Auld lang syne

Worldwide (Map) 
December 30, 2021 – 284,807,650 confirmed infections; 5,425,550 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 82,656000 confirmed infections; 1,804,100 deaths 
28 days ago: 21,007,475 confirmed infections; 196,000 deaths
56 days ago: 17,480,000 confirmed infections; 202,000 deaths
Total doses of vaccine administered: 9,086,524,300

US (Map) 
December 30, 2021 – 53,659,715 confirmed infections; 823,120 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 19,737,200 confirmed infections; 342,260 deaths
28 days ago: 4,609,478 confirmed infections; 39,563 deaths
56 days ago: 3,323,525 confirmed infections; 35,185 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
December 30, 2021 – 3,433,555 confirmed infections; 90,935 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 1,039,165 confirmed infections; 28,035 deaths
28 days ago: 456,945 confirmed infections; 1,064 deaths
56 days ago: 383,250 confirmed infections; 855 deaths

Post from one year ago >>

News blues

All things Omicron:

• It's gonna get worse before it gets better – at least in the US where reports declare nearly half a quarter million cases in 24 hours. 
• A quick look at current state of Covid tests and testing >>  (3:45 mins)
• How to tell if you’ve been infected with Omicron  (1:33 mins)
• Omicron’s virulent surge amid conflicting messaging makes it tough to figure out which activities are safe on any given day. It’s time to recalculate your Covid “risk budget” >> 
• Tomorrow, 31 December will be the second anniversary of the day that health authorities in Wuhan reported an unknown pneumonia outbreak to World Health Organization (WHO) colleagues in Beijing. This time last year, Michael Standaert visited Wuhan to report on how the city had changed since the emergence of the coronavirus. One year later, he reports “normality” returns to Wuhan, but pain over the handling of the Covid outbreak endures >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Legacy (1:45 mins)
Last Week in the Republican Party  (2:12 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A big win along South Africa’s Wild Coast:

Shell will be forced to halt oil exploration in vital whale breeding grounds along South Africa’s eastern coastline after a local court blocked the controversial project.
The court order calls for an immediate halt to Shell’s seismic tests which involve blasting sound waves through the relatively untouched Wild Coast marine environment, which is home to whales, dolphins and seals.
… Wilmien Wicomb, an attorney at the Legal Resources Centre, said the case held “huge significance” because it showed that “no matter how big a company is, it ignores local communities at its peril”.
“This case is really a culmination of the struggle of communities along the Wild Coast for the recognition of their customary rights to land and fishing, and to respect for their customary processes….”

Read the good news >> 

***

Of the US’s western states, California leads in habitat loss.

… the 11 westernmost contiguous states excluding Alaska and Hawaii — lost more than 4,300 square miles of what it calls "natural lands" in that decade-long period to human development such as logging, mining, road-building and urban development. That's an area bigger than Yellowstone National Park, as the Center points out.
And of all the eleven states studied, California lost the largest amount of natural land to development between 2001 and 2011. Californians sacrificed 784 square miles of natural landscape to human industry in that decade, an area just a hair smaller than Los Angeles and San Diego combined, almost a fifth of the total land lost across the West.
That's a huge amount of land lost just in California.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Cloudy, rainy, cold in the San Francisco Bay Area. I bundle up for my daily walk: undershirt, shirt, sweater, coat, muffler, and gloves. My anti-Covid mask keeps my face warm.
Sunrise: 7:24am
Sunset: 4:59pm
Howick, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:01am
Sunset: 7:02pm

On the cusp of old/new year’s eve, enjoy… and be careful out there!

“Don’t look up”

News blues

Oh-oh. Omicron. “The US is averaging 198,404 new Covid-19 cases each day… 47% higher than a week ago and the highest such number since January 19 [with] about 71,000 Americans hospitalized [and] an average of 1,408 Americans dying - a 17% increase - from Covid-19 each day during the week ending Sunday [Boxing Day]….
"I think we're going to see half a million cases a day - sometime over the next week to 10 days…." 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Oceana  analyzed e-commerce packaging data and found that Amazon generated 599 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2020. This is a 29% increase of Oceana’s 2019 estimate of 465 million pounds. The report  also found that Amazon’s estimated plastic packaging waste, in the form of air pillows alone, would circle the Earth more than 600 times. By combining the e-commerce packaging data with findings from a recent study published in Science, Oceana estimates that up to 23.5 million pounds of Amazon’s plastic packaging waste entered and polluted the world’s waterways and oceans in 2020, the equivalent of dumping a delivery van payload of plastic into the oceans every 67 minutes.

Read the report >> 

***

© Photograph by Jason Edwards /
National Geographic

Edward O Wilson, naturalist known as a ‘modern-day Darwin’, dies aged 92. 
If you have not yet read E. O. Wilson, start with “Trailhead”, in the New Yorker 

***

Can't help but notice my mom died in the same year as many elevated and creative humans died ... including friend and San Francisco’s own, poet Jack Hershman.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Audience responses to Adam McKay’s 2021 movie, “Don’t look up!” range from “that’s excellent satire” (I’m in that group) to “a disaster!” 

 Along the lines of generational commentary movies, “War of the Worlds” and “Dr. Strangelove”, Netflix’s “Don’t look up!” highlights the diversity of the human mind accepting/not accepting our current human/planet condition.

If you watch it, watch and listen carefully - there’s a lot going on, including hard-to-articulate depths on how We the People distract ourselves from troublesome “reality.”

