COVID, MALARIA, NOBEL PRIZE, DONALD TRUMP AND MARILYN MONROE

This is Nobel Prize week, and they are into day 4:

Physics: Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Kraausz and Anne L'Huillier for developing a tool for observing electrons within an atom.
Chemistry: Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov, who looked a little larger...quantum dot nanoparticles.
Literature: Jon Fosse, for his innovative plays and prose, giving voice to the unsayable.

Physiology/Medicine: Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman did the fundamental mRNA research to develop the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines.

Note their wearing masks. 15 Craigside now has an outbreak, so even though the pandemic is over, there is still danger today.

Working together at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 2000s, they showed it was possible to dampen the body's inflammatory responses to labmade mRNAs by making specific chemical changes to the component bases of the molecules.

Said Anthony Fauci, this is a wonderful choice of Nobel Prize, who had Weissman as a fellow in his lab.

Kariko never was granted any major National Institutes of Health research grant in her career, that says something about being a female and foreigner. She is just the 13th woman to get a Novel in this field in the 120-year history of this award.
One other plus of these mRNA vaccines is that they are faster to manufacture than traditional vaccines.
Various companies are now following this pathway to also treat diseases.

There are now around a hundred covid deaths/day in the world. In February of 2021 there were 2000 deaths/day. Today, there is an average of 1718 MALARIA deaths/day, a drop from the 2400 deaths/day in 2000.

The mortality rate of malaria is 2%. The mortality rate of covid is 1%, but with vaccinations today, seems to be approaching the mortality rate of the seasonal flu, which is 0.1%.

Other comparisons:

There are around 250 million malaria cases/year. So far, there have been around 700 million covid cases, or about 200 million covid cases/year.
96% of all malaria deaths occur in Africa.
Finally, vaccines are beginning to work for malaria.

Covid vaccine?

Just 36% of registered Republican voters who got a Covid vaccine say it was worth it, while 90% of Democrats and 67% of independents say it was, according to new NBC News polling.
Who got vaccinated?

94% of Democrats
75% of Independents
60% of Republicans

The biggest winner so far from the House of Representatives debacle? Sure, the Democrats are more and more envisioning a landslide on 5 November 2024. But the person who gained the most is Vladimir Putin. The lack of Ukraine funding only means that he will double down on trying to get Donald Trump re-elected. And what if they both are victorious?

Here is another scary thought. Did you know that the position of Speaker can be held by an outsider? Like, for example, Donald Trump. He said, a lot of people have been calling me about speaker. Where was he quoted to say this? Outside of the New York City courthouse on Wednesday facing the $250 million civil fraud trial. As you must know, the Speaker of the House is second in the presidential line of succession after the vice president.

There was no grand prize winner of the Powerball drawing last night. Thus, the pot increases to $1.4 billion on Saturday.

No confirmed reports yet of whether Taylor Swift will attend the Kansas City NFL game at Minnesota this weekend. However, Travis Kelce thinks that the league is over-hyping this relationship.

Marilyn Monroe was born a little more than 97 years ago. She died at the age of 36 in 1962. Here is one view of how she might have looked today. What a life. Just mentioned her two days ago in my posting of Tuesday, where she was the original inspiration for Candle in the Wind. Her most popular song, probably Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, although I personal prefer I Wanna Be Loved By You.

Typhoon Koinu (which means puppy in Japanese) killed one person and had the highest wind speeds ever recorded over Taiwan: 213 MPH gust, while sustained winds were at 123.5 MPH. Hard to believe this because there seems to be so many more, but Koinu was only the SECOND typhoon to make landfall over Taiwan in FOUR years.

Typhoon Koinu has weakened to 80 MPH and should miss Hong Kong, but head for Hainan as a tropical storm.

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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