Has anyone else noticed the sudden return of the phrase what not? It’s more like a single word – whatnot – tossed around by teens and twenty-somethings everywhere. I hear it at the dinner table and on TikTok and during Zoom meetings almost anytime there’s a square occupied by someone born after 1990, but it’s never uttered by veteran reporters (translation: Gen Xers or Boomers) on NPR. The other day, someone my age dropped it in a conversation, and the words hung in the air sounding wrong and borrowed, not unlike that cropped midriff sweater I occasionally consider poaching from my daughter’s closet. 
 
The actual definition of what not is an item or items that are not identified but felt to have something in common with items already named. As in: coffee, tea, and what not. We all sort of know what’s implied… but do we? 
 
The slope from what not to rumor can be slippery; the progression to full-flagged urban myth is a swift downhill slide from there. In a pandemic, with its special combination of anxiety and boredom, the trip from one end of this spectrum to the other moves remarkably fast. Take the currently swirling worry about coronavirus vaccines causing infertility. I have been recently inundated with questions about this connection, mostly from freaked-out parents who suddenly believe that giving their daughters a COVID vaccine could potentially sterilize them a decade or more from now. The vaccine debate has been fraught for a while, dating back almost 20 years ago when anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy brought the fringe believers a dose of celebrity cred; now it’s a full-on movement, sophisticated in its ability to plant seeds of doubt. Seeds sprout and grow – sometimes beautiful flowers, other times annoying, straggly weeds – which explains why it feels plausible that a vaccine in use for less time than the course of a typical pregnancy is rapidly earning a reputation for making said pregnancy impossible. Sure, there are many levers impacting fertility like COVID itself, and the stress of living in a pandemic, and what not… but in theory, vaccines could be to blame. Without a study that yet proves otherwise, an urban myth is born. (This article tackles that perverse reverse thinking of the battle between data and what might occur.)
 
Another example: COVID cases are down, way down. We’re talking 90% below their winter peak in some parts of the country, so let’s all say a hallelujah. As a result, restaurants are beginning to open in spots where they had been closed, and schools are bringing back students. Life suddenly feels different, freer, imaginable at least. We’re all starving for this shift in mindset, but we cannot revert to a pre-2020 normal existence quite yet while we’re still logging 70, 80, 90,000 cases of COVID per day in this country (numbers that would have made us collectively hurl last spring), and while variants galore circulate around the globe, primed to spread as we lower our defenses. If we allow ourselves to believe that cases will magically drop another 90% a month from now without continuing to live this bizarre existence of masked-mini-social lives, never-hugging, and what not, we are kidding ourselves. This is especially true in the face of a growing divide between those clamoring for vaccine and those poised to refuse it. With multiple vaccine brands coming to market, we can all anticipate the next big debate: do I take the vaccine offered to me or do I wait for the “better” one? Worries about ineffectiveness against new variants, access to second doses, and what not all contribute to a cloudy landscape, one that doctors and public health experts have muddied with messages that sound a bit more like sales pitches than heartfelt, data-driven advice. Without broad vaccine uptake and continued implementation of safety mitigations, the hope that there’s a soon-to-be light at the end of this tunnel is all but doomed to become urban myth.
 
The WHO (the international health organization, not the band) labels the issue of scientific rumor-mongering an “infodemic.” Technology and social media deliver the gift of information, helping arm us against an invisible enemy that brought the world to its knees. Some of us use it to keep current on case numbers, others to understand how to best fit a mask. But if we thought the political echo chamber was problematic, the scientific one turns out to be potentially lethal. So as we all begin to catch glimpses of the pandemic finish line, lets also double-down on our promise to stay off the slide: resist the temptation to lean into the rumors; remain diligent about your distancing and continue to rock that mask; even once you are vaccinated, think about protecting all of the unvaccinated people around you; and what not. 
 
And now, for the links:
 
Breaking news: the Pfizer vaccine can be stored in ordinary pharmacy freezers, rather than requiring ultra-cold units set to -80 degrees F. And new data suggests this vaccine is highly effective after a single dose: 85% effective in protecting against symptomatic disease by 28 days. 
 
Comparisons among vaccine brands are inevitable (like the sense that Pfizer’s breaking dual news stories just won it a crown at the immuno-prom), but with multiple COVID vaccines launching across the globe, equity issues are about to explode.
 
Want a vaccine tutorial? Axios has a phenomenal one – several short videos that level the playing field, providing an outstanding baseline of of everything from how vaccines work to distribution strategies. 
 
In case you missed the headlines all week (and last week, too), the CDC has published new school reopening guidelines and, shocker, it has fanned the flames of debate on all sides.
 
Here’s something entirely non-COVID: it’s a piece about Jennifer Gunter and an army of gynecologists taking on the new Vagisil product OMV! They are 100% right on in my opinion — Vagisil has no business marketing to tween and teen girls that their vaginas need a cover-up smell.
 
And now for 1 minute and 50 seconds of pure joy and awesomeness: