NEW NEWS

    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

         11        1022      6002         465           88       28

         16         982      5579         354           59       40

         17         931       6160         484         150       62

Summary:

• This Omicron Stealth subvariant is delaying the end of the pandemic.
• Even China had 1317 new cases yesterday, which is, of course, only 0.9 new cases/million population.  Yet, several major cities remain locked down.
• The USA is at 106 new cases/million, or more than a hundred times worse than China, and everything is opening up, including no indoor masks anymore.  We are doing better than most countries.
• South Korea is in a terrible state, with 621,328 new cases yesterday, or 12112 new cases/million, or 13,500 times worse than China.
• #2 in new cases was Germany with 296,980, or 3535 new cases/million.
• #3 in new cases was Vietnam with 178,112 new cases, or 1817 new cases/million.
• In short:
• Europe is faring badly, with examples being Austria at 5283 new cases/million, Iceland at 5443 new cases/million and Andorra at 5714 new cases/million.
• Parts of the Orient and Oceania also doing poorly.
• Hong Kong at 2848 new cases/million, or more than 3000 times worse than the rest of China.
• New Zealand at 3923 new cases/million.

Pfizer is seeking approval to provide a second booster for those 65 and over, while Moderna is now applied to do the same for adults. 

Biden calls Putin a war criminal.  Hmm...this is now personal.

Netflix has made available Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Servant of the People.  It is English-subtitled.  The show ran for three seasons.  Season One had 10 episodes, and Rotten Tomatoes reviewers bestowed a 100% rating!  Zelenskyy went on to call his party Servant of the People.

He developed, produced and performed the role of a high school history teacher who became President after a video alleging that he will end the corruption in the country filmed by a student went viral on You Tube.  His students launched a Crowdfunding campaign for his candidacy.  It is a comedy.

From OZY Presents:

Today nearly 55% of the world's 4.2 billion inhabitants live in cities. By 2050, the U.N. estimates nearly 7 out of 10 people in the world will live in urban areas. By 2050, it is estimated that 43 megacities will exist — urban centers with populations greater than 10 million people.

Asia is home to the most ambitious “smart city” projects, from the UAE’s Masdar to India’s Amaravati to China’s Tianjin Eco-City, districts aiming to go completely green, with driverless electric cars and zero-emissions buildings. But the combined population of all these startup cities could fit inside one neighborhood of China’s Chongqing. Whether Asians can scale the innovations of their experimental zones to the level of their many megalopolis cities is the question whose answer will hold lessons for the rest of the world. Read

This deserves a full report, and will in the future, but researchers have reversed aging in rodents, that someday will be applied to humans.  The Salk Institute, in collaboration with Genentech, showed that they could effectively reverse the aging process in middle-aged and elderly mice by partially resetting their cells to more youthful states.  You'll need to understand something called Yamanaka factors, developed by Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Takahashi or Japan.

Last year I hailed the record of New Zealander Doug (to the left, spelled Dug), thought be the world's largest potato.  Well, Guinness World Records denied the title because he is a gourd, not a potato.  This means that the 11 pounder from the UK remains #1.

Can't take this too seriously, for the largest carrot at 22 pounds 7 ounces also looks to me like several carrots linked together, and was grown in 2017.

This one is from Minnesota, and gardener Christopher Qualley said his mother tasted a small piece, but he replanted it, hoping to get some seeds for future growth.

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