Happily ever after

(This blog is dead) You can find me on @floraluniversal

[floraluniversal]

“ Born to protect, fated to die. “

🌷 floraluniversal | About | Rules 🌷

Welcome to Stephanie's garden!

Fandomless OC Roleplay blog

Multiship friendly

All muses and fandoms welcome

Major dork muse syndrome

Mun is 18+ (but will not write smut, sorry...)

[speculum-captivus]

👆️ This is where you can find me 😌

This blog is still dead :D, but the blog I'm active on - floraluniversal - is now resurrected and has a new promo, so it's time to pin this one instead :DDD

[celerem]

Donate to Help Honey get crucial eye surgery, organized by Alexis Plastow

Thank you for clicking on this emergency fundraiser for Honey!! Honey is just like h… Alexis Plastow needs your support for Help Honey get c

Please help me get my dog surgery

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified

Copyright class actions could financially ruin AI industry, trade groups say.

Further, some authors may never even find out the lawsuit is happening. The court's suggested notification scheme "would require class claimants to themselves notify other potential rightsholders," groups said, overlooking the fact that it cost Google $34.5 million "to set up a 'Books Rights Registry' to identify owners for payouts under the proposed settlement" in one of the largest cases involving book authors prior to the AI avalanche of lawsuits.

If you're an author, please use this database to see if you could qualify for that sweet GenAI lawsuit money.

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

I have never ever ever in my life asked someone to blaze my posts.

But if you want to throw me some pennies blaze this. I want ALL OF THE AUTHORS to know that they have the opportunities to get some sweet sweet GenAI lawsuit money.

Like to charge. Reblog to cast that Anthropic will have to pay out the ass.

-fae

[gothiccharmschool]

Oh look, my book is in there. GIVE ME MONEY.

[elodieunderglass]

Interestingly, I reblogged this thinking it might be interesting for my followers - but as I’m not an author I didn’t think further.

Then I did think for a second. I realised I had fallen into the classic tumblr trap of believing that Authorship Equals Fantasy Fiction Writer. It’s amazing how that gets into your own head.

I went back and found a clutch of my scientific papers on there.

Not something that’s worth me pursuing any farther - and a lot of those works are very openly open access, and so they are honestly the exact sort of content that SHOULD be used to train responsible models. But worth remembering that it’s very common on tumblr to think of all writing as, like, genre fiction, and there are other types of writing too.

[cassolotl]

“First of its kind” AI settlement: Anthropic to pay authors $1.5 billion

Settlement shows AI companies can face consequences for pirated training data.

Authors revealed today that Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion and destroy all copies of the books the AI company pirated to train its artificial intelligence models. In a press release provided to Ars, the authors confirmed that the settlement is "believed to be the largest publicly reported recovery in the history of US copyright litigation." Covering 500,000 works that Anthropic pirated for AI training, if a court approves the settlement, each author will receive $3,000 per work that Anthropic stole. "Depending on the number of claims submitted, the final figure per work could be higher," the press release noted.

each author will receive $3,000 per work

[dorkiedoodle]

I recently wrote a short scene for my favorite couple 😊💙, so I decided to add some art to it.

You can find the scene below, I can't promise it'll be any good or that it'll make sense without context, but my friends enjoyed it :DDD, so why not?

The moon had barely reached its peak in the night sky when the three friends shot awake from their sleep in Icy’s cold house. With heavy breathing, they all looked around in panic to get their bearings. Though they’ve gotten used to the crazy situation they found themselves in by now, waking up from the Omnidream had remained just as jarring as the first time.

Icy sighed loudly, brushing her bangs out of her face, “ Coming back from there is never going to not be horrible… ”, the short woman complained to herself.

Stephanie clutching onto her chest tightly took a deep breath and slowly exhaled in an effort to calm herself down. “ Is it… Is it over? ”, the universal asked with uncertainty in her voice.

Ember, who had always taken their returns from the Omnidream the best of the whole trio simply chuckled the shock off, “ It better be, “ she spoke, slowly picking herself off the ground, “ because I’m running dry on secrets. ”

Unlike her Omnidream, the room they had gone to rest in was quiet, the shallow breaths of her friends and the whistling of the wind through the holes in the roof being the only things breaking the deathly silence. On one hand, the peace and calm of the room was a welcome escape from the emotional overload of facing one’s deepest desires, but on the other hand, the silence made it hard not to think about what they had just gone through.