***

Obsessions, reprise
North/south solstices, December 27, 2021: 

San Francisco Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:23am
Sunset: 4:57pm
Rain, rain, rain….

Howick, South Africa:
Sunrise: 4:59am
Sunset: 7:01pm
Rain, rain, rain….

... update on battery charging obsession  

 

The interval between charges to create this design? More than 25 hours, among the best re-charge intervals (at least for an iPhone). The interval between charges to create this design? More than 25 hours, among the best re-charge intervals (at least for an iPhone).

 

Baking obsession continues. Yesterday, tried a recipe for dinner rolls. The rolls weren’t bad, just meh - I doubt I’ll revisit that recipe.
I did page through many recipe books and watch assorted online recipes and YouTube cooking shows.
I’d planned to troll various local thrift shops for low price/good quality cooking equipment. Alas, Omicron’s apparent ubiquity changed my mind. Moreover, in another week, Omicron allowing, there’ll be a wider choice of discarded equipment as people toss out the old and make room for the new… from Christmas gifts.

Hiatus

News blues

Suffered head- and body aches for Christmas. Naturally, it crossed my mind that I’d not only contracted the dreaded Omicron, but that I’d brought it to the house of my friend most fearful of contracting Covid. A quick scan through my activities of the last few days left me puzzled as to where I could have contracted it. Surely I could not have. I’m careful. My only community-oriented activity is grocery shopping but I’m judicious and I keep my distance from others. I did visit the dentist but the day before Christmas so likely too recent for Omicron to manifest. 

I double-checked the symptoms provided by Dr. Bruce Patterson, who works for single cell diagnostic company IncellDx and the Chronic Covid Treatment Center and who is a long-haul COVID expert. He reports he has not seen as much of a loss of taste and smell compared to the previous variants. This jibbed with my experience: delicious aromas from cooking our holiday meal suffused the house. Additionally, Patterson said, ‘“the one thing that’s always present with COVID-19 patients is fatigue”  - including the Omicron patients he has seen so far.’
I was just achy, not fatigued.
I swallowed a Tylenol at bedtime.
Yay! Awoke this morning feeling fit and aches free.
In case you're wondering, here’s the latest checklist of what constitutes mild, moderate and severe COVID >> 

***  

In sad news Desmond Tutu passed away. Long live Desmond Tutu! 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Who GAF about Christmas?  (0:35 mins)
Covid Vaccine  (1:00 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Ten great city projects for nature: photo essay >> 
Age of Extinction: photo essay >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Rain, rain, rain on the holiday but we took advantage of a brief hiatus and walked the neighborhood. Nothing as exciting as water flowing free and fast down gullies and into canals….
Took these photos in my neighborhood the day before the holiday. 

California gulls enjoy the temporary ponds.

***

Meanwhile, travel restrictions to and from southern Africa will be lifted on Monday. Time to rethink travel plans.... 

Soon, I'll leave the land of the winter solstice with:

Sunrise: 7:23am
Sunset: 4:56pm
Rain, rain, rain….
and travel to the land of the summer solstice with:
Sunrise: 4:59am
Sunset: 7:00pm
Rain, rain, rain….

Pesky numbers

Worldwide (Map) 
December 22, 2021 – 277,088,800 confirmed infections; 5,376,100 deaths
Over last 28 days: 17,480,000 confirmed infections; 202,000 deaths
Total doses of vaccine administered: 8,798,205,750

US (Map) 
December 22, 2021 – 51,537,000 confirmed infections; 812,100 deaths
Over last 28 days: 3,323,525 confirmed infections; 35,185 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
December 22, 2021 – 3,353,110 confirmed infections; 90,587 deaths
Over last 28 days: 383,250 confirmed infections; 855 deaths

News blues

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new forecast that estimates the Omicron variant is already the dominant variant in the U.S.
New York state posted an all-time record of new Covid cases. Over the last weeks, new cases have climbed in the Northeast and Midwest. The nation’s Delta wave isn’t over and an Omicron wave has just begun. Read more >> 
Cleveland-area hospitals put ad in local Cleveland Plain-Dealer stating, “HELP”, in response to the latest Covid-19 health crisis exploding in Northern Ohio. The ad continued:

“We need your help. W now have more Covid-19 patients n our hospitals than ever before. And the overwhelming majority are unvaccinated. This is preventable.

Read more >> 

Yet, in Japan, numbers of new Covid infections plummet. Why? No one knows.  
And in South Africa’s Gauteng province – the epicenter of that country’s infections – Covid cases appear to have peaked with the impact of surging infections less severe than previous waves.
Read more >> 

How to make sense of the case and hospitalization data as Omicron takes off. Both metrics are important, but all of our data doesn’t matter if we don’t do anything with it.

***

Dr Sanjay Gupta breaks down how Omicron variant compares to other variants  (3:50 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project:
Corporate Accountability  (0:53 mins)
Santa Trump  (0:30 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

The U.S. is gently discouraging states from building new highways A recent urges states to fix roads before constructing new ones, and to consider climate-friendly projects like bike lanes. 

Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Raining in the Bay Area. Forecast calls for more rain over the next several days. I’m not complaining about the rain (took a walk along the foggy, damp beach anyway) but the tedium of Omicron-forced isolation can overwhelm.
Today’s baking obsession? Baked custard with sherry syrup.
My upper left arm – site of the booster shot – has been sore although that’s passing.

Winter solstice - San Francisco Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:21am
Sunset: 4:54pm
Rain, rain, rain….

Summer solstice - Howick, South Africa:
Sunrise: 4:57am
Sunset: 6:59pm
Rain, rain, rain….

