Posts Tagged ‘pandemia’
Serenity and calm
22
Jan
Vaccines are coming, but it is time for calm and serenity, that is, to
avoid anger (contrary to calm) and euphoria (the opposite of serenity), yes, it is possible even in times of tension and strong anxiety.
The explosion of anger and euphoria, we will still need to have isolation and preventive measures that require the pandemic, it is likely to still last for a long time, vaccines whose effectiveness is still small and the testing phase needs to continue to have more reliable rates.
Countries like England and Portugal, even with the beginning of the vaccination, register high infections and more serious cases, the variations of the virus are more infectious and reach a larger population, the vaccination what will do is to reduce the contamination rates, however, hospitals are full.
To maintain serenity, you can seek various forms of relaxation and spirituality, which seems almost impossible these days, are the cultural and psychological attitudes that cause more and more agglomerations and consequently higher levels of contamination.
Following a form of spirituality or meditation means precisely finding serenity and maintaining our “home of being”, as we posted last week closer to inner peace, never despairing, to get out of a long period of isolation you need calm and peace .
One must seek with heart and soul attitudes contained with joy and hope, not only because we are at the end (so we hope) of a pandemic, but because we want this exit to be safe and with the least possible deaths.
It is easy to observe, in the case of Brazil and some countries, that impatience is great, which causes an anxiety crisis and that we can exploit in anger or euphoria, typical of the absence of peace.
When calling the disciples to start a walk with Him, in addition to a necessary change of route (a new direction for a walk) it was also common to leave behind, even if it was for some time, their work and commitments.
As the majority of the disciples were fishermen, he stopped fishing for some time, and the reading says (Mt 1.19-20): “Walking a little further, he also saw James and John, sons of Zebedee. They were on the boat, repairing the nets, and then he called them. They left their father Zebedee in the boat with the employees and left, following Jesus ”, but then they went back to work.
So it is not difficult to stop, you need to find a way to go, but soon we will be back to work and day-to-day, we expect more calm and serene.
Science, conscience and complexity
11
Jan
Modern science, especially from the seventeenth century onwards, built a new 
world that renounced metaphysics, theory, and was methodologically rooted in the mathematical project of nature mastery and the experiments and measurements for this domain project.
But has dominated nature reacted and reacted in unthought ways, extreme climates whether from European summers or American colds, rains and burns, where even the oceans already show signs of depletion, dominate or destroy nature? and there are reactions from nature itself, such as the pandemic and natural disasters.
The very limits of science as logic and power are in check, will we rule our lives solely by markets and their values, do cold numbers say anything about man?
In addition to the physical and scientific paradigms about new technologies, there are emerging social problems that worry even those who have always taken advantage of markets, economist Federico Cingano in an OECD study said: “When income inequality increases, economic growth falls,” thus it is inevitable to approach the subject from any perspective.
Beyond the problem of consciousness, philosophically or technically, there is a social dimension that is correlated, not indifferent, this also holds for consciousness in the historical question.
Edgar Morin warns of the teaching system, where it is still hermetically taught: “We do not teach the understanding of the other, which is fundamental in our day, we do not teach uncertainty, what is the human being, as if our human identity does not it was of no interest.
The most important things to know are not taught, ”he said in the Fronteiras do Pensamento (Thought Borders), a Brazilian cultural program.
He sees the crisis of democracy as the obscure relationship with the “enormous powers of money, which has led to corruption everywhere.
The emptiness of thought, coupled with this corruption, leads to a loss of confidence in democracy, and this has favored the neutral authoritarian regimes as we have seen in Turkey, Russia, Hungary and as we now see in the crisis of democracy in Peru and Brazil, ”the case Bolivia today is a separate case.
He also sees with concern the fundamentalist and ethnic closure: “Unless people become aware of the human destiny community on earth, people will close in on their religious, ethnic identities, and so on.
We live in a dark period of history, the only consolation is that these dark periods are not eternal ”we believe in the future. Edgar Morin’s full interview on Thought Frontiers follows below:
The eternal and the current fragility
08
Jan
There is no way to think of eternal without thinking of God, so religions that give up the divine figure need reincarnation, to human return, it is a time of crisis beyond the pandemic, a revolt by supporters of Trump exploded in the United States, the richest nation on the planet it’s bad.
