I retired as a colonel from the military hospital in Timisoara. Its high windows with iron bars were a constant reminder that the building has been used as a prison once upon a time. As a military person, I have always thought that doors and locks and bars are the ones that make a prison.
Recently, I've come to the stark realization that the most efficient prison is made by my own body and that profitable prisons exist even in democratic societies (or should I say formerly democratic?) only we give them different names to sugar their impact. Institutions like nursing homes for elderly people, and schools and day care centers for young people form external prisons. Then there are our own homes and this pandemic has turned them into prisons.
I know that for me death will bring a form of release. Yet I have been a
afraid of dying even though my body can't move. I only move one hand. I
had a dream once of a face-less person who came to take me away. I know
it's silly but I was afraid. My daughter tells me that perhaps somebody
from the family will come to collect me one day. I saw my father once. He
seemed so real, and even my daughter felt a strong form of energy in the
room. I don't want to fuel crazy theories -- just to mention in passing
that even leaving the worst kind of prison can be hard.
Slavery has been profitable in the past, and slaves were more expensive than almost anything else
throughout much of history. The most modern form of slavery uses a combination of screens that show addictive content (e.g., movies, games, and the internet, etc), and the addictive substances that are put in food and drink and enable us to eat so much more than necessary. They are used as tools to eventually create prisons from our own bodies. However, if I could award a prize for the most efficient prison, the screens would take it -- especially the mobile ones that people can take with them everywhere and become so addicted that they find no enjoyment outside the screen.
In spite of all this, a democratic society still gives hope that one can say "no" to the various inducements towards prisons. Of course, there is data analysis that shows that most people won't have that strength, which is why the various prisons are profitable in the first place, and there are studies that make them as profitable as possible. But there still was the possibility of travel and the hope that one's will is stronger than that of almost everyone else's -- at least from time to time. And it's so depressing when that last hope is taken away.
I have vaccinated. I want to believe that democracy will come back even though it might not make much of a difference to me. I am glad vaccination is possible for everyone over 18 in Romania, and while it's a personal decision, as a doctor I urge people to vaccinate. Between the vaccine and the virus, the vaccine is, generally, the lesser evil even if there may be some side effects.
I was born in August 1950 -- a few years after the second world war and it seems that I will be going out during a pandemic, which many say is a world-war-like event. So, I can say I had a dramatic entry, and will have a dramatic exit, too. When I was born, my father was a 27 year old police officer. He was working when he heard he had son, and he came down the Danube river in a motor boat to see me and my mother in Galati. It was the fastest way! I weighted over 4 kg -- I was the biggest and handsomest baby in the hospital or so they said. Of course, every child is amazingly beautiful for his own family. I stayed strong and handsome for next 50 years or so.
I have never thought of my father as anything other than "Taticu" or daddy. He was kind, talented and responsible, and most of important of all, he paid attention to what my mother said. He respected her, and listened to what she advised, which kept him alive and out of bed. He did not have many vices beyond smoking a cigar now and then -- but only outside the house and mostly on the sly. It's hard for me to think of him in other roles other than that of my father. He died in 1999 with my mother and my aunt at his side. He was 76 years old, and while he was taking medication, he was never bedrid. I grew up knowing that smoking is bad. It was my father's one flaw. When he was 50, I took him to a cardiologist, and I remember we could could see his blood vessels as if they were drawn because they were so calcified. I never smoked.
My grandfather by my father.
My grandfather and my grandmother at their wedding.
My mother always said that he had so much talent in one person that she
could not imagine more. He could sing, play a number of instruments,
draw, create professional sculptures, and he could build furniture that
was modular, looked professional, and lasted. The picture above shows his first sculpture. Every time I looked at it, I thought it was amazing, and I still think so!
It is the bust of his own father. Boys often admire their father's the most. While the talent in art has skipped a generation,
my grandson, Edward, loves to draw and even makes some rough sculptures of animals and men. The men he creates all resemble his own father, but wear a military costume, which I suppose it's something in my honour.
Edward's sculptures.
My father went to university to study art.
When his brother turned 13 he moved in with him in Bucharest, and while
he could support one person, he did not have enough money to feed two
mouths. So, he quit his art work, and joined the police academy,
which was supposed to provide a steady income.