Seek and ye might find

News blues

The numbers speak: Omicron variant accounts for 73% of recent U.S. COVID-19 cases, CDC with New York state reporting a record number of Covid-19 infections 
While COVID Externalities Have Changed  this phase of the pandemic need not be about individual sacrifice. What’s required now is merely communal common sense.
Common sense, however, is in the ‘eye of the beholder’. Confusion continues to reign. The public has been told vaccine is effective against Omicron and vaccine is ineffective against Omicron.
"Effective":

Moderna announced Monday that a third dose of its mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 appears to provide significant protection against the omicron variant. The company said that its authorized booster can “boost neutralizing antibody levels 37-fold higher than pre-boost levels,” which it described as reassuring. 

"Ineffective":

Early evidence shows a “clear” drop in the effectiveness of current Covid-19 vaccines against the Omicron variant of coronavirus, according to the head of the European drugs regulator, who says it will take time to reach a consensus on whether variant-targeted vaccines will be needed. >> 

Given the confusion, fear, lack of coherence, I almost envy the absolute certainty displayed by whackidoodle anti-vaxers >> 
Almost. But I’ll stick with science.

I’ve looked forward to December 20 for weeks. That would have been Booster Day: the first day I’d be eligible for my 6-month vax booster. Alas, I could not get it! More on this odyssey below….

The Lincoln Project:
Mark Meadows Unlocked  (1:30 mins)
Yearning in America (0:56 mins -  This one brought tears to my eyes….)

Healthy planet, anyone?

First, the scary news: “Himalayan glaciers are melting at an "exceptional rate…” Almost half the glacial ice in the world's tallest mountain range will soon have disappeared compared to just a few centuries ago >> 
Then… celebrate what is now >>  
Happy solstice 2021 >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Booster Day? Not so fast!
Yesterday was the first day I was eligible for my Covid (Pfizer) booster jab. I’d tried earlier to get the jab – based on anticipated travel to SA – but was refused. After Omicron arrived I revisited plans and accommodated reality. Then, the big Booster Day arrived.
Day 1: I trotted off to the pharmacy at the local grocery store and… learned that their operations have changed since my last shot in June. Now, customers must make online appointments. And that day, they offered only Moderna shots.
I hesitated. How I might react to a Moderna booster? My physical response to Pfizer was negligible – slight sensitivity around the injection site. Friends who mixed doses reported Moderna presented stronger reactions than Pfizer. Do I want to risk being laid low over the holidays?
Back home, I researched the latest on Pfizer/Moderna mix. Moderna is reported to have slightly higher efficacy rate than Pfizer and, since I’ll visit my Omicron-nervous friend over the holiday weekend, I want to assure all that I’m taking advantage of the current best care available.
Travel had been a large part of my booster equation. The news about international travel, however, is not good: “Southern African nations join European favorites on CDC's list for 'very high' travel risk ."
I decided to take the Moderna jab. I tackled the grocery store’s pharmacy online reservation site. Not a great user experience: I could make a reservation at a pharmacy about 15 miles away but not at the pharmacy 2 miles away. I’ll return to the local pharmacy, make an in-person reservation, and wait.
Day 2: Pharmacy staff were helpful, agreed the online reservation system was ‘buggy’, and signed me up for a then-and-there appointment. Since both Moderna and Pfizer were available, I opted for Pfizer – albeit with a dash of last-minute indecision: what if Moderna is more efficacious? What if post-shot symptoms are worse? What if…?
I filled in the paperwork – for Pfizer - and chatted with the only other person in line for a jab. I learned that he’d taken his first Pfizer shot back in March – early days for shots – at a local sports arena complex. It was a massive drive-through operation managed by FEMA – Federal Emergency Management Agency – and other Federal agencies. (Press Release from April 2021.)
Then the pharmacist called me and I eagerly followed him and pulled up my sleeve to expose my upper left arm.
He asked, “Pfizer or Moderna?” “Um, I’m not sure.” I equivocated.

“Let me know if you want Moderna as I’ll change the paperwork and have you fill it out again.”
That did it. “No need to change the paperwork. Let’s go with Pfizer.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yes, I know what to expect from Pfizer. I’ll stick with Pfizer.” 

He reported his second Pfizer jab had knocked him out and he’d missed a day of work.  

An observation: Months of Lockdown in SA and months following the easing of Lockdown - when my mother was struggling with her health – blocked from my mind the day-to-day Covid-related happenings in California and the US. While I carefully followed US news, nevertheless I lost a year of early Covid history in the US… although I gained a year of Covid-related history in SA.
Lordy, when will it be “safe-enough” to return to SA and take care of business – and have assurance I can return to California after that, unimpeded by Covid?

***

I took advantage of my visits to the pharmacy and walked along the bay. The birds did not disappoint.  

Marbled Godwits.

American avocets? And that gorgeous duck? A pintail.

Lesser egret

***

Winter solstice - San Francisco Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:21am
Sunset: 4:53pm

More rain predicted. Snow pack deepening in Sierras. Yay!   
Summer solstice - Howick, South Africa:
Sunrise: 4:56am
Sunset: 6:59pm

Rain, rain, rain...

“Let’s think deep…”

News blues

Omicron spreading at lightning speed and restrictions tighten as countries battle a new wave of infections >> 

If you test positive for COVID-19, how long should you quarantine, who should you tell, and when should you call your doctor? >> 

***    

Jimmy Kimmel: This week in Covid history (1:45 mins)
The Lincoln Project reminds us:
Donny, Jr (0:30 mins)
Donny, Sr, and the MAGA Church  (1:45 mins)
The Collapse  (0:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Thames River.
The ebbing and flowing of the tide evokes our troubling future.

