Written December 11, 2020.
Even in the theatre lobby, it was fun.
Even waiting at the bus stop, it was fun.
I’ve been missing you badly, so I’ve capitulated. I’m lost without you. I did feel I should stop writing to you because Australia has eradicated the virus, and the terror is gone. I’ve been to a packed theatre (Pippin, the musical, spectacular circus-musical that had me yelling from my seat, pleading with them not to throw her, not to d4op her, not to do it:
We’re about to go in a plane to fly to Melbourne in 12 days, so the world is getting back to what is was before, but only my world, Australia. But terror for the rest of the world. In the US, 290,000 people have necessarily died while Trump pretended it wasn’t deadly, and 62, 556 in the UK while Boris Johnson dithered, Mexico has lost 150,000 of its people and I can’t go on with the world’s death toll. It’s as if, said my friend Sarah in the UK, as if the UK is a 3rd world country. But the third world countries are doing better than the 1st world, where there’s untold, unbelievable heartbreak. 3 days ago, in the UK, they began vaccinating with the Pfizer vaccine, which hasn’t been tested on old people or people wiht odd problems, though all the above 80s were the first to get it, and all Hospital staff were offered it. Boris through all this hasn’t heeded science. Boris’s interest seemed to have been to boast that he was the first to give it to his citizens; I assume he reckons it’d be better slowing down the death toll than harming a few odd people. But what if it harms many? We just don’t know.
These big Pharma companies don’t have to test a random population; they can choose who to test! So it’s come out that Pfizer only tested a safe population! So their stats looked good- great in fact. For a disease where we know the death rate of the young and healthy is low.
My darling friend Sarah, who works in admin in a hospital with colleagues who flout all the rules, texted across the world to ask my advice. She’s got an autoimmune disease and it could go wild if she gets the virus. I suggested she listen to Norman Swan’s Corona cast
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/
of Monday 7th Tuesday 8th Wednesday 9th and Thursday10th of this week. The result: she’s decided against! She’s decided, like Australia, to wait and see what emerges. My heart in my mouth, I texted her the name of the drug that a US doctor who works in hospitals and realised that it wasn’t the virus killing some patients, but their immune systems- she used anakinra with success.
Now I wake up at 3 in the morning and worry. I think it’s a weighing up of risk, the risk of getting the deadly virus, and the risk of a hyperactive immune system, which I have as well, so intellectually I know the dilemma. Except I’m not facing death. Facing death. Oh Sarah, I hope we’re right. i couldn’t bear to lose you.
And two dear friends live in the US, but the US is taking much more care over approving their vaccine, a different one, Astra Zeneca. Also Norman says that AstraZeneca tested their vaccine on a much wider range of people, including the old, who come with problems.
This morning, in my safe little world, in this fishing shack that’s slowly becoming a home, we’ve had a solar-powered dishwasher installed by the builder with long grey locks with gold streaks, and no immunity- but he is now safe. Washing up is a heavy job here because we must cook everything from scratch.
And i discovered this morning a black velvety caterpillar decorated down its body with pretend eyes, presumably to terrify predators. From what I’d assumed was its head, because of an antenna there, it extruded a large poo, here beside it on the timber (the black spot, almost one-ninth of its length). Or is it a cocoon?
