Ehlana and Ethan:
It is no surprise to us that all signs of the first snow of the season will likely be gone by morning already, but the rain today is helping out with that; and we didn’t really want to spend time outdoors once the rain hit this afternoon.
Our school day included some outdoor time, but that was before the rain started; and was still on the cool side; and the school yard and playground were already slushy and messy. We had fun with our Halloween-themed lessons, but with the big day so close now; it was tough for the teachers to keep the kids and teens focused. Thanks to the rain, we headed for Aiden’s house after school to have our Naomi and the Phantoms practice; and then we headed for the lab or archives while Naomi and Aiden headed home or to the bakery.
We haven’t written about our work at the lab or in the archives in this journal very much lately – mostly because we don’t really have anything to report on our research; and the rest of Ethan’s archives work is really boring for everyone except him. There is some news today; though not a breakthrough or vaccine for coronavirus. We haven’t conceded defeat on the project, and don’t want to understate the seriousness of a virus that nobody had immunity from when it broke out, but we know enough about it now for the treatments to be available that are good-enough to seriously-reduce the fatality rate. What that means for us is that we needed to look at the time and resources we were putting into it compared to the research we’ve put on hold for most of this year; and we’ve decided to get back to our work on cancer and other projects.
That probably seems wrong when daily and weekly new cases are so high and still growing, but even if we could develop a cure – not just a vaccine; it would take years to make billions of doses. The vaccines that are being tested now, by the way, have the same issue; and that’s just one of many problems involved in the process. None of that minimizes the seriousness of the pandemic, but our research can’t change what’s happening now – or the fact that the countries with the worst results could be doing much better now if they would just make better choices and use all of the knowledge we have now to help their people.
For our lab, and in the specific case of our ongoing cancer research; we have to focus on priorities. While the total deaths for coronavirus are closing in on one-point-two million – at least for the confirmed numbers; worldwide cancer deaths will be around ten million this year. We want to do the work where we think we can do the most good; that’s why we were focused on the projects we’ve put on the back burner this year; and now we’ve decided that it’s time to get back to those priorities. We’ll still keep thinking about a way to cure coronavirus and keep up with the latest research elsewhere, but our daily research and experiments will be wrapped up by the end of the week.
That was one of the reasons for why we stayed late at the lab today, so we had a late dinner when we got home – Mom saved the leftovers for us instead of waiting for us this time; and then we did a Magi lesson with her after we cleaned up after ourselves. We didn’t do anything else tonight; so this update is ahead of an early bedtime that we expect that we’ll need; since the rest of the week is going to be very busy. This had been a busy day too, but the next three days will be all about having fun; and we’re going to be ready for those adventures – just as soon as we get a full night of sleep that we’re going to start on right now! ;^)
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