"Bankers"

If you don’t’ know him yet, meet sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor , former graffiti artist that Canterbury art college refused. Taylor creates boundary obliterating art and urges, “Let’s think big and let’s think deep.”
See his underwater sculptures and hear his goals >>  (11:09 mins)
More on his work >>  (8:13 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A friend advises that my recent baking obsession is not, as I thought, ahead of the wave. It’s not even cresting the wave. Indeed, I’m doggie paddling way behind the my fellow baking obsessives. Americans who sought solace from pandemic induced isolation turned to baking last March and April. 

Back then, I was locked down in South Africa, visiting my mother each day in the Care Center after her fall and subsequent surgery, auctioning piles of no-longer-required workshop and household items, caring for her dogs, her gardens, her swimming pool, and shooing troops of monkeys from her fruit trees. Had anyone suggested I bake, I’d have chuckled my disbelief.

Ah well, being au courant is not my ambition. (Perhaps the late baker earns the tested recipes?) 

Melktert - smooth, custardy, easy to make....

Yesterday, before my friend carried away a growing inventory of baked goods, I added melktert (aka milk tart) to my culinary effort.

Surpassed only by dark fruit cake as a personal favorite South African treat, melktert is not too sweet and enticingly jiggly and smooth.
Explore how easy it is to bake by Google searching “melktert” or “milk tart.” (If pastry making scares you, pick up a ready-made pastry crusts at Safeway; brush over an egg wash and bake for just 5 minutes. The wash stabilizes the crust for the delicious custard-like filling, served room temperature.)

My next challenge?
Turns out the odd baking pan, above, forms donuts. 

Not a donut fan, I puzzle about other baking options. The challenge is how to outwit the open “top”.
What about:

• baking an upside-down fruit pie held together by either pastry or sponge cake? Or a layer of graham cracker crust?
• forming a pastry pocket over the “top” then, when cooked, flip it over to serve? The “hole” would form a receptacle sauce or other filling.
• a savory “not-donut donut” with no-knead bread and sprinkled cheese?

Watch this space for baking experiments….

***  

Until the pandemic forced Otaez, a family style, Mexican family-owned and managed neighborhood restaurant out of business, service included tasty and affordable margaritas on a sunny outdoor patio.
Alas. Gone are the days of margaritas, fresh ceviche, tamales….
On the bright side, a chef locally born and bred bought the very large, standalone building. His chef cred includes cooking at high-end San Francisco Bay Area restaurants. 

The menu posted near the door might be a tad ambitious for this neighborhood (no margaritas, or fresh ceviche, or tamales… ).
I hope he can make a go of this new business, particularly as we endure another pandemic wave.
This mural painted on the north wall catches the eye; perhaps it’ll stimulate taste buds, too.

***  

Winter solstice - San Francisco Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:20am
Sunset: 4:52pm
Summer solstice - Howick, South Africa:
Sunrise: 4:55am
Sunset: 6:58pm

Fully baked

© 2021. Steve Breen. San Diego Union Tribune. Creators.com

News blues

“America Is Not Ready for Omicron.” The new variant poses a far graver threat at the collective level than the individual one — the kind of test that the US has repeatedly failed.

America was not prepared for Covid-19 when it arrive. It was not prepared for last winter’s surge. It was not prepared for Delta’s arrival in the summer or its current winter assault.
More than 1,000 Americans are still dying of COVID every day, and more have died this year than last. Hospitalizations are rising in 42 states. The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, which entered the pandemic as arguably the best-prepared hospital in the country, recently went from 70 COVID patients to 110 in four days, leaving its staff “grasping for resolve,” the virologist John Lowe told me. And now comes Omicron.
Will the new and rapidly spreading variant overwhelm the U.S. health-care system? The question is moot because the system is already overwhelmed, in a way that is affecting all patients, COVID or otherwise. “The level of care that we’ve come to expect in our hospitals no longer exists…”

Read more >> 

Omicron pressure on in South Africa with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reporting an additional 36 Covid-19 related deaths and 24,785 new cases yesterday.

The increase in positive cases represents a 30.9% positivity rate.
The majority of new cases were from Gauteng (27%), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (23%) and the Western Cape (19%).
The NCID said, “There has been an increase of 347 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.” 

Approximately 27 percent of Americans are not vaccinated against Covid-19. (See numbers and detailed breakdown of un-vaccinated and vaccinated.) Certain states refuse to enact the federal mandate to require vaccination. Now the struggle goes to the Supreme Court.

President Joe Biden’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let a federal vaccine mandate for health-care workers take effect nationwide, saying it could save thousands of lives during an anticipated Covid surge this winter.
In a pair of filings late Thursday, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asked the justices to put a hold on lower court decisions that are blocking the rule in 24 states. The Republican-led states sued to block the law, saying the administration was exceeding its authority and infringing on state prerogatives.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services mandate is one prong of a broader Biden push to get workers vaccinated. The administration is separately defending vaccine rules that apply to federal contractors and employers with 100 or more workers, and those cases could reach the Supreme Court soon.

Read more >> 

Additionally, the Marine Corps announced it booted 103 of its members for refusing the Covid vaccine, even as all the military branches report that a vast majority of troops have gotten the shots.
The same day, the Army announced that it relieved six leaders — including two commanding officers — over the issue, and that almost 4,000 active-duty soldiers have refused the vaccine. 

