For those regulars of this blog site, I will get to our American Melody cruise on the Mississippi River. But first, my topic of the day: the Cicada.- This is not a travel site. No city/town has that name.
- Not about those swarming insects from 13- or 17-year broods. Anyway, this happens not to be one of those springs when they emerge. Although there will come a few stragglers, like this one shown. Brood XXIII will strike in 2028. In prime cicada years, you can more readily find chocolate chip cicada cookies.
The Cicada I'm referring to today is the new COVID variant.- This will be an encore, for this variant first appeared in 2024.
- Cicada is nickname for BA.3.2, which first infected people in South Africa.
- Cicada is responsible for 30% of Europe's COVID ailments.
- More:
Scientists say that Cicada carries 70 to 75 new mutations in the spike protein, the portion that the human immune system recognizes and targets. That's more than in the more dominant variants that began circulating in 2023. But on the more reassuring side, Cicada is still part of the Omicron family of viruses, which first appeared in 2021 (also in South Africa), which means it may still share some genetic similarities to recent variants.
Cicada COVID infections have occurred in more than two dozen U.S. states. But the amount of activity is uncertain, for public-health officials are not required to report COVID case and people now tend to use at-home tests. If your test kit is not out of warranty, it should be able to detect Cicada.
As Cicada is part of the Omicron family, updated vaccines are still mostly effective. While you could still get infected, symptoms should be milder.- Those COVID cases requiring hospitalization thse days belong to high-risk groups, like the elderly, but also those not up to date on vaccination.
- It is still recommended that high-risk people should take the COVID vaccination not only in the Fall, but also before the summer season, or twice/year.
Cicada symptoms are the same as for other COVID infections: sore throat, fever, chills, headache, cough, body aches and runny nose.- On this trip I've been suffering from all the above, but not a sore throat. Plus I know that this is still close to the peak of pollen pollution, so I feel comfortable in saying that I don't have COVID. If I cough at a table, for example, I explain that I don't have anything contagious. I mumble something about pollen allergy.
I thought I'd look at the Worldometer data I used during the Pandemic, and here is the latest info on weekly rates:
- Cases in the last 7 days
- World 45,737
- #1 Russia 19,954
- #2 USA 15,599
- #3 Australia 4,992
- #10 Afghanistan 315
- Cases in the last 7 days/million population.
- #1 Australia 191
- #2 Russia 137
- #3 Hong Kong 92
- #6 USA 47
- Deaths in last 7 days.
- World 363
- #1 USA 173
- #2 Russia 69
- #3 Germany 54
- In other words, almost half the COVID deaths during the past week occurred in the USA.
- However, not really, for many countries do not report to Worldometer anymore, and many have stop counting.
- For USA, total COVID deaths by state per million population.
- #1 Arizona 4,726
- #2 West Virginia 4,602
- #3 New Mexico 4,589
- #10 Kentucky 4,94
- USA Average 3,685
- #25 Wyoming 3,673
- #51 Hawaii 1,531
- Grand total. I asked Google AI.
As of early 2026, research indicates the true global death toll from COVID-19 is significantly higher than the 7.1 officially reported, likely exceeding 19 to 36 million, according to estimates. In the U.S., a 2026 study suggested roughly 150,000–155,000 deaths from 2020–2021 were uncounted, meaning about 16% of deaths went unrecorded.
- Worldometer:
- World: 705 million cases 7 million death,1% mortality rate
- USA 112 million cases 1.2 million deaths
- With 4% the world population, we had 16% of all world deaths.
- Which is, of course, not true.
- From Statisca:
- But Statisca, too, only lists what reports it gets from participating countries.
- Wikipedia has a section that ranks COVID deaths/million population:
- #1 Peru 6,603
- #2 Bulgaria 5,681
- #16 USA 3,618
- #135 Japan 597
- #154 India 374
- #194 China 85
- Yes, both India and China have large populations, but certainly, India had more than 533,847 deaths and China more than 5,272 deaths. The USA has one third their populations, but suffered 1.2 million deaths.
- Wikipedia explains in this manner.
The number of reported deaths and cases in China is likely severely undercounted. Multiple independent studies estimate China's true COVID-19 death toll may be between one to two million, rather than the official count of 122,398.[12][13] This is partly due to how deaths caused by COVID-19 are counted. Only deaths occurring in hospitals are included.[14] Furthermore, regional disparities in reporting and sudden changes in testing strategy contributed to challenges in determining the actual mortality burden.
In October 2021, the World Health Organization estimated 4.7 million excess deaths, both directly and indirectly related to COVID-19 to have taken place in India.[11][12] Multiple studies, using several different sources of data and methods, have found similarly large estimates of excess deaths in India.[13][14]
Google AI says:
As of early 2026, the official COVID-19 death toll in India is reported at over 533,000. However, independent studies and estimates from organizations like the WHO suggest the true number of deaths is significantly higher, likely ranging between 3 million and over 4 million, due to excess mortality and significant undercounting.
About China: Other analyses (Forbes/academic modeling) put the probable true toll between 1.5 and 2 million through mid-2023, with high-end scenarios up to 3.5 million.
- So, to summarize the actual COVID death count:
- USA Worldometer 1.12 million, but may be up to 1.5 million
- India Worldometer 533,570, but more likely over 3 million up to 4 million
- China Worldometer 5,272, but more likely over 2 million up to 3.5 million.
- The World? According to Google AI:
As of April 2026, over 7.1 million confirmed COVID-19 deaths have been reported worldwide. However, the actual total death toll is estimated to be significantly higher—likely between 19 and 36 million when accounting for indirect deaths and underreporting, according to analyses of excess mortality.
About our current cruise down the Mississippi....I'll continue tomorrow. Some COVID cartoons.
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