The 1940s were turbulent times. There was famine. My mother would tell me how there was so little food that people would starve on the streets. You could see their bodies swell and this is how you could tell that they did not have food for a week. In Moldova (Galati and Rogojeni are in the part of Romania that is called Moldova, and not in the part that was forcibly taken by Russia after WWII and now is a new country), there were no seeds to buy for planting even if one had money. So, her mother (my grandmother) went by train to Lugoj/Timisoara and bought grain and planted it so that they did not starve. It's funny that in reality it is often the women who are braver, and find a solution when it seems there is none. In movies, it's always the men. She went alone, and came back with the grain that saved the family and a number of other people in the village from starvation.
My father had a magnetic personality. He was handsome, talented and charismatic and he was not afraid of work. So, he had a range of jobs. His most notable job was when he became director of the National Opera in Bucharest. It was not for long. I imagine that as times were desperate they had hoped that somebody young and in the police force could come up with enough ideas to keep the institution alive. As a police officer, his job was to track criminals, but soon after the war being a criminal became something to be proud of, and being talented and kind became a crime. So, he retired from the police force, and became a school teacher instead. For almost twenty years, he taught children in the professional school in Galati how to build things out of wood. He worked with regular students, but also with children with special needs. He said a physical handicap was never a problem that he and the child could not overcome, but that it was different and much more stressful when children had mental problems.
But I digress. I was born in Galati and for the first few years of my life we lived in Tulcea with my great-grandparents -- Mos Fotea (grandfather Fotea) and his wife who must have been close to my age today, perhaps a bit older. They had 11 children and 64 grandchildren. My father was one of the grandchildren, and it seemed natural that when he was working in Tulcea, he'd stay with family. They did not even think to try to find a place of their own. In the summer there was a period when all the 64 grandchildren would come to visit, and my great-grandfather would kill a calf to feed them. They'd gather around a bone fire and talk to him and to each other about their problems and about their joys. It's amazing to think of 64 people sharing one house even for a brief time period. They were strong because they helped each other, and could share and travel. Now we are too busy on our screens to care or to visit and the pandemic makes even the little we used to be able to do impossible. He did not have many great-grandchildren because times were hard, and contraception -- often through provoked abortions -- became possible/fashionable. So, I was a precious commodity, and my great-grandparents were remembered for holding me and telling me how handsome I was. I must have been cute. Most healthy two year olds are adorable -- and especially my grand-children.
All I remember from that period is that there was a steep ravine next to the house, and when I learned to walk my mother would put huge dead cockroaches along its edge to prevent me from going there and potentially falling down. I'd take a stick a push the cockroaches, which I called hona, down the precipice and then proudly scream "hona is gone! no more hona".
My parents raised four children: my sister and me, my cousin (the son of my mother's brother), and their grandson (my sister's son). They were there for each of us in our formative years and helped each child achieve the most they could. I became doctor. My sister inherited the talent for art and obtained a degree in scenography. I remember her having to draw a human skull to learn how to draw a face correctly. She somehow went outside and found a skull that nobody wanted. That pictured hung in my office until I retired and helped me survive the 1989 revolution. We used to image who they might have been. They had all their teeth, and so we were pretty certain he or she had died young.
My cousin had an intrest in history and an amazing memory. He read a lot and did not forget. Unfortunately, my uncle and his wife had a troubled marriage since my aunt drank too much. They lived in my grandparents' home, which was in Rogojeni -- 70 km from Galati. My mother and father were brave enough and kind enough to have my cousin live with them during the school year starting at the age of 6. They sent him to the best school in town, brought home books from the library and helped him do his homework and study. He went on to become one of Romania's top lawyers. He now has two children of his own, and, generally, remembers to call back when we reach out every few years. Last week my wife asked him for his email. He has had no time to send it yet or he forgot.
Then they helped my sister raise her son. He was outstanding at first -- I rember him knowing my anatomy book by the age of four. But being an only child to a functional couple has a price. His parents always tried to get the latest toys and gadgets. So, he struggled with screen addiction in his early teens, and never quite realized it since it was not a thing people thought of back then, and later became a computer programmer in the US. My sister cared for my mother when she was old. I'd care for my parents when they came to visit but became too old and sick to visit myself before they were old and sick themselves.
Although, none of the four of us were particularly grateful, I think that being strong and kind has made my parents' life richer and drove each of us to achieve our dreams. Today few people would think of raising children who are not their own -- other than my wife and my daughter, and a few other people out there -- or of taking care of their parents themselves or of their ill spouses. It is a huge responsibility that people took on in the past, and as we take on less, we limit ourselves, and are able to do less and less while having more. Also, few people think of helping family. Many in our extended family even forget to call my wife back when she tries to reach out. It did not used to be so. But we are retired now, and when you are not important, people forget you exist, and don't care to be reminded of that fact.