Read more >> 

Then the whackidoodles have their say:
“Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott asserted the Pentagon has no authority to punish unvaccinated members of the state National Guard, joining other Republican governors who have called on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to withdraw or otherwise nullify the military's Covid-19 vaccine mandate.” 

Read more >> 
and (big surprise?)

“Trump Administration deliberately undermined Covid response for political purposes”  (4:39 mins)

***

Track cases and deaths per 100K residents, state-by-state, county-by-county across the US  

***

A cornucopia of ads for Christmas from The Lincoln Project:
Jim Jordan is a joke  (0:45 mins)
The Fight  (1:40 mins)
Capitol Police  (0:52 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Time for laughter: 35 Pictures from 2021 to make you grin… >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Who knew I was ahead of the curve? An email newsletter from my health care provider asks:

Looking for something to help you relax, feel creative, and indulge your senses? Baking has all the ingredients you need to feel refreshed and recharged.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, increased stress — plus more time at home — has given rise to a new trend called “stress baking.” … The act of baking really can help you manage stress.
“Baking is an opportunity to clear our heads and de-stress,” … a family doctor said. “When you focus your attention on an activity like baking, you’re more present in the moment and less focused on stressors of the past or future.”

My recent foray into baking is not, after all, another Lockdown-related obsession. Not at all; rather, it is a stress reliever.
Yesterday: pastry and no-knead bread. 

Today: cinnamon rolls.
Tomorrow? A visiting friend will enjoy these products and, I hope, carry away the bulk of my home bakery’s output.

***    

With the likelihood of a propitious return to South Africa dimming as Omicron changes the rules of travel, look for more baked goods in the future.  

Reconciliation

Worldwide (Map) 
December 16, 2021 – 272,521,350 confirmed infections; 5,333,815 deaths
December 10, 2021 – 68,849,000 confirmed infections; 1,568,750 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 68,849,000 confirmed infections; 1,568,750 deaths
Total doses of vaccine administered: 8,578,143,200

US (Map) 
December 16, 2021 – 50,408,000 confirmed infections; 802,770 deaths
December 9, 2021 – 49,547,400 confirmed infections; 793,350 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 15,385,00 confirmed infections; 289,500 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
December 16, 2021 – 3,231,100 confirmed infections; 90,226 deaths
December 9, 2021 – 3,071,100 confirmed infections; 90,100 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 829,600 confirmed infections; 22,580 deaths

News blues

In South Africa, it’s Day of Reconciliation (formerly aka Day of the Vow, Day of the Covenant, and Dingane's Day). Despite low temperatures for summer, in the time honored tradition, South Africans flocked to Durban’s beaches.

Early this week, the US topped 800,000 Covid deaths…

that’s more than the population of Seattle (about 737,000), Denver (about 715,000), or Washington, D.C. (about 690,000) and roughly equivalent to all of Kansas City, Missouri, (about 508,000) and Pittsburgh (about 303,000) combined.
It’s also the highest confirmed death toll in the world by country.
America’s elderly population has borne the brunt of the suffering. From the start of the pandemic, 75% of the deaths in the US have been people 65 or older, according to a New York Times tracker, in all, 1 in 100 Americans over the age of 65 has died from COVID-19.
Many of the country’s COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided. Unvaccinated individuals have made up the vast majority of deaths since vaccines became widely available in the U.S. in the spring of 2021, CDC data shows. 

CDC data shows unvaccinated people were 14 times more likely to die from COVID-19
in September than their vaccinated peers.
© Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

***

The Lincoln Project:

Last week in the Republican Party  (2:04 mins)
Hotline (0:45 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Recent post  shared information on what happens to old car batteries.
Today, a view of what happens to those trying to block desecration of land for car batteries:

…the Paiute and Shoshone people may soon see their traditions and cultural history uprooted: a multinational company plans to break ground on a new 1,000-acre lithium mine that would destroy sacred land in order to extract a central component for electric car batteries.
Indigenous communities across the US face difficult legal battles when trying to protect sacred spaces outside their jurisdictions. The sites’ religious significance is often misunderstood or treated with blatant disregard. And because there are no overarching legal protections for sacred Indigenous spaces, tribes have limited options in the courtroom .

Read more >>

 

Similar thing going on along South Africa’s Wild Coast – a photo essay >> 
And,

Royal Dutch Shell will move ahead with seismic tests to explore for oil in vital whale breeding grounds along South Africa’s eastern coastline after a court dismissed an 11th-hour legal challenge by environmental groups.
The judgment, by a South African high court, allows Shell to begin firing within days extremely loud sound waves through the relatively untouched marine environment of the Wild Coast, which is home to whales, dolphins and seals.

Read more >>

Ways to get involved >>

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

"He was trying to enter the UK after delivering presents in South Africa" 
(c) Rico - Daily Maverick

***

“Out of an abundance of caution”: the buzz phrase that’s come of age during the Covid era. This week the City council of my small island city issued a Business Update “Out of an abundance of caution”:

The California Department of Public announced Monday that all residents — regardless of vaccination status — must wear masks in all indoor public places beginning on Wednesday, December 15th. The mask mandate will last until at least January 15, 2022.
State health officials said that the renewed masking requirement follows a 47% increase in COVID-19 case rates since the Thanksgiving holiday and the arrival of new variant.
The state mandate will override Alameda County's November 1, 2021 easing of masking requirements for certain controlled indoor spaces where everyone is fully vaccinated such as offices, gyms, and fitness centers.
While the requirement is specific to public spaces and does not extend to private gatherings, health officials recommend testing ahead of holiday gatherings and considering better ventilation by opening windows or convening outdoors when possible.
In addition to the new mask mandate, the state also announced that unvaccinated individuals attending "mega-events" with more than 1,000 people must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 24 hours of the event if using an antigen test, and 24 to 48 hours of the event if using a PCR test. The state is also recommending that travelers get tested before and after trips.

