Skip to main content

LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN DEATH

    

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
Feb     2        2990   12012          946        991      175
Mar     2        1778     7756          335         173       28 
Apr     1          439      4056         290          52       12
May    5          225      2404          151            ?       64 
         12          222      1995           136           9       21
         19          201      1801           115           20      31
         26          217      1528          136           14      49
June   2          216       1413         130          10       31
          9          195      1526         148           24       24 
        15          305      1382         289           11       26
        16          170       1380         199          14          8

Summary:
  • Looks promising.
  • The USA was only #2 in new cases yesterday with 76,023.  #1 was Germany with 89,151.  Taiwan #3 with 63,182.
  • New deaths (per million population):
    • #1  Brazil  199  (0.92)
    • #2  USA   170  (0.51)
    • #3  Taiwan  168  (7.0)
    • #4  Canada  115  (3.0)
    • #10  Finland  57  (10.2)
  • I will add Japan because we have trip a planned to that country in October.
    • New cases:  16,555 (131)
    • New deaths:  28 (0.2)
  • Hawaii
    • New cases, about 1000 (714)
    • New deaths, about 1 (0.7)
  • Hawaii has removed all travel restrictions.  You don't need a negative test to come.
  • Japan only allows limited tour groups to visit.
  • Hawaii has 5.5 times more new cases/capita than Japan.
  • Hawaii has 3.5 times more new deaths/capita than Japan.
  • I predict that Japan will remove travel restrictions this summer, and maybe in July.
A bit of good news to preserve more lives is that soon anyone over 6 months of age will be able to vaccinated with either the Pfizer or Moderna inoculations.  In the U.S. nearly 20 million are under 5-year old.  However, many children will continue to be among the unprotected because of parental fears.  One survey found that only 20% will agree to have this youthful group vaccinated.

This will make my life even better, for the House January 6 Committee hearing yesterday revealed even more nails to someday seal Trump's coffin.  He knew what he was doing was illegal, and egoistically proceeded anyway, and got caught.  Perhaps this developing revelation of what is looming as a serious coup attempt will persuade Mike Pence to personally testify.  The next two hearings will occur next Tuesday (June 21) and Thursday (June 23) at 1 PM EDT.

Okay, so what do I do with my life?  I don't go out much, spending my time Saving Humanity and Planet Earth,  exercising, eating/drinking, and watching television.  America's Got Talent began telecasting Season 17 a couple of weeks ago.  Hard to believe this all began in 2006 and is nearing 400 episodes.
This weekend featured three worthy performances:
  • Nate and Gabriel Brown are brothers who are both autistic.  Turns out that if one twin has it, 90% of the time so does the other.  They are not twins, but the odds are higher in siblings than normal families.  Watch their impressions.
  • 13-year old Sarah James of Poland got Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer singing Lovely by Billie Eilish.  Turns out Simon has Polish roots, and so has Howie Mandel.  Asked why she came so far to participate, Sarah said:   “When I was a kid, I was always watching the videos on YouTube of the show, and I was so amazed by that. And they said that in America, everything is coming true. The dreams are coming true. So I check if that’s true.”  She will be a star.
  • The surprise of the night was 10-year old Harper.  She made it to the next round.

The previous week had two especially memorable performances.  Metaphysics made a presentation that will blow your mind.  Would not be surprised if they won the competition, for they can be amazingly creative, changing the world of entertainment.

Another presentation was kind of a shock.  During breaks, AGT just passes the mike around in the audience and people karaoke-sing.  Most of them are well, you can imagine.  However, one 11-year old was so good, they asked her to come to the stage and perform.  Madison Taylor Baez sang Amazing Grace...and got a Golden Buzzer.  Never happened before. You just got to click on that.  Never bothered to audition, but at the age of 9 sung the National Anthem at Dodgers Stadium.  America's Got Talent runs on Tuesday nights.

One final bit of good news, for some.  How many remember that President Joe Biden signed the legislation that made Juneteenth, the 19th of June, a national holiday?  As this year that date falls on a Sunday, this coming Monday will be a holiday.  Except only 17 states will consider this as a legal holiday.  Your legislature needs to act for Juneteenth to become a state holiday.  One reason this won't universally happen is explained by Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco of Connecticut, who indicated that the state already had 15 vacation days, 15 sick days, three personal days and 13 holidays.  An employee can get 46 paid days off/year.

Finally, 15 Craigside, where I live, is, like most seniors' communities, faced with a COVID-19 problem, generally transmitted by the staff to us residents.  Worse, we are so short of workers that those asymptomatic but needed are encouraged to work.  As such, we usually eat in our apartment, with takeout to be free from tomorrow.  My TV-watching has been accompanied by assorted beverages, one drink particularly for the Belmont Stakes, and Korean Soju for the House hearing, but only because we were having Kalbi.  Also, Chazuke, Sashimi and Tri-tip. 

Tonight, my monthly luau, so I'll need to get some poke and squid luau to improve what 15 Craigside provides.

- 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more