MarginOfError

I understand the allure of citing these small numbers when we're fatigued with the restrictions we've faced in the past couple of years, but I think these numbers need some context. Approximately annualized, this represents a total population mortality rate of 0.0365% of the world's population each year.
The WHO reports that the typical number of deaths caused by the flu each year is between 290,000 and 650,000, or somewhere between 0.003625% and 0.008125%.  
This suggests that the annual total population mortality of COVID-19 has been between 4.5 and 10 times higher than than of our typical influenza seasons, even with rather extreme measures taken around the world to limit its spread. 
In the U.S., we lost about 2.8 people per 1000 of our population. Flu deaths in 2018 were about 0.08 per 1000 of our population. Annualized, our population mortality rate was 16 times higher than it has been for flu. 
And that's just the deaths.  There's still plenty of complications and suffering going on.  For my own part, I had a mild case of COVID around the week of January 17th consisting of a headache and some congestion. I'm an active, healthy adult that can comfortably walk 20 miles in about 8 hours on rugged terrain.  Since my mild COVID bout, I've struggled to get a full breath of air when walking up a hill. 
This has been, without question, the worst communicable disease outbreak we've seen in decades.  And as small as the numbers seem, it could have been a lot worse.

That's just evil. 
I love it.

This kind of stuff drives me crazy, too. Especially when it gets into the frequent setting of what I'll call "micro-goals" (for lack of a better word).  By this I mean setting frequent goals for the sake of setting goals. Goals need to have a purpose and should help guide a strategy. Micro goals that don't support a broader concept are just busy work. 
Having said that, I helped teach our young men and my own kids to set SMART goals when this new youth initiative rolled out.  And I encouraged them to set very broad goals.  For me, one was to hike 1779 miles in ten years. My major goals this year are to complete my scouting religious award and to do all of the exercises in a stats text that might help advance my next career step. They fit all the criteria for "business goals" with measurable steps, accountability, blah blah blah.  But the key aspect is that they actually have a purpose to improving something about myself.  any smaller goals that get created along the way are steps I need to take to accomplish the larger goal. 
But just as importantly, I don't evaluate my progress on those goals at a super high frequency. Maybe once every month or two.  Am I falling behind in some...you better believe it.  Am I learning some things about myself along the way?  Yep.  Am I happy with where I'm at?  Mixed feelings. 
And that's all ok. I'm moving in the right direction at a pace slower than I'd like. But realistically, I've got way too much going on in my life to reasonably keep the pace I want. I'll cut myself some slack. 
And that's how personal goals should work. (end of rant)

This irks me.  A lot. I beg you to say no.  
Practice this sentence: "This weekly goal thing isn't working for me and I don't want to participate." And then say it ad nauseum anytime they ask you to join a goal. Say it until they stop asking. 
Take a break and decide how it is that you want to pursue your self betterment.  

This irks me.  A lot. I beg you to say no.  
Practice this sentence: "This weekly goal thing isn't working for me and I don't want to participate." And then say it ad nauseum anytime they ask you to join a goal. Say it until they stop asking. 
Take a break and decide how it is that you want to pursue your self betterment.  

I'm not working in medicine at the moment, but the first decade of my career was in medicine.  
Regarding the efficacy of masks: it gets murky.  The studies I would consider reliable and that had reproducible methodologies indicate a reduction of transmission between 35% and 65%. So, on average, masks may reduce transmission by about 50%. For a disease as communicable as COVID-19, that's significant. On the other hand, that's a huge variation and I don't think it really accounts for the effect of proper hand hygiene. I couldn't cite any studies, but I would suspect a large portion of any masking effect could be decimated by improper hand hygiene. 
In addition to that, masks are really only effective when combined with distancing.  If you wear a mask and then go sit shoulder to shoulder with people for long periods of time, you won't see much benefit (in this discussion, I refer primarily to cloth masks. N95's and the like will do better because they form a better seal). 
My favorite anti-mask video that I've seen was from a doctor who took a breath from a vape pen, donned his mask, then exhaled.  He went on a big rant about how his cloth mask did nothing to contain the cloud of vapor hanging around his head.  The entire cloud was contained, literally, within six inches of his head.  Which was exactly the point of the mask -- to prevent large droplets from traveling very past that six foot threshold.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, masks became the emphasis, when the messaging should have emphasized hand hygiene, distancing, and masking as a broad strategy.  You need all three to effectively reduce transmission.  I think the messaging was poor on that front*.
 