Rain and Omicron keep me home these days. Omicron might very well keep me locked down in California, too. My go-to travel agent in SA advises that, while the short once-a-day commuter flights to my small city do continue, so too do restrictions continue for return flights to the US. Despite my eligibility for a booster shot in four days, Omicron rules! I’m (unofficially) locked down again.
Low temperatures keep me indoors – 8C overnight and lows of 3C predicted. To stay warm and feel virtuous about not wasting money heating a badly insulated home, I’m revisiting the joys of baking.
My flaky, short pastry for quiche turned out tasty, despite mistakes due to trying to outwit the recipe. (I’ll say no more about those mistakes other than I learned from them.)
I also made a simple, no-knead, very-hot-oven loaf  (4:50 mins)
After years of having no time for baking, two changes in the world of baking jump out: 
Change 1: ubiquitous use of high-end mixers. Rather than discuss merits of hand-kneading, bakers nowadays discuss merits of assorted attachments for their high-end mixers. Whatever happened to the joys of hand kneading whose purpose is to add air and improve the rise? (Compare kneading bread to wedging clay whose purpose is to remove air pockets  to prevent cracking or worse, shattering, during firing. )

Actually, this bread requires no kneading. It is a wet dough, however, and requires patient hands.
Thank the gods for hands that allow me to knead and to wedge - sans appliances. (Am I virtuous? sanctimonious? about the two-fer of heating my apartment by oven instead of space heaters and producing edibles? Perhaps neither virtuous nor sanctimonious but using practical commonsense – also in short supply these days.) 

Change 2: notice the warning label on this bag of whole wheat flour: "cook before sneaking a taste"?  It implies flour purchasers complain to the flour-producing company about … well, flour being raw. By golly! Why doesn’t flour come ready cooked? (Actually, when it  does come cooked it's called bread, pastry, donuts, etc.)

Should I stay or should I go?

News blues

Prez Ramaphosa down with Covid. He tested positive on Sunday after feeling “unwell” after the State Memorial Service in honor of former Deputy President FW de Klerk. He delegated all responsibilities to Deputy President David Mabuza for the next week.
President Ramaphosa is fully vaccinated and in self-isolation in Cape Town. He says his own infection serves as a caution to all people in the country to be vaccinated and remain vigilant against exposure. “Vaccination remains the best protection against severe illness and hospitalization" >> 
An estimated rate of previous infection at some 72% in Gauteng province – three times the rate detected during the Beta variant outbreak a year ago - “may explain the relatively low levels of hospitalisation and severe disease in the current outbreak of the Omicron variant, rather than the variant itself being less virulent.”
Vaccine expert Shabir Mahdi of the University of the Witwatersrand said that,

... emerging evidence pointed to the fact that Omicron was both more infectious and more able to evade antibody protection, he suggested that other mechanisms at work in acquired immunity through infection could explain the lower levels of hospitalisations and severe illness.
While the UK has a seropositivity rate above 90%, South Africa’s experience may be very different to the UK’s in terms of the Omicron, with the UK having an older population and different vulnerabilities to disease.

Read more >> 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Besides holiday cheer, the "festive season" generates millions of tons of cardboard boxes, plastics, glass bottles, and metals – about half of the 292 million tons of waste Americans produce each year. 

Besides putting out well-meaning but ineffective labeled and colored garbage bins, American recycling programs simply do not address the growing mountain of waste. Coupla easy solutions? 1) Americans refuse fancy packaging and recycle packaging they already have: carry reusable bags to grocery stores, farmers markets, and clothing stores; 2) The companies that create the waste rethink what materials they use; 3) Prompt new ways to think about how we recycle – and who pays for it >> 

Old car batteries: what happens to them? 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I must return to SA “soon” to attend details pertaining to my mother’s estate, her memorial, her house, dogs, domestic worker, etc. However travel and travel restrictions continue to confuse. One person’s story: “The Omicron variant turned my trip home from South Africa into a nightmare episode of conflicting public health orders that often seemed to have little connection to science.” 
Even as the UK removes all 11 southern African countries from their travel red list, I’m not convinced.
US winter is SA summer and, usually, summer is the time to travel to SA. Alas, the “festive season” means fewer deals on flights that compliment my wallet. More importantly in these unprecedented times, mixed messages confuse.
I’d have thought Amsterdam was a good bet – until I read the account (above). Which European airport offers the least intrusive stopover?
Moreover, SA recently published updates to Alert level 1 Lockdown restrictions. These travel restrictions imply - though do not clarify - that, once I arrive at Oliver Tambo, I may not find a connecting flight to Pietermaritzburg.
I continue in a watch and wait pattern….
Clash gets it right >>  (3:06 mins)

***  

Up to 2 inches of rain fell in the Bay Area and more is predicted later in the week. Temperatures dropped, too. Brrrr. Not quick to switch on a space heaters, even I’ve resorted to using one.

