WHEN WILL THE PANDEMIC BE OVER?

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%.

Notwithstanding, here is my analysis about our Pandemic:

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.

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

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

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

Search This Blog