Just when you thought the USA had abandoned Ukraine,  President Donald Trump today indicated that he will resume aid, both military and intelligence, to Ukraine .  What did President Volodmyr Zelenskyy have to do?  He showed openness to a 30-day ceasefire.  However, in talks that began in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that Ukraine had to give up land won by Russia in this war.  What a way to start discussions.  Note that  Ukraine was not invited to this meeting . It was exactly five years, on 11March2020, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was announced by the World Health Organization ( WHO ) to be a pandemic.   Before that day, this disease was called coronavirus, novel coronavirus, Wuhan coronavirus or Wuhan pneumonia.   WHO officially named it 2019-nCoV in January 2020, and shortened it to COVID-19 on 11February2020, with CO from COronavirus, VI from VIrus and D from Disease, while 19 came from the year it was fi...

A coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China in December 2019.   We were on the Diamond Princess  in the Orient that month .  Came back to Hawaii.   However this same ship on 20January2020 boarded an 80-year old passenger from Hong Kong with a respiratory ailment, and started the international spread.   The Diamond Princess on 3February2020 returned to Yokohama, but had to anchor at sea, for a strange new disease seemed to be spreading. Unknowingly,  we flew from Honolulu to Bangkok, Thailand on 11February2020 . That day the World Health Organization announced the official name for this virus would be COVID-19, CO for corona, VI for virus, D for diseases and 19, the year (2019) it was first discovered. Ultimately, with 2,666 passengers and a crew of 1,045, 712 became infected, with 14 deaths.  Interestingly enough, 20% of the people on the ship were infected, and of those, 2% died.  So far, in the world, there have been 704,753,890 ...

Looking back in time, my  posting on 28February2020  summarized my return from Thailand: The fearsome factor was that Thailand had the second-most cases of   covid-19   when I left Honolulu on February 12.  Today, it is #9.  No new cases appeared after I arrived in that country.  No one is known to have died. (Interestingly enough, today  Thailand  is #33 in total cases and #143 in cases/million population.) But on  11 March2020 the World Health Organizaton declared the coronavirus to be a global pandemic .   This was the first time that a pandemic was caused by a coronavirus. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1200 points, the worst since 2008.  The eleven year bull market came to an end. China and Italy were locked down. Tom Hanks posted on Instagram that he and his wife Rita Wilson had contracted this virus.  They were in Australia. Two Utah Jazz players tested positive and the NBA canceled the rest of the se...