Desperation

News blues

Nations turning to D.C. lobbyists to get the tools they need to fight the pandemic? Global health officials say that’s all that’s wrong with the fight against Covid.
Asia Russell, executive director of the international advocacy group Health Global Access Project said, “Lobbyists are being used to help desperate countries get a better place in line for life saving commodities that never should have been rationed in the first place.” Read more >> 

***

The first country to really get hit by omicron is South Africa.
Before the new variant took off last month, coronavirus cases there were low – only several hundred per day in mid November.
But by early December, the tally of daily infections had shot up to more than 4,500 — and genomic sequencing shows that omicron is to blame.
What's more, the variant quickly swept through all regions of South Africa – and has now shown up in about 60 additional countries.
Omicron hasn't yet triggered a global wave, but many scientists who are tracking its rapid spread believe it's only a matter of time.
The reason for their concern? >> 

***

Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm correctly predicted the Delta surge and Covid-19 death totals. Here he discusses the Omicron variant and what he thinks is next for the US in the pandemic >> 

***

Barring a miracle, by tomorrow the US will have reached more than 800,000 dead to coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.
Best advice? Get your first, second or third (“booster”) shot ASAP.  

(Eight more days before I’m eligible for my after-6-month booster.)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Twenty collections of twenty (sobering) photos of the week since July 2021 >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Rain in the SF Bay area! Forecast to rain off and on for the next five days. Yay We need it!
Alas, rain accompanied by temperatures into the low 40s and upper 30s. That’s cold for us Bay Area residents. But to borrow a phrase from the Rolling Stones, "You can’t always get what you want" >>  (7:35 mins)

Who knew?

Who knew, this time last year – or the previous year - that Covid-19 would still control our daily lives?
Yet here we are.

News blues

Clarity of communication has not been a feature of this pandemic. Confusion and mixed messaging rules! Spotty information about Omicron continues this pattern. One day we hear Omicron is more transmissible but its effects less dire than the Delta variant. Next day we hear that “it’s too soon to tell…”. A sampling of recent information to sift through:

• “COVID cases and deaths are on the rise throughout the U.S., even before the Omicron variant takes hold"
• “The Omicron variant can likely outcompete Delta — and that could worsen the U.S. COVID epidemic. Omicron is picking up speed in Europe, which has often served as a preview of what's headed the U.S.’s way. It’s an early sign that the already bleak situation here may get worse"
• “Ahead of Omicron, COVID hospitalizations are rising in 37 of 50 states, including several with above-average vaccination rates…and starting to climb in nearly half of the other 13 states, signaling that hospitalizations may soon follow. …Many Americans remain vulnerable to the still-surging Delta variant as the holiday season ramps up and Delta’s heavily mutated and perhaps even faster-spreading successor, Omicron, looms on the horizon.” 
• According to the latest data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Omicron is projected to become the dominant variant in the UK by mid-December, based on current trends, while there could be more than a million infections by the end of this month – a tally that will be dominated by Omicron. Moreover, two doses of Covid vaccine offer less protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron than with Delta, with a lower level of protection seen against the new variant even after a booster jab. 
• The US state of Michigan had more patients hospitalized for Covid-19 than ever before – a jump of 88% in the past month.
  Jim Dover, president and CEO of Sparrow Health System, said, "We have more patients than we've ever had at any point, and we're seeing more people die at a rate we've never seen die before…. Since January, we've had about 289 deaths; 75% are unvaccinated people. And the very few (vaccinated people) who passed away all were more than 6 months out from their shot. So we've not had a single person who has had a booster shot die from Covid."

More ominous news: 

MSNBC “The 11th Hour” news anchor Brian Williams retired this week and, before signing off, warned his audience - average total audience of 1.6 million viewers - about the “darkness” enveloping America.

Williams revealed that his “biggest worry” as he jumped “without a net into the great unknown” was “for my country,” which in 2021 became “unrecognizable to those who came before us and fought to protect it.”
The “darkness of the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods… It’s now at the local bar, and the bowling alley, at the school board and the grocery store. And it must be acknowledged and answered for.”
“Grown men and women who swore an oath to our Constitution, elected by their constituents possessing the kinds of college degrees I could only dream of, have decided to join the mob and become something they are not while hoping we somehow forget who they were,” he continued. “They’ve decided to burn it all down ― with us inside,” he said. “That should scare you to no end as much as it scares an aging volunteer fireman.”

Indeed. When the s*** hits the fan, don’t say Republican extremists didn’t warn the rest of us… 
Question is, will We the People heed the warnings and get involved? Or will we go shopping, business as usual?

 

The Lincoln Project:

Protect America  (0:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Consider the spider, how it balloons - or doesn’t….
The ubiquitous spider’s talents on display although few humans understand those talents.

It is commonly believed that ballooning works because the silk catches on the wind, dragging the spider with it. But that doesn’t entirely make sense, especially because spiders balloon only during light winds. Spiders don’t shoot silk from their abdomens, and it seems unlikely that such gentle breezes could be strong enough to yank the threads out—let alone to carry the largest species aloft, or to generate the high accelerations of arachnid takeoff. Darwin himself found the rapidity of the spiders’ flight to be “quite unaccountable” and its cause to be “inexplicable.”
But Erica Morley and Daniel Robert have an explanation. The duo, who work at the University of Bristol, has shown that spiders can sense Earth’s electric field, and use it to launch themselves into the air.

Read more >> Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Hmmm, social distancing and winter present unexpected challenges: feelings of isolation and lack of motivation (tinged with depression?)
Always anti-shopping, I stick close to home. That isolation is wearying. I gotta get out more but ….
Moreover, temperatures are dropping and fewer hours of daylight:
Today, the sun rose 7:14am and will set at 4:50pm
Eleven more days to California’s winter solstice.

