Covid update: Remember the heroes of today and the past.

 We are fine: In partial lockdown and we have a curfew.

My main worry is that again my checks are taking a long time to get sent to Manila for processing.

The good news: All my W2 forms arrived in Early March (two months late) so I did my income tax on line with Turbo Tax. In the past, Lolo and I had an accountant, but when he got sick, I was unable to get his information from the US banks so started filing on my own. And although it is simple, it's worth it for me,  especially since they keep my old information on their website so now all I have to do is change the numbers of my IRA etc.

The only problem is if they get hacked, of course, but since my federal OPM (Personnel file) was hacked by China a couple years ago, and now I find that my facebook information has also been hacked, well, WTF...

in the meanwhile, we are being asked by a lot of people for monetary help to pay for their medicines. Sigh. Hope my funds hold out... because if I get sick, I will have to empty my bank account.

We have quite a few cases of covid in our area... now we hear that the owner of one of our local grocery stores was reported to have died, and his wife is sick in the hospital.

I'm not sure of how many people are sick here, but the mayor is giving out food to covid positive people, i.e. those who are in quarantine at home so can't work.

Manila is in full lockdown and hospitals are full.

......

but being in partial shutdown again means a lot of poor people out of work (including people from Manila who came here to live with their families because they lost their job).

Sigh.

the high risk are being given the vaccine in Manila, and a few caregivers here have gotten it, but not for we elders yet.

2 million shots from China and Russia to be delivered this month.

But my maid said you can pay to get a dose locally, but it is suspected that it is a fake vaccine. Yup. If there is money to be made, someone will do it.

as for Ivermectin, the DOH here echoes the US FDA and say no it doesn't work. 

But today's paper reports the FDA says it's okay for hospitals in the USA to use it. Ah, but won't that be too late? Or will they let them give it to the cases early who show up in the ER? 

Another opinion on Ivermectin here:

They are giving out the vaccine in the cities here: Mainly the crappy Chinese version. 

I found it was interesting that there was an article insisting that unlike the Pfizer etc vaccine, the Chinese vaccine was made without destroying fetuses (i.e. using cell lines from aborted fetuses, a big topic in the USA). 

This is a big concern for devout Catholics, although my sarcastic opinion is that the pro life types should have brought up this ethical problem a couple years ago with the drug companies (they did, over stem cells, and got such negative MSM propaganda against them that they sort of shut up, and ironically it was a devout Buddhist in Japan was disturbed by the idea that he was destroying life, so he figured a way to make stem cells from adult stem cells, so the controversy sort of disappeared).

well, anyway, the Chinese vaccines are old fashioned vaccine, similar to the Moderna and Sputnik vaccines, which use old fashioned adenovirus techniques to cause immunity... but since Covid works with T cell immunity, it is not certain how long this immunity will last, whereas the more innovative RNA vaccines induce T cells or something like that to cause long term immunity.

One caveat: Just because you test negative for antibodies doesn't mean that you are no longer immune. It might just mean that it might take a few days to up your sleeping immune system to make them. which is why there is talk of who might need booster shots.

This is why the experts are insisting that if you had covid you need another dose of the vaccine, since often you revert to negative antibodies.

Dr. C's discussion today is about vaccine side effects here: 25 million doses given a couple dozen deaths.

 

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in other news: Today is a holiday here in the Philippines: The Day of Valor. It is the anniversary of the fall of Bataan, and the start of the Bataan death march.

photo souce: http://www.aiepro.com/closed-day-valor/

Duterte is comparing the frontline workers to the brave Filipino heroes.

The USA is not good at remembering those who died to let them live in freedom, and the cancel culture Karens and woke types despise any talk of heroism, and so would probably condemn any commemoration of this as being a celebration of whiteness.

The problem? Most of those who died were Filipinos defending their country against a very cruel invader, and the Americans who were there included many NM NG members, who included Anglos, Hispanics, and Native Americans.

Which is why the only place I have seen this commemorated every year is in Alamagordo, New Mexico. 

....

 MacArthur needed anti aircraft weapons and so they sent the NM NG units to Manila just before the invasion, and many were in the Battle of Manila, and in the Bataan death march.

NMNG Wikipedia article .

I first learned about their history when I worked with the Apache in Mescalero, and found a plaque commemorating Bataan in the church.

 Several local Apaches served there, and the priest in charge of the mission went with the NMNG to Manila, and survived Corrigedor, the death march, the POW camps, and later the hell ships that took them as slave labor to Japan and Korea.

Father Braun was a missionary who worked in Mescalero before the war, and had a colorful life: His Wikipedia page is here which mentions him as being present when President Quezon took his oath of office, but also for his work burying the dead and saying mass under dire circumstances.

After the war, he served the Hispanics in the Phoenix area, and is still remembered by them LINK