I promised to post Part 2 of my SETI series today, but I'll again delay it. Tomorrow for sure. Today, back to the pandemic.   The   Star Advertiser   this morning had a startling front page headline: FLU PROVES DEADLIER THAN COVID   Essentially, here is what the article said:  In Hawaii, on an annual basis, the combined deaths for flu and pneumonia are higher than the 12-month death total for COVID-19.  Keep in mind that the death rate of this pandemic virus is 10 to 66 times that of the seasonal flu, so the latter higher than the former is a bit scary.  And why such a wide range? Using data from  Worldometer: The world mortality rate of COVID-19 is 2%.  This means that 2 die for every 100 cases. Depending on who you ask, the mortality rate of the seasonal flu is anywhere from  0.03%  to  0.1% . The matter of asymptomaticity causes a lot of confusion, for that 2% fatality figure for COVID will someday be much lower when the total cases count also includes this group.   Thus, the st

   The final Tokyo Olympics medals standings showed the following:                               GOLD     Total   Medals/million population USA                39          113          0.35 China              38           88         0.06 Japan              27            58         0.98 Russa             20            71           0.49 Australia                        36           2.1 New Zealand                 20           4.1 Jamaica                          9            3.1 San Marino                    3         88.6 Entering Sunday, the U.S. had two fewer golds than China.  However, women made the difference: The USA women did well. Won the gold for basketball. Won the gold for volleyball. Plus, Great Britains's Lauren Price beat China's Li Qian in women's middleweight boxing. Among the downers, though: For the first time since 1980 when the USA boycotted the Moscow Olympics, the U.S. men's track team failed to win even one individual gold medal. We failed to beat t

According to a Pew Research Center global study of 230 countries and territories, 84% of people in the world are affiliated with a religion.  Most of the 16% non-believers reside in China and Russia, where religion is actively discouraged.  It is thus believable that most of Humanity thank some form of God for their blessings.  I don't express my feelings to anyone in particular, but appreciate the efforts of friends, family, colleagues, teachers, freedom fighters, medical profession and certain organizations. What can Americans be thankful about?  He has his supporters, but the majority are relieved that Donald Trump is no longer PUS ( P resident of the U nited S tates ).   This makes TV news channel watching now a bore, but I'll take that over the end of democracy.  The COVID-19 pandemic has killed around 2.7 million so far, and this number could reach 5 million by the time it's over.  However, history has seen worse ( and remember, the population has increased ): Traffi