THE END OF LAHAINA...and more on covid

Lahaina on Maui is now no more. You can follow the devastation from where you are. I will provide special details tomorrow. For now, read my posting of 29April2023 about Lahaina, the one best day of our entire 53-day Seabourn Odyssey cruise. What we saw are now all gone.

I prepared the following yesterday for posting today.

Some USA Covid stats?

32% have been infected, and the percentage is probably lower/person because many have caught it twice, and some more.
2% died from Covid.
1% of those who caught Covid died.
Should you contract Covid today, there is now a 0.5% chance of dying.
In South Korea, those who contract Covid today have only a 0.03% chance of dying.
Why this significant difference? I don't know.
The mortality rate of the seasonal flu is between 0.03% and 0.07%, depending on the year.

Asymptomatic Covid victims have always been the most dangerous to spread this disease.

Three years ago, the CDC thought that 35% of Covid cases were asymptomatic. Tony Fauci placed this figure at 40-45%.
Two years ago, about a third of Covid cases were tested to be asymptomatic.
Covid vaccines were introduced early in 2021, and by the end of 2022, over 13 billion doses had been administered. The world population is around 8 billion.

Fully vaccinated as of early 2023.

Qatar 99%
China 91%
Singapore 90%
Taiwan 87%
South Korea 86%
Japan 82%
G7 countries 75%
European Union 73%
India 69%
USA 68%
Russia 55%
South Africa 33%

The point of the immediate above is that asymptomatic rates clearly jump when a population gets vaccinated.

By April of 2022 Shanghai showed an asymptomatic rate of 97%.
Across China it was 95%.

The USA had the most Covid cases during the past week. One reason is that our vaccination rate is not that high. See above data.
But why are there so many new Covid cases in South Korea? They have a relatively high vaccination rate. Answer? I don't know. New Covid cases this past week (change from previous week in parentheses):

World 357,032 (-12%)

#1 S. Korea 296,617 (-7%)

#2 USA 28,333 (-31%)

So what is the latest info about Covid?

There is yet another new subvariant, formally known as EG.5 and nicknamed Eris, that is now the most prevalent strain in the USA. But only 17%.
#2 is XBB.1.16 with 15%.
In other words, there is a spectrum of subvariants all around you.
They are all related to the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.9.2.
The next booster will also address EG.5, which is also expanding in dominance around the world.

Went out to lunch at Mian. Off Sheridan Street close to Walmart, Mian and sister restaurant Chengdu Taste, are worthy of your consideration.

Meal okay. The pork belly skewer, though, was outstanding. At 15 Craigside, pork tonkatsu and o-toro sashimi, while watching the Seven Stars. Got $5400/person for 4 nights/3 days? Then this train ride on Kyushu, Japan is for you. It only starts at this price, and you need to win a lottery to earn a seat. Who can afford this?

I'm off to Ala Wai for a Buddhist golf tournament. Just went to West Loch. Summer flowers.

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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