THE AMAZING STORY OF THE LEADING COVID-19 VACCINES

From Worldometer (new deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732       1185        246        82

July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120       572

Aug    12     1504     6556       1242       835       130

Sept     9      1208    6222        1136      1168        82

Oct     21     1225     6849         571       703         85

Nov    11     1479     10178         564       550        60

           25     2304     12025       620       518       118

           30     1238       8291        317       482        58

Dec       1     2611     11891          697      500       109

             2     2833     12356        669      498        65

             3     2918     12660        776       570        94

             4     2718     12142         674       509      160

             8     2913     11714         796       404      183 

             9     3265    12342         848       337      142

Summary:  

• Well, the USA finally hit that 3,000 daily deaths mark.  We will pass 300,000 total deaths by tomorrow.  (The Worldometer numbers are slightly higher than the data used by many news channels.)  Worse, the number of new cases yesterday was 226,953.
• Brazil reached 54,203 new cases, Turkey 31,712, India 26,351, Russia 26,190 and Germany 23,928.  
• But the U.S. had more than ten times the new cases number than any other country.  
• Japan is in panic and thinking of locking down portions of the country...and they only had 1,911 new cases with 38 deaths.  
• China?  15 new cases and no deaths.

Social distancing of 6 feet could take a whole new definition if a South Korean study gains any reinforcement.  Turns out that 20 feet might not be far enough away.  Of course, this has all to do with the environment and length of exposure time.  But anything like a standard restaurant or arena for sports could remain dangerous until herd immunity is reached through vaccinations.  Or....maybe a year from now.

How come a month ago  China already started its inoculation of citizens, while exporting its vaccine to other countries?  Are they that ahead of the world?  And, amazingly enough, Trump has not yet trumpeted this being another example of China attempting to take over the world?

Both the UK and Russia already are vaccinating their people, and the UK vaccine is by Pfizer, an American company.  Turns out that Pfizer did not receive any funding from Operation Warp Speed.  Pfizer's partner, BioNTech SE got the funding, from the German government.  So like the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, these are from the European Union.  And yes, the White House had previously turned down Pfizer's offer to get more vaccines.  AstraZeneca is a British-Swiss biopharmaceutical company.

No doubt the real reason why China, Russia and the UK beat the USA was that they have a relatively lax approval process.  The FDA today will approve an emergency request to allow the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.  Then next week, the Moderna vaccine.  

Interestingly enough, Moderna's researchers got started in January of this year only after China shared the genetic sequencing of this novel coronavirus.  Further, the messenger RNA idea came from a Hungarian-born scientist, Katalin Kariko at the University of Pennsylvania.  In 1995 she got demoted for pursuing this concept, with her husband still stuck in Hungary because of visa issues.  However, she co-authored a paper which in 2005 was read by a Stanford University post-doc, Derrick Rossi (left).  He went on to Harvard and in 2010, with others, formed Moderna, located only a few miles away from the long-standing Pfizer.

Here, it gets really interesting, as around 2010, a company is formed in Germany by an immigrant from Turkey, Ugar Sahin.  He and his wife, Ozlem Tureci, started BioNTech.  Like Moderna, they licensed the technology developed by Kariko, and in 2013 hired her to oversee its mRNA work.  Moderna went the traditional American way through financial advances.  BioNTech instead went scientific, and published 150 papers in eight years.

You can read all the details from the Boston Globe.  The grand result is that we have Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna advancing a concept developed by an immigrant from Hungary at the University of Pennsylvania, who was overwhelmed by the funding dilemma experienced by most American scientists, but stuck it out, and eventually moved back to Europe to join a German company started by Turkish immigrants, BioNTech.  The hero in all this who will someday win a Nobel Prize is Katalin Kariko (left)

Summary of non-Chinese vaccines:

China is plunging ahead without first reporting any details.  Sinovac Biotech, a real company once listed on NASDAQ (but there is a proxy fight, so trading was halted in February of 2019) has their CoronaVac being distributed.  What they have effectively decided is to use countries like Brazil and Indonesia as their Phase 3 trial, and extract as diplomatic profit future considerations.  Not the usual 30,000 subjects, but more like 2 million in Indonesia by next month.  Next in line are Turkey and Chile.  They will be offering loans to Latin American and Caribbean countries to purchase the vaccine.  