I've always been optimistic. When I was young I found it easy to work hard and make good choices. My sister would joke that as I was born first I took all the luck with me. I was determined to succeed, and at one point it seemed that everything I touched turned to gold -- well, not money-wise, but people loved me and respected me. I would spend the summer with my mother's parents. I picked walnuts and sold them until I made enough money to buy my first new suit. I used it for highschool graduation. It was hard to get into medical school -- most kids would try for years in a row and fail. I studied hard, and ended up being first -- nationwide -- the first time I tried! When I was in college, I developed a depression after the first year. I could not sleep. I asked my parents for help. My father came and stayed with me for a few weeks until I felt a bit better. We spent time outside and walked a lot. I'd figured I needed to focus my energy on something other than books. So I continued to study enough to do well, but I no longer focused on perfection. I learned to use a camera instead, and took pictures of people who'd pay me for it. By the end of college, I made 27,000 lei from my pictures -- enough to buy a small house if one wanted to.
Our wedding -- with both sets of parents: my parents left, my in-laws near me to the right. I was 24 years old here.
I married a woman who was the best doctor in the country and the kindest person I know. She was the assistant in charge of my group in medical school. When I first saw her, I knew that she had so much beauty inside and out that nothing anyone -- including herself -- would say could deter me from marrying her. So, I hanged around until she turned 28. By then she was desperate to marry because she wanted to have a family of her own, and accepted to marry me. I persisted and I succeeded. As I sang to her the last time I could speak well, I fell in love with two blue eyes, and they never deceived me or ceased to amaize me in their beauty and intelligence. Those eyes spend most of their time crying today, and it breaks my heart that I can't do more to help. I wish I had listened to her when it still made a difference and took better care of myself.
Professionally, I continued to succeeed. I retired as a Colonel in the army, which is the highest level one can reach in peace-time. I continued to work as a doctor for a number of years. I worked in triage. My job was to tell people what was wrong with them and to send them to the right department. I was known for never giving a wrong diagnosis. Sometimes, when I was not certain, I'd discuss the case with my wife, and take her advice. She was always right.
Most of my colleagues ate too much and drank too much. When I married I only drank water or juice at parties. My wife would have never married me otherwise. This slowly changed. She noticed and told me, but I never listened. I thought life was not worth living as a dog. One had to live life in full like a lion. It's an expression and should be taken as such. People forget that in order to enjoy life they have to be healthy, and being healthy involves not making excesses, and not making excess a regular occurance. One can't really be healthy if they are overweight or if they drink too much or if they spend most of their time on a screen. Of course, I knew this, but in the beginning, I thought I could stop, and later I did not care enough to stop. I started drinking at home, too. I enjoyed cooking. So, I'd cook and overeat and watch TV. Since home cooked food then was not as bad as the junk food people eat today, I gained weight slowly: a few kilograms a year. I continued spending time outside and doing physical work, but it was not enough. By 50, I already had high blood pressure, and could no longer move so well because I had extra weight, but I continued to build things, to cut wood, to plant my garden.
I had built a huge house before I had cardiac surgery at 60, which helped, but I kept overeating and drinking and spending too much time on screens. I was obese until I had this last stroke at 67 that has left me incapacitated. In the months before my stroke, I built short tables. I am using them by the bed. I thought things would improve, but they only got worse even though I lost all extra weight. It was too late. People blame their genes. I think my genetics was good. It's simply that overeating, drinking and spending time on various screens (I combined spending too much time on the internet with TV after my heart surgery) is not compatible with being healthy. My thesis was on the relation between violence and addiction, primarily alchololism. So, I knew I was wrong and made it to 70 because I struggled with addiction, never quite beating it, and because my wife and my daughter care for me.
It's easy to blame the alcohol, and even easier to blame the genes. The combination of screen addiction and overeating is bad enough on its own to destroy lives. We see that every day and refuse to accept that either is a problem. For me, every day brings so much pain and sadness with it that I hope life will be over soon, but it keeps dragging on. In the past, I took the attitude that one should enjoy life because everyone dies, and once one is dead, they are not left unburied. I was wrong. When one is ill, dying can be surprisingly hard. I can't seem to be able to it well. My grandfather died when I was eight. He washed, changed, lit a candle by his bedside, and died. It's the sort of death I wished for, but never got. I did not want to be in so much pain or to cause so much trouble to my family. As for dying accidentaly, it can happen, but one should not bet on it. Accidents happen, but they feel like when one is writing a book, and leaves it unfinished. I never liked to leave things unfinished.