For the mRNA vaccine, this is utterly fascinating. It, unfortunately, doesn't seem to prevent infection as well as we had hoped, but it does seem to do a fairly good job of preventing serious illness. Whether or not it can slow transmission is an open question. 
The first major point I tell people are that it isn't as new as COVID-19.  It's been researched and under development since the SARS outbreak in 2002. 18 years for its development is quick, but not abnormal in the development of drugs and treatments. So it's behavior in the typical laboratory studies that would precede any new vaccine is pretty well understood.
The other major point I share is that, even though it seems like this happened quickly compared to other drugs and vaccines, the process was exactly the same. The difference is that we had a study population of millions of people. Most vaccines that we develop these days are developed for relatively rare diseases. This means the trials require vaccinating, and then following for a very long time to see if they acquire the disease. With COVID-19, the disease was so prevalent you didn't have to wait as long to get reliable picture from the data. Plus, you had an enormous population willing to volunteer for the study (recruitment is a big challenge in drug trials). None of the safety protocols were skipped, none of the normal procedures were skipped (with the caveat of the one year follow up, which didn't occur until after the Emergency Use Authorization. Given the circumstances, I don't think that was inappropriate). And now that we're a year out, those EUAs are being replaced with standard authorizations. 
As for risk factors, I would say we know as much about those for the mRNA vaccine as we do for the HPV vaccine. That is to say, not a heck of a lot. The problem we have here is a numbers problem. In order to identify the risk factors, you need to find enough of the population that had the adverse reactions in order to identify what they all share in common.  So we come to a chicken-egg scenario. We expect there to be some small population that is adversely affected. But how long do we search for that population at the expense of the larger population that isn't at risk?  And what's the risk tolerance we are willing to accept?  How many adverse effects are too many to justify the benefit to the larger population? These are hard questions to answer, even without the pressure of a pandemic.** 
 
And this is where I start to look hypocritical, because I'm perfectly willing to ask the majority of the population to do masking and distancing measures in the interests of the smaller at-risk population.  But I'm also willing to expose a smaller at-risk population to vaccination to benefit the larger population.  the only way I can reconcile that is I think it is worthwhile to take measures that encourage and promote higher social participation across the various groups. It may not make a lot of sense, but public health decisions often require odd trades.
 
 
* in fairness, I'm not sure how much better messaging would have improved the situation. There were plenty of people in my ward and community that were just adamantly against any personal inconvenience. Which I found alarming, in contrast with my scout troop. A number of the families in my scout troop were adamantly opposed to masking and distancing and virtual meetings. But when we sent out our letter explaining that we had kids that lived with susceptible people, and our top priority was not sending this home to anyone, some of our strongest anti-mask people were the first to mask up. Anyhow, this is turning into a rant that probably deserves its own thread.
 
** Some opposed to the HPV vaccine will cite that there appear to be two young women who died shortly after receiving the vaccine, and that two young girls' deaths is too much for a vaccine.  At the same time, it is estimated that HPV vaccines may prevent 2,000 cervical cancer deaths per year. In the 20 years we've been using the vaccine, that could amount to 40,000 lives saved. Is 40,000 lives saved enough to justify two lives lost in vaccination?  It's a cold hearted decision to have to make, whichever way you lean.

I assume you mean GSUSA (Girls Scouts)? No, we haven't. In fact, one of our committee members is the cookie leader in our GSUSA service unit. Her son is in the boys troop associated with my girls troop.  She frequently comes on outings with us as our adult female leader (yeah, our boys and girls do pretty much everything together). They are different programs with similar ideals, and appeal to different people. Scouts BSA is a better fit for some, and GSUSA is a better fit for others. It's great that there are options.

I can kind of see where he's coming from, but the articles I could find didn't really indicate what else he would want us to be doing.  We are already prohibited from letting youth that are more than two years apart share sleeping quarters. The youth protection guidelines are fairly strict and robust. If you follow them and promote a culture of following them within the unit, it's hard for problems to come about (and I mean really follow them). 
The thing about youth protection is it is kind of like security measures. Top notch security is extremely onerous and inconvenient. And a fully secure entity (be it physical or virtual) is very hard to access, even for those you want to access it.  So there are inherent negotiations that have to happen between keeping kids safe but keeping the program accessible and enjoyable.  If we were to add much more to the youth protection policies, I think you'd end up motivating people to ignore policy. And that creates more risk.
The big thing that has happened that should be changing a lot of minds is the BSA pulled its blanket indemnity clause this year. If we don't follow Youth  Protection and Guide to Safe Scouting guidelines to the letter and an incident occurs, the chartering organization and the individual leaders can be personally liable and taken to court. You better believe I've beefed up my first aid kits, filled out more paperwork, and reviewed the relevant documents and requirements. 
Under the current rules, can we provide the youth-to-youth mentorship model safely?  Yes. We can. But it will require strict discipline and supervision to do so. The worst thing you can possibly here is "I trust [so-and-so], so I don't mind ignoring the rule this time."  Don't ever let adherence slip that far even once, and I think you'll be looking at one in ten million level risks.

I can kind of see where he's coming from, but the articles I could find didn't really indicate what else he would want us to be doing.  We are already prohibited from letting youth that are more than two years apart share sleeping quarters. The youth protection guidelines are fairly strict and robust. If you follow them and promote a culture of following them within the unit, it's hard for problems to come about (and I mean really follow them). 
The thing about youth protection is it is kind of like security measures. Top notch security is extremely onerous and inconvenient. And a fully secure entity (be it physical or virtual) is very hard to access, even for those you want to access it.  So there are inherent negotiations that have to happen between keeping kids safe but keeping the program accessible and enjoyable.  If we were to add much more to the youth protection policies, I think you'd end up motivating people to ignore policy. And that creates more risk.
The big thing that has happened that should be changing a lot of minds is the BSA pulled its blanket indemnity clause this year. If we don't follow Youth  Protection and Guide to Safe Scouting guidelines to the letter and an incident occurs, the chartering organization and the individual leaders can be personally liable and taken to court. You better believe I've beefed up my first aid kits, filled out more paperwork, and reviewed the relevant documents and requirements. 
Under the current rules, can we provide the youth-to-youth mentorship model safely?  Yes. We can. But it will require strict discipline and supervision to do so. The worst thing you can possibly here is "I trust [so-and-so], so I don't mind ignoring the rule this time."  Don't ever let adherence slip that far even once, and I think you'll be looking at one in ten million level risks.

I'm not working in medicine at the moment, but the first decade of my career was in medicine.  
Regarding the efficacy of masks: it gets murky.  The studies I would consider reliable and that had reproducible methodologies indicate a reduction of transmission between 35% and 65%. So, on average, masks may reduce transmission by about 50%. For a disease as communicable as COVID-19, that's significant. On the other hand, that's a huge variation and I don't think it really accounts for the effect of proper hand hygiene. I couldn't cite any studies, but I would suspect a large portion of any masking effect could be decimated by improper hand hygiene. 
In addition to that, masks are really only effective when combined with distancing.  If you wear a mask and then go sit shoulder to shoulder with people for long periods of time, you won't see much benefit (in this discussion, I refer primarily to cloth masks. N95's and the like will do better because they form a better seal). 
My favorite anti-mask video that I've seen was from a doctor who took a breath from a vape pen, donned his mask, then exhaled.  He went on a big rant about how his cloth mask did nothing to contain the cloud of vapor hanging around his head.  The entire cloud was contained, literally, within six inches of his head.  Which was exactly the point of the mask -- to prevent large droplets from traveling very past that six foot threshold.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, masks became the emphasis, when the messaging should have emphasized hand hygiene, distancing, and masking as a broad strategy.  You need all three to effectively reduce transmission.  I think the messaging was poor on that front*.
 
For the mRNA vaccine, this is utterly fascinating. It, unfortunately, doesn't seem to prevent infection as well as we had hoped, but it does seem to do a fairly good job of preventing serious illness. Whether or not it can slow transmission is an open question. 
The first major point I tell people are that it isn't as new as COVID-19.  It's been researched and under development since the SARS outbreak in 2002. 18 years for its development is quick, but not abnormal in the development of drugs and treatments. So it's behavior in the typical laboratory studies that would precede any new vaccine is pretty well understood.
The other major point I share is that, even though it seems like this happened quickly compared to other drugs and vaccines, the process was exactly the same. The difference is that we had a study population of millions of people. Most vaccines that we develop these days are developed for relatively rare diseases. This means the trials require vaccinating, and then following for a very long time to see if they acquire the disease. With COVID-19, the disease was so prevalent you didn't have to wait as long to get reliable picture from the data. Plus, you had an enormous population willing to volunteer for the study (recruitment is a big challenge in drug trials). None of the safety protocols were skipped, none of the normal procedures were skipped (with the caveat of the one year follow up, which didn't occur until after the Emergency Use Authorization. Given the circumstances, I don't think that was inappropriate). And now that we're a year out, those EUAs are being replaced with standard authorizations. 
As for risk factors, I would say we know as much about those for the mRNA vaccine as we do for the HPV vaccine. That is to say, not a heck of a lot. The problem we have here is a numbers problem. In order to identify the risk factors, you need to find enough of the population that had the adverse reactions in order to identify what they all share in common.  So we come to a chicken-egg scenario. We expect there to be some small population that is adversely affected. But how long do we search for that population at the expense of the larger population that isn't at risk?  And what's the risk tolerance we are willing to accept?  How many adverse effects are too many to justify the benefit to the larger population? These are hard questions to answer, even without the pressure of a pandemic.** 
 