During the week we worked on the capacity for dialogue and the search for coexistence between opposite poles, the time we live goes in the opposite direction, the result is the explosion of conflicts.
Outside the American situation, the global situation is no less problematic, new situations of lock-down by the pandemic, the emergence of economic crises and the enrichment of uranium in Iran point to the weakness of the world balance, we are just a little less fragile than fetuses.
What is expected, at least, from the voices that have balance and that seek to send world peace is that they are attentive to these dangers and intervene in the fragility of world convivialities.
Nobody with a conscience expects a worse situation, the year of the pandemic was strenuous, but resilience and the search for dialogue must be permanent in order to avoid disasters and even more difficult situations than those already imposed on us.
For those who believe, asking for divine action on such a complex situation, if man cannot act according to grace, divine reaction is inevitable, where sin abounded grace abounds, says a Christian maxim.
The biblical manifestation of God the Father, Jesus had been baptized and thus received contact with the Holy Spirit and from there came a Trinitarian manifestation (Jesus, the Holy Spirit and God) that made the voice of God an imperative, says the evangelist Marcos ( 1.11) “And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my beloved Son, I put my good wishes in you'”, the time we live in is thus a time in which many extraordinary manifestations will show Divine love
What to expect in 2021
31
Dec
Judging by the year that ends, it is better not to make predictions,
but be prepared for positive or negative surprises, we talk about resilience in 2020 and this means being prepared for adverse situations, stress and deprivation, of course always hoping for improvements.
I watched the movie The Midnight Sun and some thoughts about a possible dark future came to mind, it is based on the Lily Brook-Dalton and just like the film (which is on Netflix) they are very successful, although the critic does not praise, at least the performance of actor George Clooney is commendable, and there is a perfect combination of optimism and fiction.
I watched the movie The Midnight Sun and some thoughts about a possible dark future came to mind, but now with a touch of humanism and even optimism, it is based on the book Good Morning, Midnight (2016), written by Lily Brooks-Dalton.
The mixture of science fiction with feelings seems inadequate, this is one of the main criticisms, I think that in the case of a deep crisis on our planet this mixture is adequate, the second main criticism is the type of plot, undoubtedly very different, the Sometimes we lose the sequence and we need to think a little, at this point, success on Netflix is curious, maybe people have learned to like this, reflection is good and leads us to questions.
The film led me to think about 2021 because it is a resilient attitude, on my part, to think if the worst happens, what can I do positive to help myself and help people.
Let the vaccine come, let us start a process of resuming life, but we hope that the new normality will be more human, with a more empathic look to those around us, and that we will have more solidarity among people, then the pandemic will have taught us something.
However, it is necessary to change attitudes, behaviors and mentalities, affirmative gestures by well-intentioned and altruistic people are not enough, we need to take more seriously what we can help us as humanity, as a society and as a person.
That this year come the vaccine, with a vaccine and a lot of solidarity and if necessary with a lot of resilience.
2020: a year for which there was no preparation
30
Dec
The pandemic took us by surprise, so much so that there are still
people who do not believe that it is happening, in round numbers there are almost 82 million cases of covid-19, 46 million recovered, and it is reaching almost 2 million deaths in the All the world.
The Olympics in Japan has been postponed, if it occurs it will be in a much smaller scale than the previous ones, planes stopped after flight records in 2019, which reached 230 thousand flights in a single day, entire cities empty due to the lockdown: Paris , London and other major European cities were unrecognizable without the daily hype and economies around the world were weakened.
Many analysts anticipated a post-pandemic that is still uncertain and just as the pandemic was unpredictable, from apocalyptic to utopian, what will be the new normal may still be indefinable.
In politics, polarization continued, new crises of anthropologically serious social problems such as racism, machismo and xenophobia (see Sloterdijk’s analysis in the previous post) came to the fore, since they are problems that have always existed in human history.
Also a word that defines the year for those who are aware of this set of issues is resilience, but the proper use of this word implies an even greater knowledge of its meaning: the individual’s ability to deal with problems, adapt to changes, overcome obstacles or resist the pressure of adverse situations or some dramatic situation.
