CHINA ANNOUNCES A THREE-CHILD POLICY

I'll get to China later, but will start with COVID-19 variants.  The key question is, do the various vaccines work to control them?    Not sure about the others, but, according to the CDC, all the vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. provide sufficient protection.  The caveat is that a few might get sick, but should survive.

Here are some of the more concerning ones:

B.1.1.7   United Kingdom     50% increased transmission

B.1.351  South Africa            50% increased transmission

B.1.427  California                20% increased transmissibility

P.1          Brazil/Japan     

P.2          Brazil

B.1.617  India (there are four separate variants)

There are more, and growing.  However, WHO has decided to better recognize them by using names based on the Greek alphabet.  The first four are variants of concern, while the other six are variants of interest.

• Alpha     B.1.1.1.7     UK
• Beta       B.1.351      South Africa
• Gamma  P.1             Brazil
• Delta      B.1.617.2    India
• Epsilon  B.1.427       USA
• Epsilon  B.1.429      USA
• Zeta       P.2              Brazil
• Eta         B.1.525       Brazil
• Theta     P.3              Philippines
• Iota        B.1.526       USA
• Kappa    B.617.1        India

 There are now ten, with 14 letters left:

I usually bring readers up to date on COVID-19 using Worldometer data on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  However, I thought I'd start earlier this week and compare how the various states in the Union are doing relative to the world:

                             Cases/million    Deaths/million  Tests/million

USA                        102,848              1842                    1,448,601

New Jersey             114,401               2951                    1,614,814

New York               110,698               2754                    2,871,249

Hawaii                      25,600                353                    1,130,818

Vermont                    38,797                409                    2,716,250

World                        21,941                456                    1,440,907

India                          20,144                236                       246,479

Czechia                    154,856              2807                   2,263,987

Andorra                    176,962              1641                  2,501,939

Sweden                     105,200             1491                     961,203

Norway                       22,862               143                  1,032,130

Japan                           5,880               102                      113,648

South Korea                 2,727                 84                      189,977

Thailand                       2,206                 14                      116,137

New Zealand                   534                  5                   2,137,414

Taiwan                            345                   5                        32,967

China                                63                    3                      111,163

Vietnam                            72                    0.5                    44,201

A few interesting points:

• Sure, India is looking okay (at this point still better than Hawaii), but their outbreak only recently began, and they will be suffering for many weeks to come.
• Note that New Jersey has the highest deaths/million, more than the worst country, Czechia.
• Looks like New York leads the world in tests/million, but they are nowhere near the top, for Denmark has 9,565,101 tests/million, and some other European locations  are also above New York.
• Japan is being pressured to cancel the Summer Olympics:
• But the fact of the matter is that they have 18 times fewer cases and 18 times fewer deaths/million, than the USA.
• Japan has more than 4 times fewer cases and deaths/million than the World average.
• Japan also has had 4 times fewer cases/million than Hawaii, the best state in the nation.
• But they are now in the midst of a new wave.
• What exactly is safe for an international event that will mostly only be for global television viewers?
• Norway (somewhat similarly to Finland and Denmark) invoked a lockdown.  Sweden was the only Scandinavian country not to do this to maintain the economy.  Big mistake.  The deaths/million figure of Sweden is 10 times higher than Norway.
• Why has Vietnam done so well?  According to an article of a year ago, being adjacent to China, the government took early and drastic action.  They tested even healthy quarantined individuals, and caught a lot of asymptomatic cases.  A report earlier this year said that their contact tracing program was superb.  Schools shut down and international arrivals were limited.  Communistic, their messaging was seriously clear, and people obeyed.
• On first sight, seems like testing did not much affect number of cases and deaths.  Apparently, those countries that initially did well, just stopped testing because it was not necessary.
• Finally, there is huge suspicion that many countries are purposefully underreporting COVID-19 deaths.  India for sure, also Brazil and egregious for Russia, which should have FIVE times more deaths.  About the USA?

In the country with the world’s highest total infections and fatalities, the most commonly cited databases are maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to which states and other jurisdictions report their tallies, and by Johns Hopkins University. Yet, in a new study by the University of Washington, scientists estimate that more than nine hundred thousand people in the United States have died of COVID-19, over 50 percent higher than the CDC and Johns Hopkins estimates.

Worse, earlier this month:

A new analysis from scientists at the University of Washington suggests 6.9 million people worldwide have died from COVID-19, more than double the official death toll.

Worldometer today reports that 3.564,777 have thus far succumbed to COVID-19.

Remember when China had a one child policy?  It was, with exceptions (as, for example, did not apply to farming districts), strictly enforced from 1979.  It is estimated that 400-600 million births were prevented.  Life expectancy had gone up from 35 in 1948 to 66 in 1976, and is now 76.7 years. 

Policy went up to two children in 2016, but of the 11 million couples allowed this increase, only 1 million applied, so nothing much changed (citizens in cities could not afford a second child).   There was worry about having too many men (leading to 117 male to 100 female births--due to female abortions), too many old people and too few young people.  The projection was a doubling of elderly with 67 million fewer working-age people by 2030.

In response, the country just jumped the number up to 3 children per family.  Not good for Planet Earth.  But the expectation is that couples will want to maintain a lifestyle that cannot support two or more children anyway, so something else will need to be done.  Chinese couples have twice the home ownership expectancy rate compared to the U.S.:

Love and marriage in China is now highly dependent on the ability to provide your own home.  And males are particularly under stress.

Later this week I'll compare China with the USA.  But I'll end today with some gorgeous fish.  My three aquaria only are home to guppies and mollies.  While some might feel that animals should be left in their natural environment, mine are cared for with love and fed well.  They look extremely happy, especially just before their morning meal.

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