are low and the local community is thus at a far higher rate of vulnerability. As was the purpose of face masks from day one, the intention here is to prevent you from spreading the virus (particularly the Delta variant) to those people, even if you are likely to be fine.
*I am increasingly hesitant to just throw my hands up and declare that people getting infected in the least vaccinated areas just get what they deserve. I'm fine with thinking of a lot of those people as idiots, but does being an idiot automatically mean a person deserves the worst illness of their lives and possibly an agonizing death? (I would suggest the answer is no.) Furthermore, focusing on that misses a bigger point that many have been missing all along: we still don't want to overwhelm local health care systems and hospitals and in so doing cause more unnecessary deaths, including among those who don't even have COVID. The doctors and nurses breaking their backs to keep these systems running—are *they* "just getting what they deserve"? (I would suggest the answer is no.) It is for these reasons that it is especially important, in areas with low vaccination rates, to keep wearing a mask in indoor public spaces.
*This brings me to Seattle. Because this is important: The rate of fully vaccinated people in the U.S. is nowhere near where it should be, but at 47% of the entire population (57% of adults) it's far higher than that of the world. Washington State's vaccination rate is even higher, at 55% (66% of adults). King County is higher than the state average, at 62% (73% of adults, or at least 16 or older). And Seattle proper is higher yet even than King County, meeting the 70% threshold of full vaccination for all eligible residents (that's 12 and up) nearly a month ago, becoming the first major city in the nation to do so. What all this boils down to is, I live in one of the least dangerous areas in the country, even when it comes to the Delta variant—which should concern us all to be sure, but it flourishes in the areas with low vaccination rates. An alarming number of vaccinated people are contracting the Delta variant (although not at very high rates in Washington State currently), but they are mostly asymptomatic, and the concern, again, is passing it on to people who are not vaccinated.
*So what do we learn from all this? GET FUCKING VACCINATED. Literally nothing else comes anywhere close to the effectiveness at stopping widespread infection of the virus; or dramatically minimizing risk of sickness; or most importantly, practically eliminating the risk of death. This is why the focus is now so much more on vaccination than on mask wearing, and literally the only reason masks still get recommended in any context at all is *to protect the unvaccinated.* If more people got vaccinated, not even the current mask guidelines still in place would be necessary.
Anyway, getting back to the clarifying differences between WHO recommendations and current CDC recommendations, I highly recommend watching (or reading the transcript, which is also provided) this PBS News Hour interview with Dr. Fauci, especially since he clearly has better credentials than I do.
