CURIOUS?

  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

       28          2732   10,516         779        862      133

Feb  2           2990   12,012         946        991      175

      24           1823     9,809        996        304       40

Mar     2        1778     7,756         335        173        28

           3        1258      7654         594         201       41

           9        1265      6819         652         104       31

Summary:

• The country with the most new cases yesterday was South Korea (details to follow, but they also had a presidential election on a day when they broke their record for new cases) with 342,427, or 6675 new cases/million population.
• Germany was #2 with 191,973 (2285 nc/million).
• The USA was not even in the top ten with 39,200 nc (117 nc/million).
• Alaska  1715
• Colorado  187
• Texas  166
• California  118
• Hawaii 110 (but we were 45 on Tuesday)
• New York  94
• Among the worst in new cases/million:
• Iceland  8171
• Brunei  7170
• Liechtenstein  7026
• Austria  5310
• New Zealand  4499
• Latvia  4190
• Hong Kong  3419
• Switzerland  3409
• Singapore  2890
• World  217
• It's looking like many of those with recently high new cases/million avoided this virus until the Omicron variant arrived, and combined with some degree of personal freedom allowed, couldn't escape this particular virus, which has high contagion.  Thankfully, most of these countries are highly vaccinated, and considering that Omicron is not as lethal, the actual number of deaths will be relatively low.
• Take South Korea with 342,427 new cases, if they were to follow the current world mortality rate of 1.3%, 4451 would perish/day.  The total COVID death count for the country is today only 9440.
• Further, it is looming that the fatality rate for vaccinated individuals is now lower than that of the seasonal flu, which is 0.1%.  Thus, probably fewer than 342 of those new cases will result in death.  There remain the unvaccinated, so I would expect around this many new deaths/day in ten days or so.
• Get this:  98%-99% of Americans dying from COVID-19 today are the unvaccinated.
• In July of last year, Forbes reported on a statement by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky:  99.5% of the people who died from COVID-19 over the past six months were unvaccinated!!!
• However, that info is from last year.  I can't seem to find any worldwide numbers, but here is a difficult to understand CDC report that I think says that those boosted are a lot better off than those who are "only" fully vaccinated, which means two shots (or one of Johnson&Johnson).  I would think that anyone who is fully boosted today must have an even less chance of dying than an unvaccinated individual.

So on to my topic of the day.  While curiosity can sometimes harm you, as maybe some cats learned, the satisfaction of finding knowledge or the truth is why we are human.  While I'm not a cat-person, they are supposedly very curious, at least relative to dogs.

Here’s a running list of companies that are cutting ties with Russia.

In a particularly bitter race...the former prosecutor working for the present government, Yoon Suk-yeol, narrowly won South Korea’s presidential election, 48.56% to 47.83%, returning conservatives to power.  Unfortunately, most of my friends there are liberals.

The 59-year old lawyer will assume office on May 10 and serve one five-year term, leading the opposition People Power Party and 10th largest economy.  Some blame politics, but he failed to get an attorney's license ten times.  Same for allegations of ethics violations, even though he never got convicted.  A bit troublesome, but he is an anti-feminist, and shows some Trump-like tendencies.

You will read of résumé padding and tax problems about his wife, Kim Kun Hee, who is 49, but much of this will be inflated.  U.S. bipartisanship is mild compared to South Korea.  There they sentence previous presidents to death, then usually pardon them.  However, Park Geun-Hye is still in jail.  How come Trump has managed to avoid even a court case?

Just when I was getting tired of exercising, I read about how you can increase muscle strength by 12% just doing 3 seconds of strenuous resistance exercise once per day for a month.  Or if you wish, four seconds of serious biking or ten seconds of sprinting, combined with three seconds of intense bicep squeezes.  These provide strength and endurance.  All this from a collaboration of Japan's Niigata University of Health and Welfare and Edith Cowan University (Perth, Australia).  I'll wait a few weeks to read about world reactions.  In any case, my goal is to eat and drink a lot, so I suspect 3-seconds/day will not help much.

It has long been known that carbon dioxide from your breath can attract mosquitos.  Plus:

• 
  Body sweat and odor.  
• Certain perfumes can made a difference, and what you eat can affect your smell.  
• Apparently beer drinking and limburger cheese attract mosquitos, and exercise releases lactic acid, which draws mosquitos.
• Then there is the temperature of your skin, for a higher metabolic rate or warmer body will draw mosquitos.
• Pregnant women are more prone to being stung.

• 
  Also, blood type plays a role.  Mosquitos like Type O.
• Repellents like DEET do work.  Apply only once/day, and lower the amount on children. Lemon eucalyptus oil can be used.
• Keep in mind that mosquitos are most active early in the morning and in the early evening.
• If bitten, don't scratch.  Wash with soap and water, following with a cold compress.  An over the counter antihistamine like Benadryl helps, or calamine lotion and cortisol cream.  Also, baking soda mixed with water or a drop of lavender essential oil on the sting.

Just last month we learned from the University of Washington, partially funded by the Department of Defense, that the color of what you wear can attract mosquitos:

• Mosquitos fly toward red, orange, black and cyan.  And if you didn't know what cyan is, here.

• Mosquitos ignore green, purple, blue and white.

More than a century ago, British Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton led a crew of 27 across the Weddell Sea, but was forced to abandon his ship, which was crushed in ice.  Remarkably, all 28 survived.  At the 100th anniversary of his funeral, the ship was found.

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