Year 3 of the Covid Era

December 12, 2019: a cluster of patients in Wuhan, China’s Hubei Providence, begin to experience shortness of breath and fever.
Early 2020, after the December 2019 outbreak, the World Health Organization identified a new type of coronavirus: SARS-CoV-2. 

SARS-CoV-2, triggering what doctors call a respiratory tract infection, quickly spread around the world.

CDC Timeline for Covid, from 2019 to present 

Below, today’s Covid numbers compared to numbers this time last year : 

Worldwide (Map) 
December 9, 2021 – 268,100,000 confirmed infections; 5,283,715 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 68,849,000 confirmed infections; 1,568,750 deaths
Total doses of vaccine administered: 8,246,30,377

US (Map) 
December 9, 2021 – 49,547,400 confirmed infections; 793,350 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 15,385,00 confirmed infections; 289,500 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
December 9, 2021 – 3,071,100 confirmed infections; 90,100 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 829,600 confirmed infections; 22,580 deaths

News blues

SA passes grim Covid-19 milestone as 90,000 official deaths are recorded. SA's NICD reported this week that the official death toll was 90,002 after the latest data was released by the national health department. 
We don’t know how severe Omicron is, but we do know it’s spreading very fast.

If you’re in the mood for detail, WHO obliges with a technical brief, “Enhancing Readiness for Omicron (B.1.1.529).” This reviews priority actions and “main uncertainties” for member states, including:

(1) how transmissible the variant is and whether any increases are related to immune escape, intrinsic increased transmissibility, or both; (2) how well vaccines protect against infection, transmission, clinical disease of different degrees of severity and death; and (3) does the variant present with a different severity profile. Public health advice is based on current information and will be tailored as more evidence emerges around those key questions.

Download the pdf (8 pages) >> 

The Lincoln Project:
Last week in the Republican Party  (1:45 mins)
Road map  (0:26 mins)
Meidas Touch: Politics Girl  (2:43 mins)
Want more Politics Girl? Check her out >> (1:22 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Life: a force that adapts and evolves. Take, as example, the many coastal species living miles from their usual habitats finding affordable housing on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, halfway between the coast of California and Hawaii.

Plants and animals, including anemones, tiny marine bugs, molluscs and crabs, found on 90% of the [Patch] debris.
[A recent study] examined plastic items more than 5cm (2in) in diameter gathered from a gyre - an area where circulating currents cause floating debris to accumulate - in the Pacific.

Neopelagic communities are composed of pelagic species, evolved to live on floating marine substrates and marine animals, and coastal species, once assumed incapable of surviving long periods of time on the high seas. The emergence of a persistent neopelagic community in the open ocean is due to the vast supply of durable and highly buoyant plastic pollution as suitable habitat for both pelagic and coastal rafting species. Examples of pelagic rafting species are: (a) gooseneck barnacle Lepas anatifera,(b) flotsam crab Planes major, and (c) bryozoan Jellyella tuberculata. Examples of coastal rafting species commonly found on floating plastic debris on the high seas include: (d) podded hydroid Aglaophenia pluma,(e) Asian anemones Anthopleura sp. , and (f) amphipod Stenothoe gallensis.
Illustrated by © 2021 Alex Boersma.

Lead researcher Dr Linsey Haram, who carried out the work at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre, said: "Plastics are more permanent than many of the natural debris that you previously have seen in the open ocean. They're creating a more permanent habitat in this area."

[The downside?] Scientists are concerned that plastic may help transport invasive species.

…
The world has at least five plastic-infested gyres. This one is thought to hold the most floating plastic - an estimated 79,000 tonnes in a region of more than 610,000 square miles (1.6m sq km).
"All sorts of stuff ends up out there," said Dr Haram. "It's not an island of plastic, but there's definitely a large amount of plastic corralled there."
Much of that is micro-plastic is very difficult to see with the naked eye. But there are also larger items, including abandoned fishing nets, buoys and even vessels that have been floating in the gyre since the Japanese tsunami in 2011.
The researchers, who reported their findings in the journal Nature Communications,  initially embarked on the investigation following that devastating tsunami. The disaster caused tonnes of debris to be ejected into the Pacific ocean, and hundreds of coastal Japanese marine species were found alive on items that landed on the shores of the North American Pacific coast and the Hawaiian Islands. 

Read more >> 
What can you do? It’s depressing to see the hows and whys of our unique planet’s slow succumbing to humans’ abuse via refusal to address and end the reign of plastics, fossil fuels, manufacture of toxics, etc. One can easily feel disempowered by the enormous complexity and apparent lack of effective action. Yet, We the People can take small steps to address our complicity. Here’s one small swap that can make a difference: Switch to bar soap for… everything 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

During my daily walk I noticed a familiar tree blossom. Close attention revealed a coral tree, native to SA and KZN. 

I know coral trees grow in the hotter Los Angeles, but I’ve not seen such a large specimen in my San Francisco Bay Area town. 

In KZN, coral trees blossom after leaves fall, bare limbs acting as frames for spectacular displays. This local tree displays both leaves and blossoms simultaneously. 

Turns out coral trees – Erythrina  with approximately 112 different species – also are found in Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, Asia, Australia, and Hawaii.

***

Here, days are colder and daylight shorter (sun rose at 7:13am today and will set at 4:49pm). Time to remember KZN’s summer birds:

Wooly necked stork dries its wings.

Masked bishop.
Photos (c) S.Galleymore