Walk like an Egyptian ... Think like a Norwegian

COVID-19 has infected at least 31 million people around the world. The confirmed death toll is nearing 1 million. Both numbers are likely underestimates. The annual “Goalkeepers Report” from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is usually a hopeful account of an improving world, is instead a litany of loss. The global economy will decline by at least $12 trillion by the end of 2021. About 37 million people have already been pushed into extreme poverty. Twenty-five years of progress in vaccine coverage have disappeared in 25 weeks.

Bill Gates adds: "Certainly humility is called for because the damage—whether it’s economic, educational, mental health—is so large."

Sigh!

Anything else?

I think the prescription is still the same as it was before this pandemic, and the cost of doing it is in the tens of billions, not hundreds of billions. Compared to, say, defense budgets, this is not a gigantic additional burden.

Awful, isn't it, that our country and the Republicans in particular are always ready to spend gazillions on bombs and fighter jets, but become penny-pinching paupers when it comes to public health!

Sigh!  

If you are like me, you have been wondering these past few days why there haven't been any updates about the various Covid vaccines in development.  Because, they are still only in the testing phase.

But, the good news is that there is more than one: "A fourth Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating an investigational vaccine for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has begun enrolling adult volunteers."

Meanwhile, as a cartoon in The New Yorker puts it, we dread the oncoming winter.

Confined to our homes. Through the long dark, damp, and cold days.  It will be a miserable December, January, February.

We just have to adopt a different mindset.  Like what the Norwegians in the Arctic do.

People who see stressful events as “challenges”, with an opportunity to learn and adapt, tend to cope much better than those who focus more on the threatening aspects – like the possibility of failure, embarrassment or illness. These differences in mindset not only influence people’s mood, but also their physiological responses, such as changes in blood pressure and heart rate, and how quickly they recover after the event. And the impact can be long-lasting, even during major transitions

Not easy to do.  But there is no other choice either.  And that's exactly how the Arctic Norwegians deal with the long, long, long dark winter--they adopt a healthy mindset:

Leibowitz found that these attitudes actually increase with latitude, in the regions where the winters will be even harsher. People in Svalbard (at 78 deg north) had a more positive mindset than the people in Tromsø (69 deg north), who took a more optimistic view than people in Oslo (60 deg north). In other words, the positive wintertime mindset is most common where it’s most needed.

And I want to complain from here at 45 degrees north?

But, there is no way that I will watch any Norwegian slow TV! ;)