Ember walked to the window through the darkened room, nearly stepping on Icy along the way, who made sure to return this transgression with a myriad of curses. After wiping the layer of dust off the lightly cracked glass she peered outside, taking a look at the night sky.

“ It’s still early.. ” Ember noted, ” Looks like we didn’t spend much time in there. “

“ Well, it sure felt like an eternity… ” Icy retorted, also picking herself off the ground, “ You’ve got problems, girl. ”

Ember frowned at this, putting her hands on her hips as she turned to face the shorter woman, “ Well, I take offense to that! I’d like to see how little problems you have, miss Dilapidated House. ”

“ I never said I didn’t have problems. ” Icy admitted, she walked over to where Ember was standing to also take a glance at the moon.  “ Oh, I’ve got problems, believe me. Like this back ache that’s killing me right now. ”

“ Oh, toughen up,  ” Ember replied, punching Icy with moderate strength in the shoulder. “ If you cared about your back you’d get more furniture. ”

Icy, who had almost been knocked to the ground by Ember’s playful hit, gave the taller elemental her deadliest glare. “ I wouldn’t be sleeping on the ground if you didn’t just barge into my house the other day, you know. ”

But just as the two women were about to get into another one of their little arguments, they were interrupted by Stephanie also standing up and dusting herself off.

“ I think… I think I’ll go to sleep… ” she announced quietly.

The two women turned to her in surprise.

“ Are you sure? ” Ember asked, “ It’s still pretty early.  ”

“ We could start a fire outside and still chat. ” Icy offered gently, “ I’m sure there’s something we can cook around here.. ”

The universal opened her mouth as if to say something, but no words escaped her lips. After a second of hesitation she bowed her head and turned around, leaving the room without saying a thing.

Ember and Icy simply blinked in confusion at this, it wasn’t normal for Steph to be this quiet. The fire elemental took a step forward to go after her little sister, but she felt herself being stopped with a cold hand gripping her arm.

“ Just let her rest. ” Icy said as Ember whipped her head back to look at her. “ A lot has happened, give her some time to process. ”

As much as she hated to admit it, Icy was probably right. Though she really wanted to chase after her, explain everything, and apologise profusely, it was probably better to give Stephanie space for now.

Icy let go off Ember’s arm. Silence hushed over the room once more…  Again with this silence…The thoughts just kept rushing back, especially now that they were alone. Gazing at Icy’s moonlit face, Ember couldn’t help but think of that last fight… Her eyes kept trailing down the features of Icy’s face, from her piercing bright eyes all the way down to her lips, those cold but surprisingly soft lips… And with nothing to distract her thoughts,her head replayed the moment Aphrodite kissed Icy, the exact instant playing on loop over and over and over again.

Though she knew Aphrodite was just a construct of her mind, though she knew she wasn’t real, she still felt this anger and envy in her heart at the sight, she could feel her fists clench, she just wanted to punch Aphrodite all over again. It all just made her long for that time so long ago… That time when they-

“ You still wanna make some food? ”, Icy asked, breaking Ember out of thought and disrupting the silence.

Ember blinked for a moment, trying not to let any of what she was thinking show on her face.  “Oh… Yeah, I’d like that a lot. “, she replied.

“ Cool, you’re cooking then! ” Icy chuckled to herself as she quickly dashed out of the room to make sure Ember couldn’t protest.

She now stood there alone, completely stunned at what had happened. Taking another glance out the window, she could already see Icy sitting by the fire pit outside, waiting for Ember to do all the work. How did she even get there so fast? The tall woman laughed heartily, she had to admit, there was never a dull moment with that one…

“ I guess I better get to it then… “ She smiled to herself as she made her way into the kitchen.

Rummaging through all the cabinets proved to be incredibly disappointing: besides the dust, cobwebs, spiders, and some spices, she was able to only scrounge up a few veggies of questionable freshness. They could roast them up pretty easily, it wasn’t exciting, but it would do for now.

“ Note to self, buy more ingredients for Icy at the market tomorrow… ” Ember whispered to herself as she grabbed a pot, a chopping board, and some tableware before heading outside.