While some countries have managed to react with resilience, due to culture and political difficulties, most countries, at least in the West, oscillated between situations of restrictions with the closure of public places: shopping malls, bars, restaurants and entertainment venues, and a relaxation that almost always led to an increase in covid-19.
An absolutely abnormal year that a deeper analysis can only be made from some historical distance and what can happen after the vaccine is unpredictable
Sloterdijk’s new book
29
Dec
Peter Sloterdijk’s book “Las epidemias policas” is still in progress, but
there are already quotes and comments about it, which read that there is an “almost perfect synchronicity of the microbial pandemic with the informative one, and believes that the current crisis could lead to“ to a collective conscience within individualism ”, where a new optimism appears.
One of the most widely read comments on the proto-book is what was published on August 26, 2020 in by El Ciudadano, and which was commented on by the Brazilian magazine IHU (Instituto Humanitas Unisinos, do Brazil).
It states that society is not yet “in a position to look beyond the pandemic” and predicts that little will change as “many look forward to returning to the continual frivolity of the consumerist way of life” and only with time and reflection does this “Will lead to a transformation of the collective consciousness within individualism.
The name is because it sees the media as “carriers of infections” and that the current democracy is superficial to house the exchange of argument and dialogue, so we are always “between epidemics, strategies and vaccines” in a broader sense, where the information is just a network of “emotion, poisoning and destruction of public judgment”.
The analysis is accurate because dualism and polarization do not have only one side, but they have both equally and it seems that we are stuck in this logic where arguments matter little.
For example, he points out about hate speech, the fact that “people often tend to see each other as a source of danger is not a consequence of the current coronavirus pandemic, nor is it an invention of nineteenth-century pseudo-biological racism, Claude -Lévy Strauss pointed out, a long time ago that a dose of xenophobia is part of the ancestral heritage of the species homo sapiens ”.
Despite the systems that explained everything having failed, he detects that “now, almost nothing is as contagious as the enthusiasm for universalist ideas. When universalism fails, criticism arises. When criticism fails, mass resentment arises furiously ”and concludes that this is what leads to“ epidemics of anger ”, in short our difficulty in resignation and resilience.
He makes his historical synthesis analyzing that “In Europe, the Enlightenment started with the statement that common sense is the best distributed thing in the world. There are many reasons to doubt the veracity of this thesis”, we now know that security and immunities are poorly distributed.
Which vaccine is mandatory?
28
Dec
So said the STF (Federal Judges in Brazil), however the final
phase of testing the Chinese vaccine Coronavac in Brazil will only have the report released on January 7, informed the Government of the State of São Paulo, the Pfizer vaccine used in the United Kingdom since December 2 and thousands of Britons received the first dose of the vaccine, the company released detailed data from the testing phase that have been validated (checked by the scientific community), in Brazil CoronaVac has not yet.
The Pfizer vaccine is already authorized in the United States and is expected to be in Continental Europe, Argentina adopted the Russian vaccine and will start vaccination on Tuesday (12/29).
Vaccination campaigns against covid-19 started this Sunday in the European Union (16 countries have already authorized a total of 27), and in Russia Sputnik has been applied since December 5, but the testing phase has been run over.
If it is true that there is ideologization of the Chinese vaccine, it has two sides, because its approval is not following the traditional paths, if Anvisa is unauthorized, this is a matter for the STF.
Since November 9, four laboratories have announced that their vaccines are highly effective: Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca / Oxford and the Russian state institute Gamaleya, AstraZeneca announced this weekend that it has a medicine to cure already infected patients, of course this is yet to enter the testing phase.
AstraZeneca is the cheapest (2.50 euros / $ 3 a dose), Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech have a logistical problem as they must be transported at low temperatures of -20ºC and -70ºC.
Experts claim that side effects exist, several newsletters give this information, highlight in Brazil to Isto é Magazine, and abroad the AARP Foundation that helps American retirees.
Only Brazil (officially the State of São Paulo and the city of Rio de Janeiro), Indonesia and Turkey are buying the Coronavac vaccine, we all want the vaccine, without scientific criteria the political polarization again does not clarify anything, the vaccine it must be tested and approved, the data must be validated by the scientific community and by regulatory agencies.
