The quantum computer is here.   Transition : The earliest intelligent life might have used fingers to compute. The Lebombo bone, dating back 35,000 BC, had 29 distinct notches. The Sumerian abacus appeared around 2500 BC.  China only used this device around the year zero. Several analog computers go back to around 150 BC in Greece with the astrolabe. In 1206 came the first programmable computer, a clock. Soon thereafter, the  equatorium .  Here is one by Johannes Schoner in the 16th century. The slide rule was invented around 1620 in England. Germany designed the first calculating machine in 1623. In 1645 Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical calculator. Gottfried von Leibniz dabbled with a binary numeral system around 1675, the means by which all modern computers now work. In 1822 Charles Babbage's machines used the decimal system, and so did ENIAC in 1945. When I taught computer programming half a century ago, I used punched cards, something invented in 1804 by French weaver Joseph

  I looked closer at the   Worldometer  and   Our World in Data   for COVID-19 this morning, and can make several observations: The World is approaching 300 million cases and 5.5 million deaths, a mortality rate just under 2% and 0.75 deaths/1000.  On the last number, picture a thousand people.  Less than one death. The USA has 56 million cases and will soon reach one million deaths, a mortality rate of 1.5% and 2.5 deaths/thousand.  For a thousand people, 2.5 deaths.  In a two-year period ( to be about equal to the time frame of these COVID-19 deaths ), there would be 3.6 cancer deaths in the U.S. Japan has 1.7 million cases, 18,393 deaths, mortality rate of 1% and 0.15 deaths/capita. Denmark has a tests/capita rate of 18.5, with #2 Austria at 13.7, and the UK at 5.9.  The U.S. has a tests/capita of 2.4. Fully vaccinated % ( not including booster ) UAE  91% Portugal 90% Singapore  87% Cuba  85% China  84% Japan  78% UK  70% European Union  69% U.S. 62% Asia  57% India  44% Egypt  20%