The air was refreshingly cold, it was a needed break from Aphrodite’s fire in the Omnidream. Ember walked over to the fire pit where Icy was already kicking her feet impatiently. Setting all her tools on a nearby tree stump, Ember got to work preparing the fire, chopping the ingredients, mixing all the spices and leaving them in the pot hanging above the flame to roast. She sat down next to Icy, who had not spoken a word this whole time.

Though she was kicking her feet, it was still obvious she was also lost in thought, much like Ember earlier… Did the silence get to her too? Could she perhaps be thinking about the same thing? Ember felt a pit in her stomach… She had only thought about her perspective of that moment in the heat of the situation, but it had only now occurred to her that she didn’t check with Icy about what happened…

Ember tapped her knee repeatedly with her fingers in an effort to ease the sudden nervousness. Gazing into the dancing flame she wondered if she should even bring this up now or if just like Steph, she should give Icy space. And perhaps she could wait to talk about it later, but the idea that she could’ve made someone so important to her uncomfortable just wouldn’t let her rest.

“ So… About earlier… ” Ember began the conversation, grasping tightly at the knees of her trousers. “ I’m sorry if that was weird or it made you uncomfortable…”

Icy looked around, gazing at the moon, the fire, and then at Ember. “ A moonlight night… A kiss…A  fire… A talk… I’d be getting deja vu if the order wasn’t all mixed up” she joked at the displeasure of the other woman.

“ I’m being serious…” Ember protested, “ What happened was… Not okay. I hope you know I wouldn’t just kiss you without getting your permission. I would never want to make you feel uncomfortable or unsafe. ” she explained herself nervously.

“ I wasn’t uncomfortable… ” Icy replied, gazing into Ember’s eyes. Though her cheeks were always somewhat red, Ember could’ve sworn they had shifted to a more intense shade. “ It’s not the first time we’ve kissed… “

Ember felt a lump in the back of her throat as Icy brought up their first kiss… “ Yeah, but… We had both agreed to it that night…”

“ But this time it wasn’t you… Well, it was you… It was a part of you, but not you at the same time… Like, it was something deeply suppressed and grown out of proportion- “ Icy explained, wildly waving her hands around as she was trying to piece her thoughts together. However, she gave up mid-thought and turned to Ember with defeat in her eyes. “ Does that make sense? ”, she asked.

“ I guess… I’m glad you see it that way. ”Ember replied, studying Icy’s expression.

Though she said she wasn’t uncomfortable, there was still something about the way she was looking at her, the way her cheeks turned red when she brought the subject up.

Ember inhaled and exhaled, her nervous grip growing tighter, “ I can tell you’re feeling conflicted about something… You know, you can tell me anything, I won’t judg-  ”

“ It didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. ” Icy interrupted Ember, “ That’s the problem…”

Ember felt her face become warm,” What do you mean? ” She asked, confused.

“ It’s just that it’s been 6 years…” Icy sighed as her voice began to shake lightly, ”  It’s been 6 years since we lost Ash… Since anyone’s been affectionate with me.  ” she confessed, dropping her usual rough exterior as her face turned an even brighter shade of red. “ It’s not the kiss that made me uncomfortable, it’s the fact that I was okay with it, that I was ready for it.. ”

Ember looked at the girl compassionately. A part of her felt like she was going to explode, the implication of what she said made her heart beat faster than it ever had before. But the other part of her nearly felt her heart drop… She didn’t think of how this must’ve made her feel like considering she was probably still in mourning… And now her selfish  inner desires brought all those feelings to the surface…

“ I said I would never move on from him…I’m trying not to think about it… ” Icy continued, brushing her fingers through her long ponytail nervously. “ But now it feels like we have to figure out what this means… And that’s so serious, so quickly… It’s like we have to talk about-”

“ Talk about how great this dinner is going to be. ” Ember interrupted the other woman, standing up to check on the food.

Icy stared at her with confusion, “  You can’t go back on what we saw in there, you know… I know you love me… Shouldn’t we talk about what that means? Talk about what the kiss meant? “

Ember tossed the veggies in the pot around as she thought about how to respond. Resting the pot back into its place above the flame, she returned to her seat next to Icy and gently grabbed her cold hands.