Sinovac's PR says that theirs is an inactivated vaccine that has worked for other diseases, like rabies, while Moderna's and Pfizer's are mRNA vaccines have NEVER WORKED for anything.  Like the Oxford version, which can be stored in a standard refrigerator at 2-8C, Moderna's must be kept at -20C and Pfizer's at -70C, so the Chinese vaccine will be better for developing countries.  Also cited is that the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees.

Apparently, unlike AstraZeneca's, the Chinese vaccines will be more expensive, and cost around $60 for a treatment, although in Indonesia a price of $13.60 was quoted.  However, at best, the A/O vaccine maker said it can only deliver 0.7 million doses by the end of the first quarter next year.  But as the pandemic is now, China has a huge advantage for the African continent and India, for Sinovac will have several hundred million inoculated next year.  

And others (there are eight more) are just about ready, for Sinopharm has already distributed a million or so dosages in China.  The United Arab Emirates this month reported that this vaccine was 86% effective in Phase 3 trials, and that they are soon to begin vaccinations.

Song #18 will be my final song from Hawaii:

• Hawaii Ponoi
• Aloha Oe

The matter of national anthems is worthy of a few dots:

• Some states have more than one and New Jersey is the only state not to have any.  
• Their legislature passed I'm from New Jersey in 1972, which was not signed by their governor.  Who knows this song anyway.  
• Tennessee has nine, one being Tennessee Waltz, made popular by Patti Page in 1950, and made the fourth official state song in 1965.  Something curious is that as of 1974, this record was the biggest-selling song ever in Japan.
• California does have one, but few know what it is, and fewer yet would be able to song it:  I Love You, California.  It was published in 1913, with music by Frankenstein.  Not kidding.  Not only was this song adopted by the California legislature in 1951, but was actually reconfirmed in 1987 as the official state song.

What I'm leading to is why Hawaii Ponoi is the official state song, and not Aloha Oe.  Hawaii Ponoi was written in 1874 by King David Kalakaua, with music by Captain Henri Berger, bandmaster of the Royal Hawaiian Band.  The King made it the national anthem of the Republic of Hawaii, replacing Queen Liliuokalani's He Mele Lahui Hawaii.  Hard to change history, so the Hawaii State Legislature in 1967 officially adopted the song.  It's no surprise that the tune is reminiscent of both God Save the Queen and the Prussian Heil dir im Siegerkranz.  A previous Hawaiian use of GStQ was an earlier Kingdom theme, and Berger came from Germany, where HdiS was the Imperial German anthem.

Aloha Oe was supposedly written by Queen Liliuokalani in 1878.  However, like most songs associated with Kamehameha Schools and royalty, the origin, apparently, was elsewhere, usually some hymn, but this one is linked to The Lone Rock by the Sea.  Further, that folk song probably derived from Croatia/Serbia as Sedi Mara na kamen studencu (or, Mary is Sitting on a Stone Well).  

Numerous films have used Aloha Oe, including that 1936 Waikiki Wedding, but also From Here to Eternity, Blue Hawaii and, of all the movies, Train to Busan.  I wonder why a lot Hawaiian songs end up tied to SpongeBob SquarePants, but the tune appears in a whole bunch of episodes.  A memorable encounter was Chinese President Jiang Zemin in 1997 playing Aloha Oe with a Hawaiian lap steel guitar, with First Lady Vicky Cayetano singing the song.

I'm torn between the two and will merely anoint both as #18.  Plus, recognize the contribution of the U.K., Imperial Germany and Croatia/Serbia to Hawaiian culture.  When you see angel number 18 in your experience, it is a sign that you have mastered the processes of the material world and are about to see the fulfillment of your wishes.

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