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.