“ That would make me very happy… ” Ember admitted, looking at their hands. 

Her larger hands were completely embracing Icy’s, softly rubbing them with her thumbs, almost as if she was trying to warm them, despite knowing that was a futile effort. They were hands that she wanted to hold for a long time… Hands that she wanted to hold for the rest of her life… Hands that were not hers to hold… Not yet.

 “ But would it make you happy right now? “ she asked, gazing back into Icy’s eyes. “ If it causes you distress, we don’t have to talk about anything, alright? ”

“ But-  ” Icy tried to speak, but Ember squeezed her hands tighter to let her know it was okay.

“ Now you know that I love you… As a rival, as a friend, as anything we may or may not ever be… As long as you’re still in my life, I’ll be happy. ” she professed with a soft smile.

A somber expression washed over Icy’s face upon hearing that… A rollercoaster of confusion, of guilt, of fear… Expressions completely unusual to her. Only the goddesses could know what was going on through her mind at that moment, but soon this rollercoaster of feelings brought a small smile onto her lips as she finally returned Ember’s gaze.

It’s been so long since the last time she’s seen a real smile from her.

The two sat there together quietly for what felt like hours as the cool wind blew through their hair.  Though she couldn’t bring herself to say the words “ Thank you”, Ember could still tell that Icy was grateful. It was something she could read from the look in her eyes after all these years. The future was still uncertain, but Ember could feel a weight lift of her shoulders that she never even realised was there. She could breathe easy knowing her feelings were out in the open.

“ …Ember? ” Icy broke her silence at last after many minutes.

“ Y-yes? “ Ember quickly replied, still bearing a reassuring smile on her face.

“ I think the food is burning… ” Icy commented as she pointed towards the fire.

A big cloud of smoke was rising from the pot as an unpleasant stench of burnt food attacked both the women’s sense of smell. Ember in an instant jumped from her seat to try salvage as much as possible. When she sat back down with two plates in her hands, neither of them could even tell anymore what veggies they even roasted, they were all completely charred.

Both of them hesitantly took a bite from the dark cubes of what used to be vegetables… One bite was all it took to realise it was a pointless endeavour. Feeling defeated, the two women decided that it might be better to just go to bed instead.

“ If this is how you show all your girlfriends love, I hope we never have that talk… ” Icy teased.

“ You know how to ruin a moment, don’t you? ” Ember sighed as they both walked inside.

[dorkiedoodle]

Made a live screen for my streamer friend!

Feel free to check him out at TobyoDrift on Twitch!

[dorkiedoodle]

Commissions are officially open 😁💙

Mondays and Tuesdays are my in office days, so I will not be able to draw and respond as much.

[dorkiedoodle]

Hello, I am reopening commissions because airlines are a scam and if I don't get some extra money together for my flight in August I will actually starve this month. I'm scared the price is gonna go up even more 🙈

[dorkiedoodle]

I bought a surface pro to do art on the go and it needed a wallpaper, so Magesune Miku it is :DDD

[dorkiedoodle]

Commissions are officially open 😁💙

Mondays and Tuesdays are my in office days, so I will not be able to draw and respond as much.

[dorkiedoodle]

The art group chat was doing birds, so I returned to my OC from 2020. I have no idea what her name is or what role she played in the story, but I love her.

[dorkiedoodle]

A commissions piece I drew for @three-hundred-lives-and-a-sword

This was extremely fun to draw, however, I do feel bad for Fi, poor sword spirit did not deserve this.

[dorkiedoodle]

Here is a portrait I drew of my friend :D

She is very pretty

[dorkiedoodle]

Here is a portrait I drew of my friend :D

She is very pretty

[art-res]

Al is creating illustrations and art tutorials

I am an artist, writer, runner, and creator of Art-Res, a blog where I write and curate art resources. Hopefully you find art that you like,

a humble request to help keep @art-res running forever, as there are domain name costs for the https://artres.xyz website 🥺

Reblogs and spreading the word to friends/family is also greatly appreciated ❤️

Thank you all for helping me throughout the years and for the consideration!

[sabertoothwalrus]

TOY DETECTIVES NEEDED !!

