A WHITE WHALE

      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  22       2228     9326          839        279      124

        29         2190      8859         643        309      108

Oct    6         2102       8255         543        315       59

        19          2005      7528         401       160        80 

        27          1594      8671         433        734        62 

Nov   3          1436      7830         186        458        23

        24          1594      8270         176        396        22 

Dec    1          1633      8475         266        477        28

          8          1324      7894         231        159         36

        17          1653      7359         126        289         35 

        22          1634      7686         137        434         99

        23          1149       6942        100        374         75

        29          1777       7393         147        268         81

        30         1354       6758          154        220       126 

Jan    7         2025       6729          148        285       140

       14          2303       7872          238        430       128

       19          2374       8972          349        493       156

       20          2700      9225          324        703       139

Summary:  

• More people dying.
• However, a lot more people are being infected, so the hospitalization and mortality rates are dropping with Omicron.
• Highest new cases (new cases/million population in parentheses):
• World  3,669,810  (46.5)
• USA  692,320  (2073)
• California  104,707  (2650)
• Hawaii  5,911  (4222)
• France  425,183  (6491)
• India  347,254  (267)
• Israel  68,513  (7368)
• Denmark  37,987  (6549)
• Luxembourg  3,070  (4797)
• Guadeloupe  20,806  (52015)
• Japan  39,841  (316)
• Taiwan  37  (1.5)
• China  66  (0.045)
• 
  Guadeloupe is a French overseas department of six islands in the Caribbean with a population of around 400,000.  Founded by Columbus in 1493.  What is happening here today?  Can't find any further confirming information about why they had so many new cases yesterday.  But if it is true that they actually have 52,015 cases per million, that cannot be good news for the rest of the world that has escaped the Omicron variant.

About my topic of the day, a white baby humpback whale named Sugar, or perhaps Betty White, was seen earlier this week near Sugar Beach on Maui:

A white whale is a genetic mutation absent melanin, a pigment protein in your skin, hair and eyes to protect you from sunlight.  Mammologists have estimated that one in 10,000 births is a true albino.  However, radioactive contamination at Chernobyl changed the barn swallow rate from zero to 15% in 1991.  A white animal is more prone to predators.

There are 75,000 whales in the ocean today, so if the 1 in 10,000 rate of albino births holds true, there should be a lot more white whales.  So the odds of being born a white whale must be very much lower.

Australia has had several white humpbacks, beginning in 1991 with Migaloo, white fella in Aboriginal.

The last sighting of Migaloo was in 2014.  For a long while it was thought he (he is a he) was the only white whale in the ocean.  However, in 2008, Bahloo was seen near the Great Barrier Reef, with distinct black spots on head and tail.  Then in 2011, another white humpback whale calf was spotted in the same area and named MJ or Migaloo Jr.  

In 2013 a white humpback was discovered off the coast of Norway and named Willow.

In 2007 a 33-foot long whale shark was photographed off the Galapagos Island:

A whale shark is a shark, not a whale.

There have been several white sperm whales.  Herman Melville based Moby on Mocha Dick, a real male albino white sperm whale, who died in 1838, finally succumbing to whalers after prevailing perhaps a hundred times.   Twenty harpoons were found on his body.  Mocha was 70 feet long and yielded 100 barrels of oil and some ambergris, said to be worth more than gold, made into perfumes.  He had mostly lived near Mocha Island off the central coast of Chile.  More recently, there have been sightings of white sperm whales off Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea in 2006 and 2015.

Hiroya Minakuchi uploaded this photo in 2012 of a white sperm whale off the Azores:

As I reach the end of my productive life, I feel blessed to have had the privilege of being able to search for an assortment of white whales, that is, something obsessively pursued with little chance of success.    Rather than frustration, the effort has been exhilarating.

Ironically, my final attempt is a different color, the Blue Revolution.  I've identified with those chasing white whales, like Don Quixote searching for his Impossible Dream.

About the Blue Revolution, looking at the following illustration, now I know where to put future floating cities.  Did you know that ocean storms don't form around South America, and west of Africa, south of the equator?

Where they do, is global warming beginning to make a difference?  The earliest tropical depression that has ever formed in the Pacific around and east of Hawaii occurred on 25April2020.  Only two of them formed near the U.S. from May 1-10 in the 1851-2015 period.  The traditional Pacific hurricane season starts on May 15.  From NOAA and the National Hurricane Center:

However, today the Weather Network headlined:  An incredibly rare tropical cyclone might develop near Hawaii this week.  There is a low-pressure system a little less than a 1000 miles east-northeast of Hawaii that has a 40% chance of becoming Agatha from tomorrow through early next week.

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