Skip to main content

DIAMONDS

        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 
June    2         216      1413          130          10        31 
July    7          320       1958        297          38         9 
        14          231       1721           292          47         8 
        21          367       2063         351          45         4
        27          397       2326         308         44         5
Summary:
  • The World retrogressed back to May 5 of this year, when there were 2404 deaths, compared to 2326 yesterday.  However, it was 12,012 on February 2 of 2022, only about six months ago.  The world high in deaths/day occurred in January of 2021.
  • Japan had by far the most new cases, 180,226, with the USA at #2 with 114,116.
  • New cases/million population
    • #1      Wallis and Futuna  16,062
    • #2      Micronesia  5,931
    • #3      Cook Island  4,944
    • #4      Brunei  3,537
    • #5      Anguila  2,422
    • #6      South Korea  1,951
    • #7      Australia  1,899
    • #9      New Zealand  1,838
    •           Hawaii  1455
    • #14    Japan  1,434
    • #17    Germany  1,235
    • #19    Taiwan  1,074
    • #29    Hong Kong  591
    • #35    Israel  442
    • #41    USA  341
    • #73    Thailand  39
    • #88    South Africa  6
    • #109  China  0.08
    • More than a hundred locations did not report new cases yesterday, so the above rankings are not as bad as the above shows.
    • Note that Japan, which was #1 in new cases, is #14 in new cases/million population, and Hawaii is slightly worse than Japan.

The biggest news of the day was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin announcing a deal on a whole bunch of Democrat liberal desires, including climate change, tax credits for electric vehicles, higher taxes for corporations and really rich people, medicare medications and subsidies for Obamacare.   

  • Amounts to $369 billion (or $430 billion, depending who is reporting), and far less than the $2 trillion plus originally proposed.
  • Normal bills require 60 senators to pass, but this budgetary item will use reconciliation, which only needs a majority  (50 senators and the Veep) upon Senate Parliamentarian approval.
  • But what about Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and a few other recalcitrant Democrats?  No comments about them, but the fact the announcement was made must mean something.
  • Should pass the Senate next week.
  • Interestingly enough, this agreement was reached after the Senate passed another bill to subsidize the domestic semiconductor chip industry.  The House will soon concur.
  • McConnell and Republicans are supremely pissed about what happened.
Apparently, a larger one was found 300 years ago, but a 170-carat pink diamond named Lulo Rose was recently discovered in Angola from gravel and sands found on riverbeds.  

  • Only one in a 10,000 diamonds is colored.  
  • And only one in every 100 diamonds is greater than 10.8 carats.
  • Not certain what Lulo Rose is worth, but Angola's biggest diamond, dubbed the 4th February Stone (a colorless diamond three inches across, right) discovered on 4 February 2016, was 404.2 carats and sold for $16 million.  It is the 27th largest diamond ever found.
  • The largest diamond ever was the Cullinan on 25 January 1905 in Pretoria, South Africa at 3106 carats and weighing 1.33 pounds.  
    • Sir Thomas Cullinan owned the mine.
    • Sold to the Transvaal provincial government and presented to Britain's King Edward VII as a birthday gift.
  • The Cullinan was cut into 9 large stones and 100 smaller ones.
    • The largest is called the Star of Africa I, or Cullinan I, and is at 530 carats, the largest in the world.  It is mounted in the British Sovereign's Royal Scepter.
  • The Scepter was made in 1661, with Cullinan I added in 1911.
Frank will reach Category 2 strength, but move north and dissipate:
Georgette will just continue to meander in a circle.
Day 8 of the Blood Lily bloom.  Notice that six or seven more are in the process of appearing.
-
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 suspicious and troublesome.  This strain has also been spreading in
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 several months.  This is caused by stress more than anythi
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 are held every five years, and there have only been
Post a Comment
Read more