What if?

© Counterpoint.com 

As I prepare to return to California, I’m hypersensitive to the reality of contracting Covid-19. For more than a year, I’ve hunkered down, worn a mask, kept my distance from other humans, and, luckily, not contracted the potentially fatal malady. I’m highly motivated to remain coronavirus-free. 

What if that’s not enough? 

What if, after purchasing my tickets and various travel insurance policies, my pre-flight Covid test signals I’m positive for the virus?
What if I’m forced to remain here? 

Hmmm, best to work at keeping a level head… 

News blues

United States:
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday said he has “no doubt” that the number of Americans killed by COVID-19 is much higher than what has been officially reported, after a recent study counted nearly double the amount recorded by federal health officials. 
It’s estimated up to 900,000 Americans have dies from Covid as “Public health experts agree that official COVID-19 death tolls are undercounts, but there is disagreement over how high the actual tolls are.” 

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Africa:

Africa has suffered about three million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic—at least officially. The continent’s comparatively low number of reported cases has puzzled scientists and prompted many theories about its exceptionalism, from its young population to its countries’ rapid and aggressive lockdowns.
But numerous seroprevalence surveys, which use blood tests to identify whether people have antibodies from prior infection with the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), point to a significant underestimation of African countries’ COVID burden. Undercounting could increase the risk of the disease spreading widely, hinder vaccine rollout and uptake, and ultimately threaten global efforts to control the pandemic, experts warn. Wherever the virus is circulating—especially in regions with little access to vaccines—new mutations are likely to arise, and it is crucial to identify them quickly.

Statistics from around the world concur. View a chart mapping excess deaths and track cases.

As covid-19 has spread around the world, people have become grimly familiar with the death tolls that their governments publish each day. Unfortunately, the total number of fatalities caused by the pandemic may be even higher, for several reasons. First, the official statistics in many countries exclude victims who did not test positive for coronavirus before dying—which can be a substantial majority in places with little capacity for testing. Second, hospitals and civil registries may not process death certificates for several days, or even weeks, which creates lags in the data. And third, the pandemic has made it harder for doctors to treat other conditions and discouraged people from going to hospital, which may have indirectly caused an increase in fatalities from diseases other than covid-19.

Further tracking Covid-19:

• Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide 
• South African experts to follow for up-to-date and accurate Covid information… 

Healthy planet, anyone?

To reiterate what most humans know but cannot figure out how, collectively, to address: fossil fuels, cattle and rotting waste produce greenhouse gas responsible for 30% of global heating 

Slashing methane emissions is vital to tackling the climate crisis and rapidly curbing the extreme weather already hitting people across the world today, according to a new UN report…that found that methane emissions could be almost halved by 2030 using existing technology and at reasonable cost. A significant proportion of the actions would actually make money, such as capturing methane gas leaks at fossil fuel sites.

Read “Cutting methane emissions is quickest way to slow global heating – UN report” >> 

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A reminder: “The explosive growth of the human population—from 2.5 billion to 6 billion since the second half of the 20th century—may have already started changing how infectious diseases emerge” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I began my birthday – Saturday - paying more attention to the garden at my mother’s house. Since taking the house off the market, my enthusiasm for gardening has returned and I weeded, cleared, and sorted through piles of discarded wood, most of which is recyclable. 

After that, I visited my mother at the Care Center (tight lockdown reigns again and I needed prior permission to visit). She was tired and, after dropping asleep twice in ten minutes, I let her catch up on her sleep.
I returned to my own place and continued trimming the overgrown hedge. My initial plan had been to purchase an electric hedge trimmer and carve animal shapes into the hedge. Indeed, I started with a bison, or a wildebeest, depending on one’s perspective, then, put aside my hedge aspirations as more pressing tasks demanded attention. I returned to hedge clipping after a contract gardener failed to show up. Hedge clipping, particularly for a hedge with branches reaching above the roof line, is hard work. I divided the work over two days. It’s finished, now, though the hedge has the semi-bald, chopped look of a child’s doll after the child discovers scissors and haircuts. 

Ah well, a gal does her best….

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A SA postal service story: a Christmas card arrived for my mother. Posted in England well before Christmas, 2020 it arrived 6 May, 2021.

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This year, my solitary birthday was one-of-a-kind. Sunlight poured the French doors into the living room/kitchen (shut tight to prevent dogs from entering and begging). As I cooked a delicious meal, I sipped a claret wine (similar to a cabernet) and, by lunch, I was nicely buzzed. (A glassful does it: I’m not much of a wine drinker.) A wine buzz is conducive to reviewing the past year and I concluded 2020/2021 has been a “learning experience par excellence.”
Red red wine, Bob Marley version  (5:30 mins)

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I found a small gecko among my blankets as I made my bed. I tossed a sock over him/her/it and, as I laid the creature on the windowsill, wondered, first, how it become entangled in my blankets and, second, if a gecko can find its way into my bed, could a snake do so, too?
Hmmm, best not to overthink….
Meantime, days are sunny, bright, and warm. Nights? Not so much. Late fall means shorter days and less sunlight…
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
March 2: sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm.
March 16: sunrise 5:59am; sunset 6:13pm.
March 29: sunrise 6:07am; sunset 5:58pm.
April 1: sunrise 6:09am; sunset 5:54pm.
April 15: sunrise 6:18am; sunset 5:39pm.
April 25: sunrise 6:23am; sunset 5:30pm.
May 1: sunrise 6:27am; sunset 5:24pm.
May 3: sunrise 6:29am; sunset 5:22pm.
May 10: sunrise 6:33am; sunset 5:17pm.