DON'T BE STUPID ABOUT COVID

The Pandemic is over, and, while covid still lurks, this subject is swiftly becoming a non-newsworthy subject. Mind you, don't be stupid about this virus, for it will yet return in various ways. In the future, though, until this happens, Thursdays will thus evolve into my health and medical advances day. So for today, from Worldometer:

Most cases this week (7 day period):

World 161,589
#1 S. Korea 106,642 (66% of all cases)
#2 USA 15,918
#3 Brazil 9,297
But many countries don't report anymore.

Cases in past week per million population:

World 20
#1 Tokelau 22,496
#2 S. Korea 2,078
#3 Barbados 1309
#18 USA 48
#30 Phillipines 20

Deaths this past week:

World 577
Brazil 138
Canada 96
USA 81

Deaths in past week per million population:

World 0.07
#1 Barbados 21
#2 Norway 6
#3 New Zealand 5
#16 USA 0.2

The James Webb Space Telescope celebrated its one-year old birthday by sending us a new photo of the closest star-forming region to Planet Earth. Only a little over 400 light years away is a galaxy with baby stars being born of dust and gas, much like how our own Sun formed.

Remember a few days ago I said that bullets can go 2600 MPH, three times the speed of sound, or that the fastest human-made object is NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which went 25,000 MPH before crashing into our Sun? This is about 0.05% the speed of light.

So if we can somehow send a spacecraft to this galaxy at 25,000 MPH, it would take nearly a million years to get there.
A million years ago Homo sapiens, us, did not exist.
There were relatives like Homo heidelbergensis.
What will we look like a million years from now?

That article says that is not a biological question anymore, it's technological.

Designer babies will be the norm.
But, more so, it goes on to say the shape and size will depend on whether that body is on Mars or....
Perhaps a cyborg.
I think we won't exist, for AI will eliminate us for being a competitor. Read my posting of this past Sunday on God, Evolution and Artificial Intelligence.

Heard about a Santa Cruz otter stealing a surfboard from a surfer? Apparently, this was not an isolated incident. This one was her fourth time. Here, watch this. This otter has been identified as a 5-year old female, and even gives kayakers a bad time. Apparently female southern sea otters become aggressive from hormonal surges. Authorities are plotting to capture her and find another home away from surfers. This also happened in 2022 with another female, which they "hazed," whatever that means.

Accuweather shows Hurricane Calvin heading straight for Hawaii. However, after reaching Category 2 strength tomorrow, cooler waters will weaken him, bringing rain to the state next Tuesday and Wednesday.

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...

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...

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...

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