GOOD AND BAD NEWS ABOUT SOUTH KOREA

First, the good news. Covid cases are crashing. South Korea led the world in new Covid cases for many months, but finally was overtaken this past week by the USA.

Last Week This Past Week Weekly Case Change

World 404,396 74,913 -81%
USA 39,033 27,512 -30%
S. Korea 317,060 18,386 -94%
New Zealand 3,623 4,477 +24%

Like the USA, South Korea's women's soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup. However, they did tie Germany, which also got the boot.

Nature has totally screwed up the 25th World Scout Jamboree in Saemangeum, North Jeolla, South Korea.

August 1-12, 2023.
43,000 participants from 158 countries.
First, there were floods that inundated this tideland.
Then, it became that there were going to be sanitation, water, transportation and infrastructure problems.
Then a heat wave came with temperatures up to 95 F. On August 4 alone, 1,486 visited the on-site hospital.
Several countries like the USA pulled out, sending our Boy Scouts to Camp Humphreys, a U.S. military base in the country.
Then, Typhoon Khanun changed courses and was projected to head for South Korea, to arrive on August 10.
Key events were moved to the Seoul area from August 4.
Today, all Jamboree participants were told to leave the site.

Now, Typhoon Khanun is head for South Korea, with landfall in the general vicinity of Busan.

Day 3 of the African Blood Lily.

Comments

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