Down the rabbit hole

Commuting and working and organizing the vax clinics – yes, clinics, as flu season vaccinations began last week – leaves me little free time to present the planet’s Covid-19 numbers. (Luckily the world doesn’t depend on me, eh?) 

Here are the numbers as of today, compared to 2 weeks ago and to the last day of last year:

Worldwide (Map) 
September 6, 2021 – 220,863,350 confirmed infections; 4,571,200 deaths
August 19, 2021 – 209,892,500 confirmed infections; 4,401,700 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 82,656000 confirmed infections; 1,8040100 deaths

US (Map) 
September 6, 2021 – 39,955,200 confirmed infections; 648,615 deaths
August 19, 2021 – 37,201,600 confirmed infections; 625,150 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 19,737,200 confirmed infections; 342,260 deaths

 
SA (Tracker) 
September 6, 2021 – 2,820,000 confirmed infections; 83,419 deaths
August 19, 2021 – 2,652,660 confirmed infections; 78,694 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 1,039,165 confirmed infections; 28,035 deaths

News blues

Cases are being driver down by vaccinations
About 370.2 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had been administered across the country as of Tuesday, according to CNN data About 370.2 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had been administered across the country as of Tuesday, according to CNN data. 
An average of 899,462 doses are being administered each day, and 426,311 people are getting their first dose each day. When it comes to booster shots, as of August 13 -- when the CDC endorsed booster doses for certain immunocompromised people -- about 996,000 people had received that third dose.
"We are already getting the benefit of community immunity," Lessler said. "It's not an absolute number but a continuum. We will turn the corner when we reach a critical threshold of immunity and that's when cases will start to go down -- we always get there, either the virus or the vaccine gets us there. But that (community immunity) is still what is going to get this under control."
Even though 25 states have fully vaccinated more than half of their residents and half the United States is fully vaccinated, the country is inching back to winter levels in terms of cases, deaths and hospitalizations. Cases in the United States are averaging more than 159,000 each day, which has not been this high since January.
The country is averaging 1,329 deaths a day, a seven-day average not seen since March. As for hospitalizations, the US seven-day average stands at 100,057, which has not been seen since January.
"There are still a lot of people out there who are susceptible. That's one reason why this has been so bad," Lessler said. "Yes, we have a lot of immunity, and yes, we're in a better place than we were, but there are still huge pockets of susceptible people and those people cluster together. They interact."
With 4 months left in 2021, here's where the US stands with Covid-19

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The Lincoln Project Pro-Life  (0:56 mins)
Last Week in the Republican Party – (reprise)  (0:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone? 

The new Kivi Kuaka project focuses on birds’ ability to hear infrasound, the low-frequency sound inaudible to humans ¬ that researchers believe is the most likely signal birds would use to sense storms and tsunamis. Infrasound has myriad sources, including lightning strikes, jet engines, and the songlike vocalizations of rhinoceroses. Even the Earth itself generates a continuous infrasonic hum. Though rarely measured, it is known that tsunamis generate infrasound, too, and that these sound waves travel faster than the tsunami wave, offering a potential window in which to detect a tsunami before it hits.
There is some evidence that birds dodge storms by listening to infrasound. In a 2014 study, scientists tracking golden-winged warblers in the central and southeastern United States recorded what’s known as an evacuation migration when the birds flew up to 9,300 miles to evade an outbreak of tornadoes that killed 35 people and caused more than $1 billion in damage. The birds fled at least 24 hours before any foul weather hit, leaving the scientists to deduce they had heard the storm system from more than 250 miles away.

Read “Birds Can Hear Tsunamis Way Before They Hit. Scientists hope the ability can be turned into an early-warning system." >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Conspiracy theories continue… and people continue to line up at our clinic for jabs where we, in the Covid’s effects-can-be-reduced Camp, continue to inject vaccine into willing arms.
People, being people – quirky, diverse and diversely quirky – continue to wrestle with, well, whatever is the wrestle-able item of the day. For example, counterfeit Covid cards.
Last week, someone showed up at the clinic with a fake vaccination card. How did we know it was fake? She wanted a Maderna jab. There is no such jab as Maderna. On closer inspection, the card presented other spelling and editorial errors.
Why bother to present a counterfeit card? Who knows? Covid vaccinations are free with few questions asked. Why go to the trouble of making or acquiring a fake card? Who knows? People display all the inexplicable complexities of people-dom.