And this is where I start to look hypocritical, because I'm perfectly willing to ask the majority of the population to do masking and distancing measures in the interests of the smaller at-risk population.  But I'm also willing to expose a smaller at-risk population to vaccination to benefit the larger population.  the only way I can reconcile that is I think it is worthwhile to take measures that encourage and promote higher social participation across the various groups. It may not make a lot of sense, but public health decisions often require odd trades.
 
 
* in fairness, I'm not sure how much better messaging would have improved the situation. There were plenty of people in my ward and community that were just adamantly against any personal inconvenience. Which I found alarming, in contrast with my scout troop. A number of the families in my scout troop were adamantly opposed to masking and distancing and virtual meetings. But when we sent out our letter explaining that we had kids that lived with susceptible people, and our top priority was not sending this home to anyone, some of our strongest anti-mask people were the first to mask up. Anyhow, this is turning into a rant that probably deserves its own thread.
 
** Some opposed to the HPV vaccine will cite that there appear to be two young women who died shortly after receiving the vaccine, and that two young girls' deaths is too much for a vaccine.  At the same time, it is estimated that HPV vaccines may prevent 2,000 cervical cancer deaths per year. In the 20 years we've been using the vaccine, that could amount to 40,000 lives saved. Is 40,000 lives saved enough to justify two lives lost in vaccination?  It's a cold hearted decision to have to make, whichever way you lean.

It took me about 5-6 weeks for the gym to feel normal again.  Keep at it!

For the past couple of weeks, I've been concerned about a potential invasion into Ukraine. I'm far less concerned this morning than I have been in days.  No joke, I've been checking news reports every hour I'm awake nervous to see that the invasion had begun.
For context, I served as a missionary primarily in Kyiv, and for several months, lived in an apartment two blocks away from the plaza where the Orange Revolution took place. I actually met Victor Yanukovytch (the last pro-Russian prime minister who was effectively chased out of the country in 2014). The country holds a special status in my heart, and the thought of it being subjected to Russian rule again was painful.
Ukraine has a different kind of relationship with Russia than any of the other former soviet states.  The Russian language even addresses Ukraine differently than any other country.  The out-of-date way of referring to the country as "the Ukraine" comes from the Russian syntax of "na Ukaryina" which translates to "on the Ukraine." It's the same way that one might say they were going to spend a holiday "on the farm." In contrast, when talking about any of the other former soviet states, they would, for example, the article "v Latvia" or "in Latvia".  This is to say, Russia feels a unique sense of ownership over Ukraine. For Ukraine to make moves toward NATO membership is primally offensive to that sense of ownership.
On Ukraine's part, ethnically Ukrainian people have no great love for Russia, and a lot of memories of mistreatment and abuse at the hands of the Soviet Union. They don't trust Russia, they especially don't trust Putin, and they feel a certain sense of urgency in making strides to join NATO specifically to protect themselves from future Russian aggression. 
I am fully convinced that Putin considers the reannexation of Ukraine an important long term strategic goal and symbolic measure of restoring the power and influence of the Soviet Union. I don't think he intended to perform that annexation in this current crisis.  Instead, I think his desire was to secure some kind of concession from NATO that it wasn't going to admit Ukraine, and more importantly, to intimidate Ukrainian leaders from pursuing any further steps to join NATO.  
His plan kind of blew up in his face, though. I believe he had expected more in-fighting from NATO countries.  Instead, he found a surprisingly unified front from not just the US, but England, France, and Germany as well. Alliances within NATO that he had hoped to divide and weaken came together and showed stronger resolve. That was not to Putin's advantage.  Even more surprisingly, Finland--a country that is not part of the NATO alliance and acts as a kind of buffer on Russian north western border--started making noise that it may consider NATO membership to protect itself from this kind of Russian aggression in the future. That is very much not in Russia's strategic goals, especially since the barriers to NATO admission for Finland are very small compared to those in Ukraine (Ukraine still needs to clean up some corruption and human rights issues before NATO membership is a viable option).
This spectacular blow up created a really dangerous situation, because Putin isn't the kind of personality that is willing to take a loss.  His power in Russia derives from the image of his strength (which is far more tenuous than is broadcast in state media). If he were to just back away after putting on this big of a show, he would look weak, and he is unwilling to do that. 
This is why the recognition of two new states in southeast Ukraine, and the mobilization of troops into those "states" is important. This is how he backs out gracefully while still being able to report to Russia that he has "protected ethnic Russians" in those regions. Don't be surprised if there is little military response to this invasion. In the long term, I think you see those regions eventually annexed into Russia, Ukraine continues to make efforts to join NATO, and Russia employs less obvious means of trying to prevent Ukraine from ever meeting NATO admission requirements (in the form of supporting political divisions and cyber attacks).
Personally, I'm half relieved that open war was averted.  The other half of me wishes NATO would send its rage out in full force and humiliate the Russian army (NATO could do so, if it wanted to). But I also know that my second half is kind of vindictive, and that a wounded Russia might be more dangerous than a placated Russia. 

