Resurgent

News blues

How dangerous is the Delta variant, and will it cause a COVID surge in the U.S.? First identified in India, the Delta variant, more transmissible form of the novel coronavirus, has spread to at least 77 countries and regions and now makes up more than 20 percent of all U.S. cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified it as a “variant of concern.” If vaccination rates fail to keep pace with its spread, experts say, the variant could lead to new COVID surges in parts of the country where a substantial proportion of the population remains. 

Read in Scientific American >> 

And…

The gap between the most vaccinated and least vaccinated places in the U.S. has exploded in the past three months, and continues to widen despite efforts to convince more Americans to get a Covid shot.
On a national level, the news appears good. About 300,000 new people are getting a Covid vaccine every day in the U.S., and 54% of the full U.S population has at least one dose. The country’s vaccine campaign is among the most successful in the world, states have lifted restrictions on business and socializing, and hospitalizations have plunged.
Newly available county-level data show how those national figures hide very different local vaccine realities.

Read “Growing Gaps in U.S. Vaccination Rates Show Regions at Risk” >> 

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In South Africa, the previous Covid-19 resurgence, which peaked in January 2021, was dominated by the Beta variant.

The current resurgence in South Africa differs by province, and even within a particular province. Gauteng, the country’s economic hub and one of nine provinces, is probably two to three weeks ahead of what will likely be experienced particularly in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and Kwazulu Natal provinces.
In Gauteng the data show that the daily rate of Covid-19 infections in the current wave is two-and-a-half times higher than at the peak of the first or second wave. Unfortunately, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on Sunday of stricter lockdown measures is unlikely to stop the trend.

Read “The Delta variant and vaccine failures push South Africa back into lockdown” >> 

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The Lincoln Project: Last week in the Republican Party  (1.24 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

After a century of wielding extraordinary economic and political power, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for driving the greatest existential threat of our lifetimes.
An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way.

Read “Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price” >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Hot, hot, hot! While the “heat dome” moved north – this week, Oregon and Washington, and Canada suffer the worst of it  - temperatures in the Delta remain in the upper 90s and low 100s. Too hot to trot!
After struggling to re-lay the deck (success, after days and many rounds of sanding and scraping to refit) I’m reluctant to begin the next rounds of fixes, from patching the roof, accessing damage to the main iron girder and rotting 2x4 planking under the boat, to repainting and rehanging a set of recycled window blinds.
Living on a small houseboat in a backwater marina, it feels as if Covid 19, the Delta variant, and the recently mentioned Gamma variant, are far away. Nevertheless, I am in the marina fulltime – no earning a living - as I’m still – “officially” – in the post-vax isolation time. I sweat, swim, work, and worry and watch my savings dwindle.
One worry: with dozens of heat-related health issues, should I re-evaluate my live-aboard decision? Is a “lifestyle” weaved around living on and near water and wildlife feasible these days? Yes, it is soothing, beautiful, and peaceful, but it’s also hot, exposed to full sun all day. Not to mention it is amid quirky (moody, unpredictable) people. Not only do I not reach out to fellow mariners, I avoid my immediate starboard-side slip neighbor – with whom I once had a superficially friendly acquaintance. His doses of unsolicited, un-needed, un-welcome advice likely relate to the clouds of MaryJane he generates but tiptoeing around my small living space so as not to invite interactions is dismally unsustainable.
July 4th weekend upcoming. Friends will celebrate onboard on Saturday: good food, BBQ, fishing, boating.