I close with some pictures of Edward's Easter bunnies and of the other animals he made sculptures of. The somewhat distorted head in the middle picture was made by James. He is four. Edward is ten.
This week Lugoj's top pediatrician Dr. Ioan Borosteanu died after a month-long battle with COVID-19.
He had led the Pediatric Section of the Municipal Hospital in Lugoj, and was known for his dedication, talent and hard work.
He treated many thousand of children, and continued to work to help families with children in Lugoj go through the COVID pandemic
until he developed COVID symptoms himself.
It's difficult to imagine a world without him. He was my mother's colleague and best friend in Lugoj. She would call him every time we had a problem, and discuss finding a solution with him. When my youngest son had hernia, she called Dr. Borosteanu or Nelutu as he was called by friends to ask for advice. When I started diversifying (adding food that was not breastmilk), she'd ask Nelutu to see what was best to start with. If they had a tummy ache, she'd ask Nelutu. When we had problems with David, she discussed with Nelutu. When I was ill and breastfeeding, she called Nelutu to see if there is more she could do. When James had fever or running nose, we called him. Whenever we needed a letter for school for the children, he'd drop by and provide one. It's hard to think that there will nobody to pick up from now on. We'll miss him terribly.
In my previous post, I wondered why, in Hungary, the country with the second highest Covid mortality in the world, the overall mortality, from all causes appears to be below average at the time when Covid mortality is at an all time high.
We see the same strange phenomenon in this CDC paper looking at US mortality rates during the time of Covid.
The World Data shows an excess mortality that is decreasing in September, but remains well above 10%, as one would expect, given the Covid situation at the time.
So... I shall leave this as a homework to the reader. Is the CDC paper wrong? Or is the mortality indeed that low? And why?
Is it a problem with the way they report things? Maybe don't register the deaths until later? Unless Covid-related?
The surprise comes from the fact that the Covid-19 mortality in Hungary is second highest in the world, at 0.223%, while in neighboring Romania is apparently only half, at 0.125%.
Despite Covid apparently killing twice as many Hungarians as it kills Romanians, when looking at overall excess mortality, the curves are shockingly similar.
Romanians and Hungarians aren't sufficiently different to justify a difference of a factor of 2 in Covid-19 lethality or incidence (Romania has 50 000 positives in one million whereas Hungary claims 70 000. Both numbers are, in my view, underestimated by a factor of 10, with huge uncertainty on top. ).
I've always been the serious grandfather -- the one who built houses and repaired things, but did not have time to tell stories. Now that I sit or lay in bed all day long, stories are dearer to my heart than anything else. I spend my days listening to the radio and remembering the times when I had everything and did not quite realize it, and I remember my family. It occurred to me that so many stories are disappearing with each person who dies.
My favorite story has been Snow White because it seemed to me she resembled my mother. My mother had black hair that had blue lights in it, a red mouth with a smile that captivated the hearts of children and adults likewise, and beautiful white skin. Like many mothers, she worked hard to keep the house clean, and to care for the people in it. She made sure we studied, and helped each of us follow our passions. But there was more to the story that resemblance. Her grandfather's parents died young -- likely from a epidemic similar to the one we face now, but where the press did not have the ability to capture and spread madness over the whole globe. They were Bulgarian and left behind a son who should have inherited everything. I don't know what everything was, but it was enough that his relatives hired some Romanian shepherds to get rid of the child. The shepherds left Bulgaria with the boy, and crossed into Romania.
My grandfather and my grandmother
My grandparents
They kept their part of the bargain in the way they saw fit. As he grew, they refused to tell him the name of his parents, but did not try to kill him. The child was intelligent and learned to count on sheep, and later to read and write with what appeared to be little effort. Eventually, he landed a job as a tax collector. He never tracked his ancestors, but he lived and had children and grandchildren. His son became a tax collector as well, and build the nicest house in the village of Rogojeni -- some 70 km from Galati -- where I spent the happiest years of my life.
my sister and me
I had some talent in Mathematics as well -- when my colleagues were preparing for the Math Olympiad, I simply went and took the test, and the only prize from my class. However, I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to help people and to be able to take decisions that helped my family. Some people take family history seriously. I never did. But when my children took the 23 & me test, the Bulgarian part still stood out.