This tracks pretty well with my experience.  The back breaker was the insistence that LDS patrols be based on quorums. The entire mentorship and teaching aspect of the scouting program was lost. And the complete segregation of 11 year old scouts from the rest of the troop struck me as odd (or maybe insane). 
The other big deal breaker for me was the lack of elections in LDS troops. 
I'm glad you're son is having a great experience and wish him well in wrapping up his Eagle. My older child just finished her First Class board of review last night and has made a goal to be Life by the end of the year (ish).  My younger daughter still has a year in Cub Scouts left, but some of her best friends are in her den, so I'm expecting to have a good crowd of scouts feeding up to my troop with her.  

I understand the allure of citing these small numbers when we're fatigued with the restrictions we've faced in the past couple of years, but I think these numbers need some context. Approximately annualized, this represents a total population mortality rate of 0.0365% of the world's population each year.
The WHO reports that the typical number of deaths caused by the flu each year is between 290,000 and 650,000, or somewhere between 0.003625% and 0.008125%.  
This suggests that the annual total population mortality of COVID-19 has been between 4.5 and 10 times higher than than of our typical influenza seasons, even with rather extreme measures taken around the world to limit its spread. 
In the U.S., we lost about 2.8 people per 1000 of our population. Flu deaths in 2018 were about 0.08 per 1000 of our population. Annualized, our population mortality rate was 16 times higher than it has been for flu. 
And that's just the deaths.  There's still plenty of complications and suffering going on.  For my own part, I had a mild case of COVID around the week of January 17th consisting of a headache and some congestion. I'm an active, healthy adult that can comfortably walk 20 miles in about 8 hours on rugged terrain.  Since my mild COVID bout, I've struggled to get a full breath of air when walking up a hill. 
This has been, without question, the worst communicable disease outbreak we've seen in decades.  And as small as the numbers seem, it could have been a lot worse.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been concerned about a potential invasion into Ukraine. I'm far less concerned this morning than I have been in days.  No joke, I've been checking news reports every hour I'm awake nervous to see that the invasion had begun.
For context, I served as a missionary primarily in Kyiv, and for several months, lived in an apartment two blocks away from the plaza where the Orange Revolution took place. I actually met Victor Yanukovytch (the last pro-Russian prime minister who was effectively chased out of the country in 2014). The country holds a special status in my heart, and the thought of it being subjected to Russian rule again was painful.
Ukraine has a different kind of relationship with Russia than any of the other former soviet states.  The Russian language even addresses Ukraine differently than any other country.  The out-of-date way of referring to the country as "the Ukraine" comes from the Russian syntax of "na Ukaryina" which translates to "on the Ukraine." It's the same way that one might say they were going to spend a holiday "on the farm." In contrast, when talking about any of the other former soviet states, they would, for example, the article "v Latvia" or "in Latvia".  This is to say, Russia feels a unique sense of ownership over Ukraine. For Ukraine to make moves toward NATO membership is primally offensive to that sense of ownership.
On Ukraine's part, ethnically Ukrainian people have no great love for Russia, and a lot of memories of mistreatment and abuse at the hands of the Soviet Union. They don't trust Russia, they especially don't trust Putin, and they feel a certain sense of urgency in making strides to join NATO specifically to protect themselves from future Russian aggression. 
I am fully convinced that Putin considers the reannexation of Ukraine an important long term strategic goal and symbolic measure of restoring the power and influence of the Soviet Union. I don't think he intended to perform that annexation in this current crisis.  Instead, I think his desire was to secure some kind of concession from NATO that it wasn't going to admit Ukraine, and more importantly, to intimidate Ukrainian leaders from pursuing any further steps to join NATO.  
His plan kind of blew up in his face, though. I believe he had expected more in-fighting from NATO countries.  Instead, he found a surprisingly unified front from not just the US, but England, France, and Germany as well. Alliances within NATO that he had hoped to divide and weaken came together and showed stronger resolve. That was not to Putin's advantage.  Even more surprisingly, Finland--a country that is not part of the NATO alliance and acts as a kind of buffer on Russian north western border--started making noise that it may consider NATO membership to protect itself from this kind of Russian aggression in the future. That is very much not in Russia's strategic goals, especially since the barriers to NATO admission for Finland are very small compared to those in Ukraine (Ukraine still needs to clean up some corruption and human rights issues before NATO membership is a viable option).
This spectacular blow up created a really dangerous situation, because Putin isn't the kind of personality that is willing to take a loss.  His power in Russia derives from the image of his strength (which is far more tenuous than is broadcast in state media). If he were to just back away after putting on this big of a show, he would look weak, and he is unwilling to do that. 
This is why the recognition of two new states in southeast Ukraine, and the mobilization of troops into those "states" is important. This is how he backs out gracefully while still being able to report to Russia that he has "protected ethnic Russians" in those regions. Don't be surprised if there is little military response to this invasion. In the long term, I think you see those regions eventually annexed into Russia, Ukraine continues to make efforts to join NATO, and Russia employs less obvious means of trying to prevent Ukraine from ever meeting NATO admission requirements (in the form of supporting political divisions and cyber attacks).
Personally, I'm half relieved that open war was averted.  The other half of me wishes NATO would send its rage out in full force and humiliate the Russian army (NATO could do so, if it wanted to). But I also know that my second half is kind of vindictive, and that a wounded Russia might be more dangerous than a placated Russia. 

