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THE PANDEMIC AND BEIJING WINTER OLYMPICS

    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
Oct    6         2102      8255          543        315       59
Nov   3         1436      7830         186         458       23
Dec    1        1633      8475          266        477       28
Jan    7         2025      6729         148        285      140
       14          2303      7872         238        430      128
       21          2777      9091         396        489      103
       26          3143   10,554         606        575        94
       27          2689   10,261         662        627        71
       28          2732   10,516         779        862      133
Feb  2           2990   12,012         946        991      175
        9           2785   11,827         1295      1241      213

Summary:
  • A glance above, and you might think the pandemic is getting worse.  But what you see is the data for new deaths that day.
  • New cases peak two weeks or so before new deaths.  New cases are now universally declining.
    • There are five countries showing numbers in five digits, and they are (with new cases/million population):
      • #1  Germany  238,410 (2831)
      • #2  USA  227,458  (681)
      • #3  Brazil  183,533 (854)
      • #4  Turkey  108,563  (1262)
      • #5  Japan  95,945 (but they are averaging around 100,000/day over the past week, 761)
  • The World Bank predicts that new deaths/day shown by Worldometer of 11,827 will drop to 3366 by March 1 and 2412 on April 1.  While those two sources are not exactly alike, they are close enough to compare figures.  Regarding new cases/day, Worldometer yesterday showed 2.4 million, while the World Bank had it at around 3 million.  Worldometer doesn't predict.  The World Bank does, saying new cases will further rise to 3.3 million around March 12, but then plummet:
    • 1.23 million new cases on April 1.
    • 0.34 million new cases on May 1.
    • Less than 100,000 new cases on June 1.
  • There is a third source, Statista, which showed that the U.S. had slightly more than a million new cases on January 26, with 364,896 new cases on February 9.  Worldometer had 227,458 new cases on February 9.  However, the World Bank and Statista somehow include asymptomatic and projected additional cases for some some countries who notoriously under report.  In any case, the point is that the number of new cases/day for the U.S. is now only about a third today as it was two weeks ago.
  • The important bottom line is that the pandemic is turning into a swiftly declining epidemic in the USA and a good part of the world.  For those who are fully vaccinated and boosted, the pandemic is over, for the overwhelming majority of this group will not get infected anymore, and those that unfortunately do, will almost surely have symptoms between a flu and a cold, if anything at all.  Deaths are rare for the boosted.  For the unvaccinated, watch out!!!  You remain very, very vulnerable.
It's easy to complain about the Beijing Winter Olympics.  For one there is too much curling.  Plus, as Beijing is on the other side of the world, crossing the International Date Line almost half a day before New York, the TV schedule is confusing.

More seriously, all, and I mean all, the snow used in competition, is artificial, pumped out of snow machines.  This is the first time ever.  383 of these devices all come from Italy.  The next Olympics will be in Milano Cortina, and at least they will be well-equipped to handle this problem.   But more recently, did you know that the 80% of the snow in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics was also fake, and even in Pyeongchang in the previous games, it might have been as high as 98% for some venues?

What is to blame?  Global warming.   Into the future, of previous hosts, only Sapporo, Japan would have the requisite temperature and possible precipitation to provide real snow.  Then again, what's wrong with man-made snow if the events can be held in competition conditions good enough and safe for the athletes?

The face of the Tokyo Summer Olympics last year was Simone Biles.  There was a family death and some physical ailments.  But  mental issues more than anything else led to her bowing out of competition.  The stress was overwhelming, for she was predicted to win everything.  She got to the stage of being scared to do gymnastics.

No doubt  26-year old Mikaela Shiffren of the U.S. was supposed to be the Winter Olympics star, called the best skier of all time by some.  She too was predicted to win several golds.  Then, she embarrassingly failed in her first two downhill skiing events.  She sat just crying for what seemed like forever, and was later joined by her mother.  This was a tragedy of monumental proportions, and there was serious concern that she would be the next Simone Biles.  However, the latest news is that she will compete tomorrow in the Super-G Event.  The world will be watching.

The Canadian women's hockey team beat the U.S. 4-2.  But they both nevertheless made it into the playoff, with six other teams.  The U.S. team has all university players, eight from the the University of Minnesota and five from Wisconsin.  Possibly their best player, Brianna Decker, suffered an excruciating injury in their first game, and is out.  The gold medal game will be shown on NBC on Wednesday, February 16, at 11:05 ET.  The confusion is that this will be just past noon in Beijing on Thursday.  The U.S. and Canada are expected to play again.

Another event of some interest is Shaun White's quest for a gold in the men's halfpipe snowboarding finals tonight on NBC.  It could be as early as 3:30PM in Hawaii.  This is his fifth Winter Olympics, is old at 35 and not as good as he once was.  Yet, it's worth a watch.  In case you didn't know, it's called halfpipe because the competition occurs in half a tube  64-feet in diameter and 600 feet long, lined with snow.  It's really more a U-shape, and the height at each side is 22 feet high.
About some good news for the USA, we finally won three gold medals.  Nathan Chen just dominated.  Surprise, surprise.  Austria now has the most medals, with 13.  #2 is the favored Norway, #3 that Russian group, and #4 the USA.  Germany has the most gold medals, 6.

Here are some graphics:





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