WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

Froma Harrop had a recent op-ed entitled, Some countries are happier than others--or are they? Essentially, she said, Finland is the world's happiest country--fourth year in a row! At least, according to the World Happiness Report from the United Nations. The U.S. ranked 14th in the latest, but here is a compilation from 2018-2020, where we are shown at #19:

Apparently, this UN report did not ask anyone how they felt about the weather. How can you be happy when the worst day in London, every day, is like Finland everyday? One February I went to Helsinki and experienced something that was stunning. Well-covered with gloves, hat and neck wrap, I walked outside my hotel on a sunny day and instantaneously my nose froze. The ground was really slippery with ice. I told myself the next time I come here I would wear a motorcycle helmet (in case you fall) with face covering pre-treated for fog breath. Maybe golf shoes with real spikes. But then, you can't walk indoors with them. Well anyway, college is free, their educational system is outstanding and they are said to have the best saunas.

Who produced this report? Columbia University with help from Canada and the UK, with Gallup. What they did was interview 350,000 people in 95 countries. One question asked was, Did you smile a lot yesterday?

To summarize:

New Zealand at #9 was the only non-European country. Australia was #11.
This Nordic nation of 5.5 million people did well in the pandemic with 70,000 cases and 805 deaths.

The Worldometer table I use showed 85,077 cases and 163 deaths/million people

Hawaii, the state with the lowest deaths/million people in the United States, had 336 deaths/million people
U.S. 1757 deaths/million people
World 396
Sweden 1369
Denmark 425
Norway 135
Japan 77
South Korea 35
China 3
Thailand 2

Measures including social support, personal freedom, gross domestic product (GDP) and levels of corruption were used in the study.
The country deemed the most unhappy in the world was Afghanistan, followed by Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
China improved from #94 to #84.
Click here for all the information you would want.

There have been other such studies, as the one from Harvard in 2014 concluding that the five happiest cities in the USA are in Louisiana: Lafayette, Houma, Shreveport-Bossier City, Baton Rouge and Alexandria. I lived in Baton Rouge for several years. I've been to all those cities. While Cajun culture and concomitant joy, combined with local food festivals and music, with ample high-paying job opportunities are attractions, why do people come to Hawaii rather than those happy spots?

Since 2008 Bhutan has used a Gross National Happiness Index as the measure of success. Well, the reality is that the government talks about happiness while continuing ethnic cleansing measures and committing human right abuses. In 2019 Bhutan ranked 95th out of 156 countries.

Seattle, Washington has a Gross National Index to assess the well-being of the population, and you will remember that, with Portland, it was among the worst racial riot cities in the nation last year. Vermont uses something similar to gauge success.

The Philippines talks about Gross National Happiness, then elects President Rodrigo Duterte, who went ahead and killed up to 6000 drug suspects and arrested a quarter million people. The UN condemned him. The country ranks #61 in the World Happiness Report.

With a responsible government, Japan is at #56. A military junta now runs Thailand. It's #54. Singapore has been stuck at around #32 for years. South Korea, the country of high efficiency? #62.

Others:

Russia 76
China 84
Turkey 104
Iran 118
Egypt 132
Afghanistan 149

North Korea? Not mentioned. However, a decade ago they came up with a Global Happiness Index and showed that China was #1, North Korea #2, and followed by Cuba, Iran and Venezuela. South Korea was #152 and USA at the bottom.

Finally, Wallethub ranked the 50 states by happiness in 2020 and selected Hawaii as #1. Metrics included emotional and physical well-being, work environment and community environment. Utah came in at #2. Least happy? Senator Joe Manchin's state, West Virginia.

In any case, Don't Worry Be Happy. That was a third of century ago. Here are some Happy Pop Songs to make you smile. Or Ten Songs to make you always smile. Too new for you? These take you back a half century.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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