I understand the allure of citing these small numbers when we're fatigued with the restrictions we've faced in the past couple of years, but I think these numbers need some context. Approximately annualized, this represents a total population mortality rate of 0.0365% of the world's population each year.
The WHO reports that the typical number of deaths caused by the flu each year is between 290,000 and 650,000, or somewhere between 0.003625% and 0.008125%.  
This suggests that the annual total population mortality of COVID-19 has been between 4.5 and 10 times higher than than of our typical influenza seasons, even with rather extreme measures taken around the world to limit its spread. 
In the U.S., we lost about 2.8 people per 1000 of our population. Flu deaths in 2018 were about 0.08 per 1000 of our population. Annualized, our population mortality rate was 16 times higher than it has been for flu. 
And that's just the deaths.  There's still plenty of complications and suffering going on.  For my own part, I had a mild case of COVID around the week of January 17th consisting of a headache and some congestion. I'm an active, healthy adult that can comfortably walk 20 miles in about 8 hours on rugged terrain.  Since my mild COVID bout, I've struggled to get a full breath of air when walking up a hill. 
This has been, without question, the worst communicable disease outbreak we've seen in decades.  And as small as the numbers seem, it could have been a lot worse.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been concerned about a potential invasion into Ukraine. I'm far less concerned this morning than I have been in days.  No joke, I've been checking news reports every hour I'm awake nervous to see that the invasion had begun.
For context, I served as a missionary primarily in Kyiv, and for several months, lived in an apartment two blocks away from the plaza where the Orange Revolution took place. I actually met Victor Yanukovytch (the last pro-Russian prime minister who was effectively chased out of the country in 2014). The country holds a special status in my heart, and the thought of it being subjected to Russian rule again was painful.
Ukraine has a different kind of relationship with Russia than any of the other former soviet states.  The Russian language even addresses Ukraine differently than any other country.  The out-of-date way of referring to the country as "the Ukraine" comes from the Russian syntax of "na Ukaryina" which translates to "on the Ukraine." It's the same way that one might say they were going to spend a holiday "on the farm." In contrast, when talking about any of the other former soviet states, they would, for example, the article "v Latvia" or "in Latvia".  This is to say, Russia feels a unique sense of ownership over Ukraine. For Ukraine to make moves toward NATO membership is primally offensive to that sense of ownership.
On Ukraine's part, ethnically Ukrainian people have no great love for Russia, and a lot of memories of mistreatment and abuse at the hands of the Soviet Union. They don't trust Russia, they especially don't trust Putin, and they feel a certain sense of urgency in making strides to join NATO specifically to protect themselves from future Russian aggression. 
I am fully convinced that Putin considers the reannexation of Ukraine an important long term strategic goal and symbolic measure of restoring the power and influence of the Soviet Union. I don't think he intended to perform that annexation in this current crisis.  Instead, I think his desire was to secure some kind of concession from NATO that it wasn't going to admit Ukraine, and more importantly, to intimidate Ukrainian leaders from pursuing any further steps to join NATO.  
His plan kind of blew up in his face, though. I believe he had expected more in-fighting from NATO countries.  Instead, he found a surprisingly unified front from not just the US, but England, France, and Germany as well. Alliances within NATO that he had hoped to divide and weaken came together and showed stronger resolve. That was not to Putin's advantage.  Even more surprisingly, Finland--a country that is not part of the NATO alliance and acts as a kind of buffer on Russian north western border--started making noise that it may consider NATO membership to protect itself from this kind of Russian aggression in the future. That is very much not in Russia's strategic goals, especially since the barriers to NATO admission for Finland are very small compared to those in Ukraine (Ukraine still needs to clean up some corruption and human rights issues before NATO membership is a viable option).
This spectacular blow up created a really dangerous situation, because Putin isn't the kind of personality that is willing to take a loss.  His power in Russia derives from the image of his strength (which is far more tenuous than is broadcast in state media). If he were to just back away after putting on this big of a show, he would look weak, and he is unwilling to do that. 
This is why the recognition of two new states in southeast Ukraine, and the mobilization of troops into those "states" is important. This is how he backs out gracefully while still being able to report to Russia that he has "protected ethnic Russians" in those regions. Don't be surprised if there is little military response to this invasion. In the long term, I think you see those regions eventually annexed into Russia, Ukraine continues to make efforts to join NATO, and Russia employs less obvious means of trying to prevent Ukraine from ever meeting NATO admission requirements (in the form of supporting political divisions and cyber attacks).
Personally, I'm half relieved that open war was averted.  The other half of me wishes NATO would send its rage out in full force and humiliate the Russian army (NATO could do so, if it wanted to). But I also know that my second half is kind of vindictive, and that a wounded Russia might be more dangerous than a placated Russia. 

