AMERICAN SONG CONTEST

Amazingly enough, China, with more than 1.4 billion people, just reported its first new COVID-19 deaths in more than a year yesterday:

Country Population New Deaths Per Million

China 1,439 million 2 0.0014
Hong Kong 7.6 m 249 32.8
World 7,900 m 3846 0.5
USA 327 m 327 1.0
Russia 146 m 495 3.4
S. Korea 51 m 319 6.3
Chile 19 m 101 5.3

Of course, Hong Kong is part of China, so if you add those 2 + 249 new deaths, the new deaths/million population figure for the country is only 0.17.

So how do COVID-19 deaths compare to total deaths per day?

Country Population COVID Deaths Ratio

China 1.44 billion 251 30,373 0.0083
India 1.41 billion 129 28,279 0.0046
USA 0.33 billion 327 8,295 0.0394

In other words, yesterday 4% of daily deaths in the U.S. came from COVID-19.

There are two deaths/second in the world, or 115 deaths/minute. There are 2.67 COVID-19 deaths/minute. Or, 2.3% of all world deaths are now from COVID-19.

In mid-January of 2021 the U.S. averaged around 4000 deaths/day. During that period, just about half of all deaths came from this pandemic virus.

So how does the "normal" seasonal flu compare with COVID-19 today?

Approximately 36,000 people in the past usually died from the flu each year.
If we continue to get 327 COVID deaths/day, that would be 119,355 deaths/year. We need to get just below 100 COVID deaths/day to equal the flu death rate.
However, in the past year there might have been only around 3,600 flu deaths because people are more cautious.
The information is still a bit sketchy, but it looks like the mortality rate of our current highly vaccinated population seems to have dropped to around 0.1%, about the same as the seasonal flu.
For the record, thus far, the world average of the past two years shows that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is 1.3%. Because of the vaccines, new medications and hospital experience, a person contracting the Omicron version of this virus (which is less lethal than earlier variants) is more than ten times likely to survive. Unless you remain unvaccinated. Why?
Of course a booster also pads your safety factor, and both Moderna and Pfizer will soon be adding a second booster for the elderly, for people 65 and older account for 75% of all COVID-19 deaths.

The Eurovision Song Contest has been going on now since 1956, featuring countries of the continent. It is among the most-watched non-sports show seen on your personal screen. A half century later, an attempt to develop a U.S. version was made by NBC. Well, they finally succeeded, for tomorrow night (Monday, March 21), The American Song Contest will be hosted by Snoop Dog and Kelly Clarkson. The first show will feature:

State/Territory	Artist	Song	Language(s)
Arkansas	Kelsey Lamb	"Never Like This"	English
Connecticut	Michael Bolton	"Beautiful World"	English
Indiana	UG skywalkin ft. Maxie	"Love in My City"	English
Iowa	Alisabeth Von Presley	"Wonder"	English
Minnesota	Yam Haus	"Ready to Go"	English
Mississippi	Keyone Starr	"Fire"	English
Oklahoma	AleXa	"Wonderland"	English^[a]
Puerto Rico	Christian Pagán	"Loko"	English, Spanish
Rhode Island	Hueston	"Held On Too Long"	English
Wisconsin	Jake’O	"Feel Your Love"	English
Wyoming	Ryan Charles	"New Boot Goofin'"	English

Europe has 50 countries/entities. They banned Russia from participating. The U.S. will have 56 contestants representing each state and a few territories. Connecticut has Michael Bolton and Alaska's entry is Jewel. Hawaii has Bronson Varde. Never heard of him. How did he get selected, anyway? Click here to see the other entries. The finale will occur on May 9, the same week as Eurovision 2022.

Yesterday I had two great meals. First, chicken katsu with hamachi sashimi.

Then, my weekly wagyu with shiitake mushrooms and creamed spinach, plus onions and a salad.

The wine was an exceptional Syrah-Cabernet from Paso Robles.

My plumeria and Honohono on my lanai are in full bloom:

Also, some calamansi.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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