Everyone is spooked about the COVID-19 subvariant BA.5, for it today accounts for 65% of infections in the USA, and is the most contagious of them all.
- The latest data shows that both the BA.4 and BA.5 are about as transmissible as the measles.
- This means that, like the measles, these subvariants will infect 90% of people who are not immune through close contact with an infected person.
- Actually, the common cold is #1 in contagiousness, followed by conjunctivitis (pink eye), viral gastroenteritis (like norovirus) and strep throat.
- The Delta variant is 60% more contagious than the Alpha, which itself was 50% more contagious than the original COVID-19 virus. Delta is more contagious than the flu or chicken pox, and on par with the measles.
- If Delta, BA.4 and BA.5 are equal to the measles, why have the latter subvariants replaced Delta? One answer is that the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants can bypass the immune system of those vaccinated or previously infected.
- In any case, those vaccinated and double boosted, even if they are infected, should only suffer from mild symptoms.
- Sure, Pfizer and Moderna are supposedly developing a vaccine specifically to fend off both the BA.4 and BA.5 variants. However, they won't arrive until October at the earliest.
- What do we do now? First of all, get all the shots and boosters as you can as soon as medically possible. They will protect you from hospitalization and death.
- If you get infected, get your doctor to prescribe Paxlovid, for this reduced hospitalizations and death by 90%.
- According to the World Bank, COVID-19 deaths just passed 7 million worldwide. Worldometer says 6.4 million deaths and 566,980,645 total cases. The World Health Organization in May said that COVID deaths are poorly reported, and the number of deaths then should have been 15 million.
- About COVID cases.
- The maximum new cases of just over 4 million occurred on 26 January 2022.
- Yesterday, this number dropped to 911,825 new cases.
- The seasonal flu infects around a billion people/year, or 2.7 million/day.
- The maximum deaths on any day was 16,463, which occurred on 24 January 2021. This number went up and down three more times to 11,704 on 6 February 2022. Yesterday 1202 died.
- The seasonal flu kills 650,0000/year. This means there are 1780 flu deaths/day!
- Actually that is in a really bad year. This annual number has dropped to as low as 291,000, which is 797/day.
- Taking the average of the two for the seasonal flu, I get 1289 flu deaths/day, compared to 1202 COVID-19 deaths yesterday. And to repeat, while there are 2.7 million new flu cases/day, while there were only 0.9 million COVID-19 new cases yesterday.
- Thus, yesterday there were one-third fewer COVID-19 cases than the flu, and fewer COVID-19 than flu deaths!!!
- I'm not the World Health Organization, but if I had this authority, I would give thought to announcing that this pandemic is over!!!
Many of you have been to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London. Apparently, no one noticed that there was this giant water lily growing there for 177 years. This specimen and two other cousins were brought to the UK from Bolivia in 1852. Only recently was some research undertaken to prove there was something different about a particular lily. It grows to 10 feet wide, can carry a full-grown man, produces flowers larger than a soccer ball, changing colors between white and pink, and only blooms at night. They named it Victoria boliviana. To the left with botanical artist Lucy Smith and below, horticulturist Carlos Magdalena, the team leader.
Click on this to learn more, like what are those two brown objects in I.
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