The Christmas of the pandemic
21
Dec
It will be a quieter Christmas, despite groups that insist on holding gatherings and parties with many people, it will be more like the child who was born in a humble stable in the city of Belém, where they went due to a census, it is not a coincidence (the city illuminations in this year).
The Child was contacte among men, it was in the divine and human logic because the census was done by order of the Roman empire, so He was (for those who believe he is) among us, what the prophecies of the Old Testament called Emmanuel (God with us).
The pandemic isolated us as a family, and the tendency for those who understand that prevention is necessary will be to gather in small groups, perhaps with less noise, most New Year’s parties are already canceled, fires and celebrations will be sober.
The waiting for the vaccine, most are still in the testing phase, it is good to say, and there are still controversies about side effects, they are important to be known, the package insert is necessary like any other medicine, where there are contraindications.
There is no expectation that it will not cause any anxiety, however when it comes to health it is necessary not to skip any stage, the vaccines are not approved because they have not completed the testing phase, even in England where the Pfizer vaccine was authorized, the stage will not be completed vaccination until Christmas as the government intended.
There is news from the WHO itself about mutations in the virus, it is necessary to check if these mutations do not affect gravity, British scientists called the variation found in the south of England “VUI-202012/01”, which includes a genetic mutation in the protein “spike”, as reported in several online news citing the Reuters agency.
The wait for Christmas has also become different because we haven’t seen many friends and relatives for years, and in this period, the people return to loved ones as much as possible, and at least an online contact will be possible, they will become more meaningful.
Emergency use of the vaccine
14
Dec
Amid the growing controversy of the vaccine, as vaccination approaches,
some clarifications are needed, meeting on November 10 the collegiate body of the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), in which it is highlighted that it is destined to a “group previously defined”.
Still according to this agency, no laboratory had requested, until that moment, the use of vaccines, even though the agency has already defined the requirements for the request for “temporary” use.
What is considered temporary and emergency use is foreseen to face the pandemic.
A document entitled “National Plan for the Operationalization of Vaccination” against covid-19 was delivered Saturday (12/12) to Brazilian Minister Ricardo Lewandovski, rapporteur of actions that speak of the mandatory vaccination, by the Union’s attorney general José Levi, according to the Brazilian National Agency .
The 93-page document is divided into ten axes, specifying the target population, the vaccines already acquired and those still in the research phase, the operationalization of the vaccination, the logistical scheme and the communication strategies for a national campaign.
The vaccines that are under acquisition by the government, according to the official document, are Fiocruz / AstraZeneca, 100.4 million doses in July 2020 and then another 30 million doses per month in the second half, Covax Facility 42, 5 million doses and Pfizer under negotiation.
There is no date for the beginning of the vaccination, while the number of cases is growing, the hospitals are getting crowded again, and the control of bars and restaurants seems inefficient during the Christmas season when the business is busy.
Vaccination and options
07
Dec
The UK starts its mass vaccination on Tuesday, which will be 40 
million vaccines for 20 million people, due to the need for two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
The effectiveness is around 95% and the side effects in about 2% of the volunteers are headaches and fatigue, similar to a strong hangover, however there will be other vaccine options.
Differently in Brazil, the options are small and the effectiveness of the vaccine, despite all the political propaganda surrounding the federal government’s AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine and the São Paulo government’s Coronavac, both are much less efficient and have popular distrust.
State and municipal health secretaries published on Saturday (5/12) on the website of the Brazilian National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass) a request that the federal government acquire all vaccines against Covid-19 with proven efficacy and safety, economic interests / politicians must unfortunately prevail and we will be left with few options.
What leads us to distrust political and economic interests is the disregard for efficiency.
Two reasons are important in terms of efficiency (it is different from effectiveness), the first is that which mobilizes the natural system we have (the majority representatives are macrophages) and that develops a defense independent of the infectious agent, the second and second if the system is not enough (see su-efficient root) it mobilizes the adaptive or acquired immune system, which is more sophisticated and dependent on the type of bacteria or virus, this system must “generate” defenses (the most representative are the lymphocytes).
What proves that this is true is that all the agencies say that there is no guarantee of the end of the pandemic, and we must remain taking care of protection, time will tell and it will not cost more lives.