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My new life as a commuter severely cuts down on my ability to follow the news. I do not own – nor do I want to own – a television. Living on the beachfront, however lovely, presents internet connection issues. Spending many hours on the freeway to and from work, and many hours at work, means few hours spent at home. I’m unwilling to spend hard-earned dollars on internet service that I’d hardly use. Well, that’s the thought for today. Tomorrow, I may re-think the wisdom of that decision. Having internet at home is convenient. Then again, not having internet at home makes me realize how often, when I do have access at home, albeit squirrelly, I interrupt one online activity for a quick sidebar to review another online activity. That is, frequently I find myself breaking my online focus to explore or research a tangential topic that pops into my head. So, while researching, say, Covid statistics, I think of fires in northern California. Since internet access make it easy, I take a side trip to catch up on fire news, then that topic stimulates another topic, say, the air quality index, then I’m off to read about the rising cases of, say, asthma… then I might circle back to Covid statistics. Or not.
It’s also possible that my forays turn into further forays, and I’ll not return to Covid statistic for hours. Down the rabbit hole….
I love the ability to research on the fly. It’s increasingly challenging to stay focused on one topic.
What does it mean for “us” – people – that this is the wave of the future? Will we lose the ability to concentrate on one issue at a time?
It certainly means more conspiracy theories.
What of young minds? How do young people strengthen their ability to concentrate and stay focused?
Beats me.

Dumb and dumber

News blues

It’s bleak out there

COVID-19 hospitalizations for people in their 30s have reached a record high in the U.S. in the latest evidence that the dangerous delta variant of the disease poses formidable risks for younger age groups.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a total of 170,852 hospital admissions of those age 30 to 39 from the beginning of August 2020 to last Wednesday. The number of daily admissions, based on a seven-day average, jumped from 908 the week beginning July 29 to 1,113 the week starting Aug. 5. That’s a 22.6% bounce — and still climbing

Read more >> 

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South  Africa records 10,139 new cases and 272 deaths with 10,139 new Covid-19 cases and 272 deaths recorded on Sunday.
This brings the cumulative number of cases in the country to 2,605,586 and the total number of deaths to 77,141.
The number of vaccinations administered is 9,387,129.
KZN officially in its third Covid-19 wave, largely driven by riots

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Not directly related to Covid 19 and our global response to the pandemic, some inevitable news: Donald Trump is on the outs. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person >>  (3:05 mins)

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Whackidoodle-itude reaches new heights as social media posts claim the coronavirus vaccines can be passed – or “shed” – from an immunized person to an unvaccinated woman and then somehow affect the woman’s reproductive system are whipping around social media.
This is false!

Top medical experts agree that it is impossible for a person to transmit the vaccines to people they happen to be near and for a woman to experience miscarriage, menstrual cycle changes, and other reproductive problems by being around a vaccinated person.
“This is a conspiracy that has been created to weaken trust in a series of vaccines that have been demonstrated in clinical trials to be safe and effective,” said Dr Christopher Zahn, Vice President for Practice Activities at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the leading U.S. organization for medical professionals in women’s healthcare.
Calling the vaccines “our single best tool for confronting a global pandemic that has taken 600,000 lives in this country alone,” Zahn added in a statement emailed to Reuters that “such conspiracies and false narratives are dangerous and have nothing to do with science.”

Read more >> 

…yet more nuttiness

…some straight talk from one ‘Merican to other ‘Mericans  (2:20 mins)
...and another attempt to educate and elucidate, this one from the Republican Accountability Project  (0:55 mins)

Read the current top 10 conspiracy theories >>  

Healthy planet, anyone?

Lilly Geisler goes to a lot of trouble to recycle. So, she left CNN a voicemail asking: How much of my recycling actually gets recycled? John Sutter travels to Muncie, Indiana, to find out.
Watch "Let's Talk About the Climate Apocalypse" series >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Second thoughts on spraying wasps… I did not, after all, spray the wasps that live in my houseboat ceiling. Instead, I was able to complete installing the trim without  further riling up the wasps and inviting more stings. I opted, instead, for the live and let live option. Go wasps!

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Last year’s motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, made the news as a giant Covid super-spreader event. Alas, that wasn’t enough of a lesson for that state’s governor or motorcyclists from around the country. They had to do it again. 
Worrying to learn that, this year, one of the co-owners of the marina in which I moor my houseboat attended this year’s event.
My new job begins tomorrow. Thank the gods it places me far from the marina for at least the next week. That’s not really enough time for Covid infections to replicate – the virus can incubate up to 2 weeks – but I’m still glad to be far from there.