It's been more than four years since the coming of Covid-19.  For several years I every Thursday reported on this pandemic.  I've noticed where I live at 15 Craigside, a seniors' community, that time and time again residents returned from trips away from Hawaii, and tended to test negative at first, but positive several days later.  My conclusion now is that they must have caught this virus while on the flight home.  There is one resident who never tested positive when she returned home, BUT, on three trips after the pandemic was cancelled, caught covid all three times while away. Two weeks ago, in my posting on  SHOULD YOU CONTINUE TO WORRY ABOUT COVID-19 WHEN YOU TRAVEL? , I quoted the  Mayo Clinic : Travel increases your chance of getting and spreading   COVID-19 . If you're unvaccinated, staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from   COVID-19 . If you must travel and aren't vaccinated, talk with your health care provider an...

I'll begin with a  paradox , thusly stated: As Dr. Shira Doron, an epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center,   puts it , “It is simultaneously true that masks work and mask mandates do not work.”   Further: To start with the first half of the paradox: Masks reduce the spread of the Covid virus by preventing virus particles from traveling from one person’s nose or mouth into the air and infecting another person. Laboratory studies have repeatedly demonstrated the effect. Given this, you would think that communities where mask-wearing has been more common would have had many fewer Covid infections. But that hasn’t been the case. In U.S. cities where mask use has been more common, Covid has spread   at a similar rate   as in mask-resistant cities. Mask mandates in schools also seem   to have done little   to reduce the spread. Hong Kong,   despite almost universal mask-wearing , recently endured one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks. More: The main ...

    From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9    1093     4732         1185       246       82 July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703   ...