This irks me.  A lot. I beg you to say no.  
Practice this sentence: "This weekly goal thing isn't working for me and I don't want to participate." And then say it ad nauseum anytime they ask you to join a goal. Say it until they stop asking. 
Take a break and decide how it is that you want to pursue your self betterment.  

What, you think God gets a full night’s sleep?

I wanted to get a good balance of "child-rearing is commanded, just not the only thing" but I guess I missed it.  Thank you for adding the missing emphasis. 
Never has anyone made exaltation sound so unappealing

I'll be the contrarian and argue that there's a whole lot more to this commandment than having children.  The full text of the verse is
Anecdotally, this seems to get reduced to "multiple and replenish the earth" a lot in religious circles, with the common connotation being to reproduce. I'm not sure that's a fully accurate interpretation of the scripture though. 
Considering the full phrase
The it being referred to at the end is the earth. If "multiply and replenish the earth" is meant to primarily apply to having children, then "subdue" seems like an odd term to apply to our offspring. Yes, as a parent, I get the appeal of subduing my children from time to time, but by and large I don't want them to be subdued so much as I want them to be independently and willingly faithful. So I'm going to hold to my assertion that "subdue" is meant to apply to the earth, not to our children.
 
In the broader reading, this verse taken as a whole addresses a commandment from God not just to have children, but to be careful and deliberate stewards of all of His creations. That means wise management of resources. It would suggest that renewable use of resources, such as crop farming, livestock management, etc have his blessing. You can interpret this to apply wise management of waste streams and products to reduce the effects of pollution. We are commanded to subdue to the earth and its resources in a way that we can harness its abundance to support our population. Some might even interpret this to justify moving away from fossil fuel use, or plastics, or what have you. While any of us agree or disagree with such interpretations doesn't necessarily make them wrong, nor do the scriptures justify claiming them as scripturally mandated. The limit of what we can say, in my opinion, is that God expects us to take good care of what he gave us, and to teach whatever children we have to do the same thing.
 
So no, the commandment is not solely about having children.  Do these commandments apply to the unmarried, or those that are unable to have children? Yes.  They are under the same obligations as the rest of us. And if their circumstances are such that they are unable to complete the part of the commandment that involves bearing children, I assume the Lord will either give them a pass, or judge them according to the desires of their heart (I'm not going to stress myself about it either way). 