In 2005, my brother had his FAVORITE plushie named Hammer. He was bought at Universal Studios in the gift shop of the Jurassic Park ride. My brother took Hammer EVERYWHERE (the photos above are from our christmas card photoshoot), but unfortunately lost him, almost certainly at Denny’s. He’d gotten another dinosaur plushie (also named Hammer) as a replacement, but it was never quite the same.

I’d really like to get him another one, but I’ve looked and looked and have had no luck. I am desperate. If anyone can help find anything about him, be it manufacturer or year produced or what, it would be greatly appreciated!!!

Notable features about Hammer:

plastic eyes!

three fingers, no added material for claws

I can’t tell if he has 3 or 4 toes, but he has NO sickle claw

allegedly he was sold as a tyrannosaurus rex?? but he looks more like a velociraptor to me

no screenprinting

his teeth were felt iirc

This is kind of a stretch, but boosts are appreciated!! Help me find Hammer!

[snowylynxx]

already got a blazed marvel post. the adpocalypse is closer than we think so heres your daily PSA

don't interact with corporate tumblr accounts

yes even to dunk on them. i don't care if you have the sickest burn of the century lined up, don't even give them the time of day

the eventual and inevitable fall of twitter marks a change in the advertising industry, and tumblr is unclaimed territory. if we want tumblr to remain the social media bastion it has become, it needs to remain as unappealing to corporations as possible. do not engage. in a marketing strategist's eyes, any kind of attention is good attention. don't "silence, brand" them. don't kungpowpenis them. don't send them hate anons. don't hate-follow them. corporate tumblrs are not a single entity and they will not be harassed off this site. we only have a shot at repelling them because of tumblr's lack of an algorithm. so turn off recommended posts on your dashboard, put it chronological order, and install an adblocker. if you don't seek out these blazed posts and actively ignore them when they happen upon you, the corporations will starve. in this case, the best kind of protest is a silent one

[e-v-roslyn]

If you see them, block them. And move on.

[speculum-captivus]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Impact (@impact)

[hrefnatheravenqueen]

Get Ready for the Forever Plague | The Tyee

Public health officials’ COVID complacency has opened the door to new illnesses and devastating long-term damage.

While Omicron’s subvariants find new ways to evade vaccines and destabilize immune systems, another pandemic has overwhelmed officials who are supposed to be in charge of public health.

Let’s call it a plague of willful incompetence or an outbreak of epidemiological stupidity. Or maybe José Saramago’s novel has come to life and targeted public officials with a scourge of blindness.

In any case, COVID, a novel virus that can wreak havoc with any organ in the body, continues to evolve at a furious pace.

In response officials have largely abandoned any coherent response, including masking, testing, tracing and even basic data collection.

Yes, the people have been abandoned.

So don’t expect “normal” to return to your hospital, your airport, your nation, your community or your life anytime soon.

Although many public health officials still dismiss COVID infections as inevitable and even beneficial, a growing body of science shows this fashionable dogma is dangerously wrongheaded, if not an outright form of malpractice.

Reinfections, and 2022 is surely the year of reinfections, just increase the damage from COVID, which can be profound: immune dysregulation, blood clots, nerve cell death, inflammation, lung damage, kidney failure and brain damage.

New science shows that Omicron and its variants are getting better at evading immune defences induced by vaccines or by natural infection. BA5, for example, is more transmissible than any previous variant.

As a consequence it is now possible to be reinfected with one of Omicron’s variants every two to three weeks.

The data also shows that each reinfection confers no immunity. A summer infection, for example, will not protect you against a fall infection. But each and every infection will damage your immune system regardless of how mild the symptoms.

Let’s start with a startling U.S. Veterans Affairs study involving five million people.

It looked at the health outcomes after a first, second and third infection in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. A second infection, for instance, doubled the risk for death, blood clots and lung damage. It also increased the risk of hospitalization by three times. Every COVID infection increased the risk for bad outcomes in a graded fashion.

The unvaccinated fared worse than the vaccinated. “Reducing overall burden of death and disease due to SARS-CoV-2 will require strategies for reinfection prevention,” noted the study.

There is more bad news. Past infection by older variants dampen rather than strengthen immune protection even among those with three vaccinations. “That previous SARS-CoV-2 infection history can imprint such a profound, negative impact on subsequent protective immunity is an unexpected consequence of COVID-19,” noted the researchers in Science.

