Using   Worldometer   data, the USA had 66,046 new cases during the past week.  This was 55% the World total of 119,320 cases.  This past week, however, saw a 48% drop in the U.S. from the previous full week. That 55% rate is far too high, as many countries, such as Japan and South Korea, don't report anymore, and I know from  other sources  that South Korea at more than 10,000 or so cases/week. South Korea began to have covid outbreaks after most of its citizens were vaccinated.  Thus, their overall mortality rate is  only 0.1%.  Today it is still at 0.1%, twice that of the seasonal flu at  0.05%.  The USA overall is now at 1%.  However, in recent weeks, the mortality rate has dropped to 0.2%, or four times the flu mortality rate. The USA during the 2021-2022 flu season had 9 million cases, or divided by 365 meant 25,000 flu cases/day.  Of course most people got sick during the colder months.  So let's double that to 50,000 cases/day.  We are beginning to enter the 2023-2024 f

Checking Worldometer, there were 122,971  new World Covid cases this past  week , 84,153 for just the USA.  This probably means that many countries are just not reporting anymore.  Japan and South Korea had for the past few months always been at or close to #1.  They must have given up keeping score. The World on 21 January 2022 had 3,847,291 new cases, just on that date. On a daily basis, the world new cases/day dropped by a factor of 219 from the peak last year.   The deaths/day fell to around 700,000 around mid-December of last year. I can count eight to ten waves, with the final one this summer unworthy of being included. The USA had 108,386,688 total covid cases, with 1,174,847 deaths. Thus 32% of Americans have been infected. Actually, probably closer to one in four, for many got it more than once. There was only a 0.3% chance that you died from covid if you were in the U.S. The mortality rate was 1.1% Since the beginning the World had 695,250,823 total cases, with 6,915,134 tota

From the beginning of this covid pandemic till a few months ago I weekly on Thursday showed a table of vital statistics.  I still on this day tend to feature some facet of this disease because it remains with us, and the older you are, the more prone you are to an earlier death.  In fact, at 15 Craigside, we have returned to wearing masks in the building because of a minor outbreak.  Not residents, but mostly dining staff members. So today I'll show the latest weekly data on SARS-CoV-2 from  Worldometer .  Note though that many countries no longer are even reporting.  Most cases this past week: World  149,666 #1      South Korea  82,165 ( 55% of all world cases ) #2      USA  18,654 #3      Brazil  9,634 Deaths this past week: World  661 #1      Brazil  167 #2      USA  98 #3      Russia  86 Deaths this past week per million population World  0.1 #1    Turks and Caicos  25 #2    Malta  7 #3    Singapore  6 #4    New Zealand  3 #7    Australia 2 #10  Brazil  0.8 #13  Thailand  0.6 #

 From  Worldometer , COVID-19 cases this past week (in parentheses, cases in the last 7 days/million population): World  3,626,189 (453) #1  Japan  1,029,587 (8198) #2  S. Korea  455,268 (8869) #3  France  396,007 (6038) #4  Brazil  299,204 (1389) #5  USA  294,280 (879) #6  Germany  221,956 (2646) #7  Italy  130,145 2160) #8  Taiwan  106,827 (4472) #9  Hong Kong  206,806 (14,045) #10  Australia  103,147 (3957) I can generalize in various ways.   Sure, China did start the pandemic, but the two epicenters quickly became Europe and USA.   Countries of the Orient and Oceania fared well for the first two years. Today, the leading COVID centers are Europe, the USA, the Orient and Oceania. Early on, pundits remarked that countries like Japan did not get badly infected because they wore masks and culture provided a higher responsibility factor, plus, perhaps, some variation of the coronavirus must have reasonably recently somehow infected the general population (cold or flu, probably), leaving

My answer to the query above is no.  However, COVID-19 deaths are continuing to decline, and if you're fully vaccinated and boosted twice, and will take a third booster in the fall, traveling will very soon be no different than during the normal flu season.  Of course you should not listen to me.  Here is the latest  CDC travel map . Anticipating the best, we are looking forward to going to the Orient in late October, spending some Fall colors time in Japan, followed by a 12-day Celebrity Millennium cruise from Yokohama to Singapore.  Taking data from  Worldometer , here are the pandemic conditions on all our planned stops. Okinawa: My travel mate has been looking forward to the Okinawa  7th Worldwide Uchinanchu Taikai Festival  from October 30 to November 3. 6th gathering in Naha drew 7,353 people from 29 countries and 430,000 attendees. This is the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japan. Approximately 420,000 people from Okinawa have migrated to North and South Amer