COVID AND THE STURGEON SUPERMOON

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 days ago I alerted you to watching the super moon. For historical reasons, this was the Sturgeon Supermoon because the Farmer's Almanac indicated that Indians were able to catch more of this fish in the Great Lakes when this moon appeared. Here are some photos from around the world.

Two from Turkey, first, Instanbul's Camlica Mosque (Chris McGrath) and Edirne's Selimiye Mosque (Cihan Demirci):

An ancient temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, south of Athens (Aris Messinis):

Over temple in Jiujiang, China (VCG, Getty images):

Statue of Liberty (Gary Hershorn):

Moon over Manhattan as seen from New Jersey (Seth Wenig).

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.

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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