I'll be the contrarian and argue that there's a whole lot more to this commandment than having children.  The full text of the verse is
Anecdotally, this seems to get reduced to "multiple and replenish the earth" a lot in religious circles, with the common connotation being to reproduce. I'm not sure that's a fully accurate interpretation of the scripture though. 
Considering the full phrase
The it being referred to at the end is the earth. If "multiply and replenish the earth" is meant to primarily apply to having children, then "subdue" seems like an odd term to apply to our offspring. Yes, as a parent, I get the appeal of subduing my children from time to time, but by and large I don't want them to be subdued so much as I want them to be independently and willingly faithful. So I'm going to hold to my assertion that "subdue" is meant to apply to the earth, not to our children.
 
In the broader reading, this verse taken as a whole addresses a commandment from God not just to have children, but to be careful and deliberate stewards of all of His creations. That means wise management of resources. It would suggest that renewable use of resources, such as crop farming, livestock management, etc have his blessing. You can interpret this to apply wise management of waste streams and products to reduce the effects of pollution. We are commanded to subdue to the earth and its resources in a way that we can harness its abundance to support our population. Some might even interpret this to justify moving away from fossil fuel use, or plastics, or what have you. While any of us agree or disagree with such interpretations doesn't necessarily make them wrong, nor do the scriptures justify claiming them as scripturally mandated. The limit of what we can say, in my opinion, is that God expects us to take good care of what he gave us, and to teach whatever children we have to do the same thing.
 
So no, the commandment is not solely about having children.  Do these commandments apply to the unmarried, or those that are unable to have children? Yes.  They are under the same obligations as the rest of us. And if their circumstances are such that they are unable to complete the part of the commandment that involves bearing children, I assume the Lord will either give them a pass, or judge them according to the desires of their heart (I'm not going to stress myself about it either way). 

I'll be the contrarian and argue that there's a whole lot more to this commandment than having children.  The full text of the verse is
Anecdotally, this seems to get reduced to "multiple and replenish the earth" a lot in religious circles, with the common connotation being to reproduce. I'm not sure that's a fully accurate interpretation of the scripture though. 
Considering the full phrase
The it being referred to at the end is the earth. If "multiply and replenish the earth" is meant to primarily apply to having children, then "subdue" seems like an odd term to apply to our offspring. Yes, as a parent, I get the appeal of subduing my children from time to time, but by and large I don't want them to be subdued so much as I want them to be independently and willingly faithful. So I'm going to hold to my assertion that "subdue" is meant to apply to the earth, not to our children.
 
In the broader reading, this verse taken as a whole addresses a commandment from God not just to have children, but to be careful and deliberate stewards of all of His creations. That means wise management of resources. It would suggest that renewable use of resources, such as crop farming, livestock management, etc have his blessing. You can interpret this to apply wise management of waste streams and products to reduce the effects of pollution. We are commanded to subdue to the earth and its resources in a way that we can harness its abundance to support our population. Some might even interpret this to justify moving away from fossil fuel use, or plastics, or what have you. While any of us agree or disagree with such interpretations doesn't necessarily make them wrong, nor do the scriptures justify claiming them as scripturally mandated. The limit of what we can say, in my opinion, is that God expects us to take good care of what he gave us, and to teach whatever children we have to do the same thing.
 
So no, the commandment is not solely about having children.  Do these commandments apply to the unmarried, or those that are unable to have children? Yes.  They are under the same obligations as the rest of us. And if their circumstances are such that they are unable to complete the part of the commandment that involves bearing children, I assume the Lord will either give them a pass, or judge them according to the desires of their heart (I'm not going to stress myself about it either way). 

This irks me.  A lot. I beg you to say no.  
Practice this sentence: "This weekly goal thing isn't working for me and I don't want to participate." And then say it ad nauseum anytime they ask you to join a goal. Say it until they stop asking. 
Take a break and decide how it is that you want to pursue your self betterment.  

This tracks pretty well with my experience.  The back breaker was the insistence that LDS patrols be based on quorums. The entire mentorship and teaching aspect of the scouting program was lost. And the complete segregation of 11 year old scouts from the rest of the troop struck me as odd (or maybe insane). 
The other big deal breaker for me was the lack of elections in LDS troops. 
I'm glad you're son is having a great experience and wish him well in wrapping up his Eagle. My older child just finished her First Class board of review last night and has made a goal to be Life by the end of the year (ish).  My younger daughter still has a year in Cub Scouts left, but some of her best friends are in her den, so I'm expecting to have a good crowd of scouts feeding up to my troop with her.