NOT MUCH

                      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

Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194

April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 

June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95

 July   7          251      8440        1595        817       411

Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532      423 

Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235

          8        1700      9836          250        339     253

        14        1934      9001          709        281      300

        22       2228     9326           839        279      124

        28        1836      7924          818        375      201

        29        2190      8859         643        309     108

Summary:  just when you think all will be well, an uptick, for both the USA and World.

More and more you'll read about COVID-19 oral antiviral pills, especially from Merck, Pfizer, Roche and Atea.  The good thing is that it is a pill, not a shot.  But this is not a vaccine.  You still need to be vaccinated to be safer.  These pills are taken AFTER YOU CONTRACT COVID-19 to shorten the duration of the illness and mitigate serious symptoms.  First to appear could well be Merck's molnupiravir.

Incidentally, ImmunityBio, a U.S. company, has acquired worldwide rights to develop in the UK a COVID-19 vaccine in tablet form.  Clinal trials of the oral vaccine are being held in the U.S. and South Africa.  A pill is almost always cheaper and easier to store.  This option will help induce those who fear injections to get vaccinated.

I worked in the U.S. Senate for three years.  Back  then, bipartisanship was everywhere on everything.  Today, not only is there almost none, now intra-party posturing is prominent.  The amalgam of debt ceiling, government shutdown and two budget bills totaling $4.7 trillion or so, seems hopelessly quagmired with self-imposed deadlines.  So what will happen? Both parties can't afford to do nothing, so something will eventually pass, maybe next month.  Not worth your while to even follow those happenings.

We just got over the Tokyo Summer Olympics.  No one blames this gathering for causing the peak of COVID-19 in Japan, but, let's face it, the stringent measures they took still did not stop the spread of this outbreak in Japan, which is only now back to almost normalcy.  Yesterday, the country had 40 new deaths and 1742 new cases.  The USA?  2190 and 123,276.  But you say we have more people.  So the comparisons are:

• Japan new deaths = 0.3/million to U.S. new deaths = 6.6/million
• Japan new cases   = 13.8/million to U.S. new cases = 370/million

Why is the USA 20 times worse than Japan?

Incidentally, China's Winter Olympics open in four months on February 4, 2022.  Unlike the summer olympics, spectators will be allowed into winter venues.  However, no foreign spectators.  Yesterday:

• China new deaths = 0/million
• China new cases  = 0.02/million

Let's see if these numbers increase in March and April of 2022.  Why is China's new case rate 690 times better than Japan and 18,500 times better than the USA?  Well, for one, Japan only today ended its COVID-19 lockdown emergency.  China has had this virus under control since passing it on to the world.

My posting on this last day of September will focus on almost nothing.  The past two days were a bit too scientific for most of you.  Let me start with some history.

In 1777 what strategy won the Revolutionary War was George Washington mandating smallpox vaccinations.  90% of troop deaths came by disease, and by far the worse was smallpox.  You keep reading in your history books about all those battles, and this form of truth that had more meaning never comes up.

Imagine he trying to do this today with Republican opposition?  Washington had contracted small pox when he was younger.  The process for vaccination was crude, and today would be avoided by most.  It was not until 1796 that English doctor Edward Jenner found that milkmaids who got cowpox were immune to smallpox.  Then came the real vaccine.  Smallpox is the only human disease that has ever been eradicated, in 1977.  Hasn't polio?  Close, but not yet.

The private sector and some states are taking the lead for vaccination mandates.   Biden has restricted his to those under his command, like the military.  Courts have almost alway judged in favor of mandates.  Vaccines will lead the way to herd immunity and normalcy, and it turns out most Americans are highly supportive of mandates.  Still, 22% identify with anti-vaxers, and this has something to do with social identity and a sense of freedom.  They are more individualistic and don't trust scientific experts.  This also explains why so many Republicans and the uneducated fall in this category.  The most exasperated are friends who care who can't quite understand why.  

Speaking of freedom, don't know why I'm clogging this posting with anything about Brittany Spears, and I wonder most about why her escape from her father's conservatorship is news, for she will be 40 years old by the end of the year.  Maybe because I wanted to show this, which I think is her:

I'll close with the Lizzo burrito brouhaha on Tik Tok:

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Izu Island is bracing from an encounter with Typhoon Mindulle, now weakening, but still at 90 MPH:

Hurricane Sam in the Atlantic is continuing to move north, and, strangely enough, is strengthening, with an expectation of increasing to 145 MPH tomorrow.  Still, though, even St. John's island should not be impacted too much:

The Atlantic has a new storm named Victor (note, only one more name left...Wanda...then it will all be Greek) spawned off Africa, and, interestingly enough, is moving more north than west.  Will Spain be a possible target?  Has it ever been struck by a hurricane?  Nope, although around this time in 2005 Vince made landfall as a tropical depression.

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