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.
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.
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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