THE TRULY WONDERFUL 50'S

From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 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    25     2304    12025        620       518      118

Dec    30     3880    14748       1224       299     465

Jan     14       4142    15512        1151        189      712              

Feb      3       4005   14265       1209       107     398

          17         2537   11383        1195         89      165 

          23        2404   10293       1370       100     263

          24        2525   10814        1433       144      110

          25        2414    10578        1582       119      144

Mar     2        1989     9490        1726       110      194

            3        2350   10838        1840        86       95

            4        1993    10007        1786       113       96

Summary:   The COVID-19 pandemic is just not meekly going away.  

• Will there be a fourth wave?
• No question vaccinations will help, but our experts are saying another spike is possible, especially as many Republican governors are continuing to follow the Trump attitude.  Here are some CNN articles.  

• 
  Brazil is a warning.  It now has more daily new cases than the USA.
• While a Saudi Arabian newspaper had the headline, Hajj attendees must have Covid-19 vaccine, when you read the article, it appears that only those working at the site need to be vaccinated.  It cites the Umrah in March last year where there were 5 million worshippers, but not a single case.

So what happened to the return of Donald Trump yesterday?  Well, QAnon has a long line of bizarre goalposts that keep shifting.    The next DT Day is March 20.  Reminds me a lot about Doomsday Cults.

According to The Soapbox, ANDREW CUOMO IS SCREWED.  That was on March 1.  Today, the evidence is mounting, and, apparently, most in New York already know the governor as a bully and micromanager, even though there is some acknowledgment that he well-handled the pandemic.

My posting yesterday was too, too lengthy, so on this Friday I will ease off and just tout the truly wonderful 50's.  I was sent this video about the 1950's, and thought this is a good time to reminisce a bit.

Classic Rock picks its top ten defining songs of the 1950's.  #1 is Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry.  They totally missed the first half of the decade.  Billboard's top 30, based on retail songs sold, is a chrono-polar opposite.  Not a one of those ten above is in the B T30.  #1 is Goodnight Irene, #2 Mona Lisa and #3 Third Man Theme.  How can two reliable sources be so different?

Here, chronologically, are the top events each year:

• 
  1950  Korean War
• 1951  First business computer--Univac
• 1952  Ike as President and Elizabeth II as Queen

• 
  1953  Double Helix discovered
• 1954  McCarthy hearings, polio vaccine and USS Nautilus
• 1955  Montgomery bus boycott and Warsaw Pact formed
• 1956  Hungarian uprising and Suez Crisis

• 
  1957  Sputnik launched
• 1958 China's Great Leap Forward and European Common Market formed
• 1959  Castro takes power in Cuba and Alaska/Hawaii become states

Everyone has forgotten this, but there was the H2N2 Avian Flu Pandemic in 1957-58.  You absolutely won't believe the following:

• Up to 4 million were killed, and was a health threat to those UNDER 50.  
• No economic upheaval, no masks.  

• 
  This Asian Flu originated in Guizhou, China, which is about 600 miles from Wuhan City.  
• The population of the world was 2.9 billion.  
• Today, 7.8 billion.  
• Thus, on a per capita basis, the extrapolated deaths number could have been nearly 11 million.  
• How many have died so far from the COVID-19 virus?  A total of 2.6 million deaths.

• 
  How long did it take to develop the H2/N2 vaccine?  FOUR MONTHS!!!  This vaccine ended the pandemic.  Remember this name:  Maurice Hilleman of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.  I urge you, read that link!!!

Oh, one more thing, there was an antigenic shift of the H2N2 virus into H3N2, which caused the 1968 Hong Kong Flu Pandemic, which lingered into 1969.  Again, globally, up to 4 million died.  AGAIN, FOUR MONTHS LATER A NEW VACCINE WAS DEVELOPED.  This ended the pandemic.  Who did this?  Maurice Hilleman.

An additional point of information.  Heard of the H1N1 virus?  This is the one that caused the Spanish Flu in 1918-20.  The Big One, where about a third of the world population got infected, and 50 million died.  And the number of people then on Planet Earth was only 1.8 million.  Do you remember when this one returned and caused a more recent pandemic?  

Of course you don't.  IT WAS IN 2009 THAT THE H1N1 RETURNED AS THE SWINE FLU TO CAUSE A PANDEMIC AND INFECT UP TO 1.4 BILLION!!  Want to guess how many COVID-19 cases? 0.16 billion.  HOW EASILY WE FORGET.

So what happened in 2020 that uplifted just a normal virus problem into something beyond the pale?  Since 2009 the world-wide web matured into a powerful force that went out of control.  CLEARLY, SOME SERIOUS THOUGHT NEEDS TO BE GIVEN TO WHAT HUMANITY WILL DO WHEN THE NEXT ONE COMES ALONG!  It could well be a variant of a coronavirus, which is different from those type A viruses.  But that's irrelevant.  How can science, society and politics work together in a cohesive manner to control the next pandemic?  I think part of the solution is suggested in my Huffington Post article of a decade ago:  A Pandemic Worse Than the Swine Flu.

Hate to end this blog with all that gloom, so... Honohonos just about to bloom

Also, too, the Gold Trees are flowering in Honolulu.  I can see a few from my computer as I send you this posting:

Well, another downer, for Tropical Cyclone Niran formed  just outside of Queensland, Australia, and is headed in the general direction of New Caledonia.  Niran just attained Category 5 strength, and is the second of the season.  The first was Topical Cyclone Faraji last month in the South Indian Ocean.  Warning:  it is uncommon for two such storms so early.

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