ONLY 116 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS

On the covid front, South Korea, with 161,355 new cases this week, and the USA, with 79,513, had 87% of all new cases in the world this week. However, many countries have stopped reporting. The good news is that S.Korea's weekly death rated dropped 38% and the USA 58% this past week.

The USA led in most new deaths this past week with 171, Brazil #2 and S. Korea #3. These three countries accounted for 73% of all world deaths.

Only 116 days to Christmas. You can already buy a few gifts of topical moment. One thing about Donald Trump is that you can purchase all kinds of stuff featuring him. As for example:

2. The big seller, however, is his mug shot mug. Soon after his booking, just on Saturday, August 26, sold more than $4 million worth. Want one? You have a choice from Amazon.com. Only $17.

Joe Biden articles can also be bought. Only $16 for his Cup O' Joe.

It gets cheaper with Rudy Giuliani. Only $15.

This can go on and on, for even Sidney Powell has a series of them. Must be best sellers because they are all currently unavailable from Amazon.

Hunter Biden wrote Beautiful Things. Only $16.

Going to SALT Kakaako for lunch, so that might be my feature for tomorrow. I grew up in Kakaako, and my elementary school, Pohukaina, was across the street from this relatively new dining area.

Hurricane Idalia came and went. Lots of customers without power, lot of flooding, but, all in all, not as bad as feared. Once Super Typhoon Saola nearing Hong Kong might also not cause much damage. Now at 140 MPH and heading straight for this city, the projection is as shown below. Amazing if this happens.

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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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