May 12, 2022 - 519,916,140 confirmed infections; 6,259,850 deaths
May 13, 2021 – 160,450,550 confirmed infections; 3,331,300 deaths
US (Map)
May 12, 2022 - 82,322,360 confirmed infections; 999,110 deaths
May 13, 2021 – 32,814,500 confirmed infections; 583,700 deaths
SA (Coronavirus portal)
May 12, 2022 - 3,862,170 confirmed infections; 100,610 deaths
May 13, 2021 – 1,602,100 confirmed infections; 54,970 deaths
Post from 14 May 2020: “Hugging, kissing, a thing of the past!”
News blues
An increase in infections that began in places including the Northeast and Puerto Rico is now being seen in other parts of the [US]. Cases will rise and fall going forward, but more worryingly, hospitalizations have started to increase as well — up 20% over two weeks. The decline in deaths has bottomed out at some 350 a day.Read more >>
…the U.S. is at a dramatically different point now in the pandemic than in earlier periods. Even as cases have increased — to 80,000 a day, up from less than 30,000 in late March — they’re still far below the heights of earlier this year, and started rising from very low levels.
…There are a range of factors that contribute to cases rising and falling — climate, behavior, and mitigation efforts (or lack thereof) among them. Scientists are trying to zero in on what the latest increase in cases says about the durability of protection and the ongoing evolution of the virus.
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Doctors across the country are reporting an uptick in health issues that don't involve contracting the Covid-19 virus — but are still caused by the pandemic >> ***
Waste not, want not?
Manufacturing and quality issues led to canceling a $628 million Covid-19 vaccine contract with Emergent Biosolutions.Read more >>
Millions more AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines — 400 million in total — were destroyed as a result of the lack of standards. … The company allegedly hid batches with potential quality issues from federal regulators in February 2021 following months of internal communication about the substantial problems at the facility.
…[such] quality-control issues led to a contamination of 15 million Johnson & Johnson doses in March 2021, when the company accidentally mixed in AstraZeneca drug substance.
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The Lincoln Project: The Crazy Ones (1:00 mins)
Bonfire (0:55 mins)
Yes, we know (0:25 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - May 10, 2022 (2:10 mins)
Meidas Touch: Texas Paul REACTS to GOP Criminalizing Contraception Next (9:40 mins)
Healthy planet, anyone?
The year the world breaches for the first time the 1.5C global heating limit set by international governments is fast approaching, a new forecast shows. The probability of one of the next five years surpassing the limit is now 50%, scientists led by the UK Met Office found. As recently as 2015, there was zero chance of this happening in the following five years. But this surged to 20% in 2020 and 40% in 2021. The global average temperature was 1.1C above pre-industrial levels in 2021.Read more >>
It is also close to certain – 93% – that by 2026 one year will be the hottest ever recorded, beating 2016, when a natural El Niño climate event supercharged temperatures. It is also near certain that the average temperature of the next five years will be higher than the past five years, as the climate crisis intensifies.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Not easy getting back into formal work mode schedule after months of informal work mode on my own schedule.These still chilly days, I’m up at 5am, on the bus at 6:30am, and start work in a local hospital at 7:00am. The doctors I work with – about 60 hospitalists with assorted specialties – are a great team. This third or fourth stint working with them feels almost as if I’m re-entering an extended family.
Alas, medical doctors are flagging and who can blame them given the stresses associated with Covid and the toll the virus takes upon them and their family members and friends.
A handful of docs on “my” team have reached the end of their long careers and plan to retire while plain old mental and physical fatigue is wearing down others. I don’t work directly with nursing and PA staff, but there’s no reason to think they’re faring better.
Hiring medical professionals is a long drawn-out process over months so there’s not quick end in sight for over-worked staff. Moreover, there appears to be no end in sight with Covid; variant after variant after variant ….
Will it ever end?
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