So, in some sense, I can say that I am the great-grandson of Snow White, but that Snow White was a boy in my family. There is no reason why she'd have to be a girl. And, of course, stories where the surviving children were killed, or sent to prison (e.g., the princes in the Tower) are common throughout history, and most do not have a happy ending. Stories like Snow White's survived because we identify with them, and because they occurred over and over in different families and different settings. The best part of the story is missing, though -- there is no magic mirror and no obsession with beauty, at least not in the same way. Beauty is seldomly something we obsess over until, perhaps, after it's gone. Then we try to re-create some of it and mostly fail. I think the lesson should be to value life more than money and power. That's also the lesson from Easter and, even moreso, from Christmas. Somehow we hear it over and over again, but it never makes it home. It's simpler to want to destroy the child, and to take everthing away than to raise it and love it, and share with him/her whatever is available.
In Previous posts, I've addressed the topic of lives lost vs lifetime lost, and argued the largest loss from these lockdown measures is the time we lose by wasting it and not the years we'll never live because we die of Corona.
Now I will put forward a few mechanisms through which the lockdowns actually increase the number of COVID-19 deaths. This is counterintuitive, as we like to believe the opposite -- i.e., that the sacrifices we make, like social distancing and lockdowns are saving lives.
There is an increased aparent COVID-19 death through-out Europe. But does it mean that more people die?
Well, no, not necessarirly. More deaths of people carrying the COVID-19 virus do not mean more excess deaths. The best example to illustrate this is Hungary, where COVID-19 mortality is at all times high, but, overall, there are fewer dead people every day, compared to one year ago, when there was no COVID. So, there is no excess mortality in this wave in Hungary. This means that the COVID-19 deaths fit in the noise -- there are fewer deaths in Hungary than usual during this COVID wave.
I will put forward three mechanisms through which lockdown increased the number of COVID-19 deaths:
1) Avoiding the virus in summer means Eastern Europe entered the winter with a population that wasn't infected and had little immunity. When, in winter, it was impossible to contain the virus, it spread through the entire population faster, overwhelming hospitals and causing more deaths than it would have done in summer.
Eastern Europe had a successful lockdown last summer. I have then said that it was a bad idea to stop the virus from spreading through the population in the summer, when mortality is low, it doesn't spread very much and severity of respiratory illnesses isn't too bad.
The best examples for this failure mode are Czechia, Hungary, Montenegro and a few other countries.
2) Lockdown has caused a decreasse in all other respiratory illnesses -- colds and flu -- that are, in many ways, similar to COVID-19.
This increases the real and apparent COVID-19 mortality in 2 way:
There are three other coronaviruses similar to COVID-19 that are endemic in the human population and cause common colds. Infection with these viruses confers a degree of immunity against COVID-19. This immunity isn't perfect and won't work for everyone, but it appears to be there.
The old coronaviruses were endemic and circulating. Thus, there was a good level of immunity against them in the general population and was suppressed by lockdown measures.
Having a longer time since the last infection with one of these coronaviruses means a lower level of immunity and a higher chance to develop severe illness and, perhaps die of COVID.
The absence of regular colds and flu this winter season means a lot of people who would normally have been killed by the regular cold and flu are still alive and they meet COVID-19. COVID-19 is a stronger killer, and is more likely to kill them, especially in light of the inexistent and deficient medical care. However, people would have died anyway, will not cause excess mortality or increase the total mortality.
3) Work and school online has kept people in front of screens and away from family and friends, and from physical activity. People eat more, buy more and are more depressed than ever. Obesity is one factor than increases the probabily of death if the person is infected with COVID-19. Overall, people who are a depressed and stay inside have lower immunity than people who exercise and go about their daily lives.
Certainly, the lockdown could also have a good effect. Many people are now vaccinated, and they will no longer catch the virus. For those people, if they did not catch the virus, and vaccinated instead, it helped.
About half of the German population hasn't been infected, but only 10% are vaccinated. Thus, there are many people to feed the current wave.
The situation isn't much better in the rest of Europe.
Israel does appear to have vaccinated enough people to stop the pandemic.
In the UK, enough people have been infected to also bring it to an end. Sure. Vaccines helped, but the majority of British immunity is still from infection.
India is a good example of avoiding COVID-19 mortality without the vaccine and through
-- recent past infection with the old coronaviruses
-- the presence of other deadly infections that 'harvest' the people who are ready to die before COVID-19 can get to them.
