I can't find any explanation of why this is occurring, but South Korea again leads the world in most covid cases during the past week. This has been going on for more than a month now. From Worldometer, new cases this past week:
- World 272,971
- #1 South Korea 210,672 (77%)
- #2 USA 32,537 (12%)
- Covid deaths during the past week:
- World 590
- #1 USA 129
- #2 Brazil 116
- #3 S. Korea 71
- Mortality rate average this past week:
- World 0.2%
- USA 0.4%
- Brazil 1.2%
- S. Korea 0.03%
- Covid deaths/million population:
- #1 2 Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Malta.
- #5 1 S. Korea, Canada, Croatia
- #12 0.4 USA, Guatemala, Romania, Norway
How does one make any sense of these differences? Take mortality rate, for example.
- The annual mortality rate of the seasonal flu is around 0.1%.
- With all the vaccinations and infections, the mortality rate of covid, which was at 1% for much of the first two years, has dropped to 0.2% for the world and 0.4% for the USA.
- But Brazil remains around 1%.
- The mortality rate of covid in S. Korea is one-third that of the flu.
- Some day some sense will be made of these discrepancies.
Next, what do we know about the uptick in covid cases this summer in the USA?
- Covid hospital admissions, positivity rates and emergency visits have seen national increases this summer.
- Interestingly enough, this has also occurred the past THREE summers.
- Whether its vaccination or previous infection, 96% of blood donors show antibodies.
- The most recent surge occurred this past winter, and this summer's rise is not as serious.
- Many other countries have also experienced a wave this summer.
- In Japan, for example, there has been a fourfold covid case increase from May to July.
- China's wave began in April into June, jumping from 11 million/week to 65 million/week.
- No mention was made about what is happening in South Korea.
- Why do cases rise in the summer?
- People travel.
- Masks are generally not worn.
As cases are rising, should you get a booster shot?
- Probably, but maybe better to wait, for the FDA will be authorizing Pfizer's updated covid vaccine later this month.
- Moderna submitted their request late in June for monovalent shots to target XBB.1.5 subvariants.
- Yet, there is a sense that older individuals or with weakened immune sytems who plan to travel and place themselves in close quarters with other people, might want take this current booster if their last one was at least three months ago.
- The current booster is for Omicron BA.4/5 variants. The majority of current illnesses come from other subvariants.
- When in doubt, get again vaccinated, for this does protect you from getting seriously ill.
- The general advice is to still wear a mask in public settings, but this is not a mandate.
Two from Turkey, first, Instanbul's Camlica Mosque (Chris McGrath) and Edirne's Selimiye Mosque (Cihan Demirci):
Typhoon Khanun passed just south of Naha, leaving some damage, moved west, then, very unusually so, stalled, and will next make almost a U-turn, to bring more problems to Okinawa, then head north for Kyushu. However, the 140 MPH power of the storm just two days ago is now down to 80 MPH and will further weaken. However, when the eye reaches the Pacific Ocean, strengthening is expected back to hurricane strength.
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