BITCOIN, ISSEY AND OLIVIA

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

Aug 4 311 2138 258 70 ?

10 429 2400 254 53 ?

Summary:

Clearly, this pandemic isn't going away.
Most new cases yesterday:

#1 Japan 196,732
#2 S. Korea 151,734
#3 USA 95,530
#4 Germany 59,888
#5 Italy 31,699

Most new deaths yesterday:

#1 USA 429
#2 Brazil 254
#3 Japan 250
#4 Germany 153
#5 UK 148

The rollercoaster known as Bitcoin:

Was at $68,990 in November of last year. Dropped further to 47,733 on 1 January 2022. Dropped below 20,000 on July 11, and yesterday, 24,332. Thus, if you had sunk $10,000 into the stock in November, this would now be worth $3,526.
Why? The geopolitical situation is testy, with the Ukraine War, Pelosi in Taiwan and Europe in an energy crisis. The Feds continued to increase their rate.
Future? Could just as well someday shoot up past $100,000.
Anyway, according to NextAdvisor, only invest 5% of your investment portfolio to crypto.

I'm not into high fashion, but Issey Miyake, the fashion designer famous for his origami-like designs and cult perfumes, passed away. His products are not uber-expensive, for that Pleats Please multicolor storm top below has been reduced to $359 from $520 by ShopStyle. You want a cheap Bao Bao blue wring shoulder bag to the left? $825, discounted from $1000+.

Heck, Louis Vitton since 2010 has had a trash bag purse for $2000. And people buy them. In my day I got Louis Vitton products on the streets of Taiwan for a few dollars.

In fact, my best watch I still use is a Charles Dior I bought in 1998, yes, on the streets of Taiwan, for less than $20 bucks. And it kept good time for almost ten years, until I had to change the battery. Taiwan made the best watch batteries, and I once visited their top producer about making auto batteries. I've only changed my CD watch batteries three times in 24 years, and it keeps perfect time. The photo to the left was taken this morning. The exact same model is on sale on ebay for $331.83. I think the CD outlet sold it way back then for about a thousand dollars. Oh, that business card holder is by Louis Vuitton, bought for a couple of bucks. Way back then, it sold for $75, and today for up to $400. Of course, my purchases were all fakes, but they looked great and functioned well, if not exceptionally.

About Miyake, he lived to a ripe old age of 84 and in the 1980's was responsible for making turtlenecks popular. That's him below.

Another star in passing this week was 73-year old Olivia Newton-John. A nerd from Australia, she shot to fame in the 1978 Grease with John Travolta, and her Physical spent 10 weeks as #1 in 1981. She suffered from breast cancer in 1992, thirty years ago, and slowly declined. She was born in Cambridge, England, moved at a young age to Melbourne, Australia, but lived most her life in the USA.

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

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