The high global prevalence of Omicron subvariant infections and reinfections “likely reflects considerable subversion of immune recognition” in the population, the study concluded.

COVID is paving the way for other diseases

So the virus is getting better at thwarting vaccines and evading immunity. Although vaccine protection against hospitalization and death remains strong, it is being steadily eroded by Omicron’s subvariants. Meanwhile protection against severe disease has declined as the effectiveness of our vaccines progressively wanes.

Immunologist Anthony Leonardi, a specialist in T cells, which play a complex role in immune function, predicted such a development nearly two years ago. That’s when he speculated that COVID was destabilizing the immune system by subverting T-cell function.

And that is exactly what many researchers are now finding.

Leonardi bluntly describes the current state of things on Twitter: “There is a cumulative damage from SARS-CoV-2 reinfections, and reinfections are not mild, the virus is intrinsically virulent. Immune memory does not turn a SARS into something like a flu. It remains severe.”

So if each COVID infection depletes T cells and destabilizes immune function and the damage is cumulative, then policies that allow the virus to run riot through the population will not only cause immense suffering but erode public health along with trust in government. The word diabolical comes to mind. The British immunologist Danny Altmann compares the situation to “being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film.”

Previous COVID infections probably also play a major role in deadly hepatitis infections in hundreds of children. A Chinese study recently spelled out the likely mechanism: “Similar to patients with HIV-1, the children previously infected by SARS-CoV-2 may have a repetitive immune activation caused by the comparatively long-term existence of SARS-CoV-2 in the gastrointestinal tract… children may be prone to infections by other viruses, which would contribute to the development of acute hepatitis.”

But COVID has become such a formidable biological force on the planet that is also affecting the ecology of other viruses and other species. What role immune-destabilizing COVID infections are now playing in the rapid advance of monkeypox or the deadly meningitis outbreak in Florida is not really understood.

But many experts suspect that COVID infections, along with declining smallpox immunity, are playing a subversive role. Immune systems bashed by COVID open doors for other infectious diseases.

Every COVID infection now leaves a non-linear legacy of troubling human health outcomes in unforeseen ways. A Danish study, for example, found that people infected with COVID “were at an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and ischemic stroke.” The risk wasn’t trivial: the infected were 3.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and 2.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

‘A nightmare scenario’

So letting the virus run unchecked is pretty much a strategy for creating a tsunami of neurological impairment and chronic illness in the general population. It is also a nihilistic prescription for sowing chaos in western societies already dancing a tango with political collapse.

Letting the virus rip also supports a nightmare scenario where initial infections disarm and sabotage immune systems leaving them more vulnerable to future infections and new pathogens such as monkeypox.

A pandemic that progressively weakens its host population with each successive wave is ultimately more dangerous than one that dispatches 10 per cent of the population and then vanishes.

Thanks to bad public policy, the frightening reality of a forever pandemic is becoming more probable day by day.

Long COVID, which affects nearly 300,000 Canadians, comes with a range of life-challenging symptoms and no real treatment. The symptoms include brain fog, fatigue, muscle pain, chronic inflammation, blood clots and kidney failure.

Researchers now suspect that the virus can persist for long periods of time in the body (mostly likely in the gut — months after infection people are still shedding viral RNA in their stools). This persistence seems to correlate with the worst of long COVID symptoms. Researchers don’t know if it’s a product of immune activation or the dogged presence of a replicating virus.

The British epidemiologist Deepti Gurdasani has long wondered why so many public health officials have been so blasé about exposing children to a novel virus that can result in persistent infections and chronic disease. “The more we learn about long COVID, the more it seems that SARS-CoV-2 isn’t just an acute infection, but a persisting virus in a significant proportion of people. And not one that one should take lightly. It’s not the flu.”

Meanwhile the variants keep on marching like some vast army of Amazonian ants hellbent on global conquest. Their current success owes much to the behaviour of public health officials and politicians who think society can live with disrupted supply chains, overwhelmed hospitals, chaotic airports and a workforce with crippled immune systems.

By abandoning the critical goal of stopping or reducing viral transmission about a year ago, authorities have given viral evolution an incredible edge.

The more opportunities the virus has to infect hosts, the more opportunities it has to mutate and produce variants. Each infected individual can produce between one billion and 100 billion infectious virions, or virus particles, during peak infection.

More than a billion global infections have produced trillions of viruses over the last two years in an overcrowded planet of eight billion people. In the absence of common-sense public health measures, COVID is now conducting an evolutionary viral rave.

The rapid appearance of more variants in ever shorter periods of time spells incalculable trouble. Many researchers now suspect some of the variants have arisen in immunocompromised patients with no real defences where mutations can evolve at hyper speed. “The possibility of SARS-CoV-2 evolving resistance to existing therapies during such infections is real,” warns Cambridge researcher Ravindra Gupta in a recent Lancet letter. “Hence, curing COVID-19 infections in immunocompromised individuals is of crucial importance as it is possible that an existing patient might harbour the next variant, a highly transmissible new variant of concern that challenges immunity and existing therapeutics.”

Facing a new, grim reality

So here is the uncomfortable reality the authorities don’t want to talk about but to which every citizen must pay attention.

The pandemic is not over, and it will not likely end for years. It spreads through the air in aerosols like a viral smoke, in distances greater than two metres. The disease (a thrombotic fever) is not mild. Just one infection can destabilize your immune system and age it by 10 years. The risk of long COVID increases with each infection. Reinfections harm the immune system and increase hospitalizations and death even among the vaccinated. (Just watch the data coming out of England and Quebec now.)

Meanwhile, the virus is now evolving at a rate faster than vaccine development (three waves this year alone). And the effectiveness of current vaccines are now waning. Mother Nature offers no guarantee that virus will evolve to a benign or endemic state this year or the next. Meanwhile human behaviour has increased biological risk instead of dampening it.

In real terms “living with the virus” means living with a normalization of death, reinfections, long COVID, disruption and exhausted health-care workers. People would never vote for a deteriorating quality of life and risk, but that’s where public policy is now taking us.

Vaccinations, of course, are critical, but they have not and cannot end the pandemic by themselves. The Australian physician David Berger wisely advises citizens to view them as “an ejector seat.” It might “prevent actual death if the aircraft is on fire and the wing has fallen off, but still no guarantee, and may still end in disability. I do not decide to do a risky manoeuvre because I have the ejector seat.”

As one critic recently noted on Twitter, the world has divided into two groups of people: “Those who already realize that SARS-CoV-2 causes neurological, vascular and immune system damage… and that damage from reinfections is cumulative. 2) Those who are about to find out.”

Or as José Saramago might have put it, “the only thing more terrifying than blindness is being the only one who can see.”

To avoid the prospect of an accelerating pandemic and its related anarchy requires flexibility, steady collective action and courageous leadership. And by that I do not mean lockdowns but strategic actions aimed at stopping or reducing transmission of the virus. Reducing transmission is the only way to slow down viral evolution.

There is no mystery to this approach. It means free N95 masks for the entire population and appropriate masks for children. It means installing proper ventilation and filtration (HEPA filters) in schools and workplaces, along with CO2 monitors. It means paid sick leave for the infected. It means transparent data collection and reporting so people can gauge the ever-changing risk in public spaces. And it means communicating the truth about this pandemic, which is by definition an evolving and novel emergency that requires our full attention.

We could have avoided this deteriorating situation, as The Tyee repeatedly advised, by eliminating COVID in our communities more than a year ago.

Elimination remains the only long-term and bottom-up strategy that makes any sense in terms of risk reduction. It is also imminently doable with adequate testing, masking, tracing, supported sick leave and targeted goals for reducing transmission.

But our public health officials gambled with the future and chose a fantasy world instead. Now COVID has become a runaway train with unknown biological consequences.

If anyone needs a reminder that direct simple actions can thwart viral aggression, consider the actions of the Japanese people. Despite having one of the world’s oldest populations, they outperformed most western countries in terms of death and disability with aplomb.

They did so, not with lockdowns, but by observing a real public health message on “the three Cs.” Avoid closed spaces with poor ventilation. Avoid crowded spaces. Avoid close contact settings with people.

And mask up.

And that’s what citizens who care about the future of our children, our health-care workers, our immunocompromised and our elderly, will do now.

@allthecanadianpolitics