Stung

News blues

According to researchers, including immunologist Nicole Doria-Rose and colleagues at the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,

Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine protects people for at least six months and likely longer – even against new variants. 

Protection against the Delta variant, now dominant across the US, barely waned, the National Institutes of Health-led team found. The team will continue to look for evidence of protection beyond six months. “High levels of binding antibodies recognizing all tested variants, including B.1.351 (Beta) and B.1.617.2 (Delta), were maintained in all subjects over this time period.”

Great for those who took the Moderna jab (including my son who works in a medical facility)… not so great for others, such as, well, for example, me. I guess I’ll be back in line again soon, baring my arm for another jab. 

Thanks the gods I have that option…. Thank you, scientists, immunologists, and, yes, Dr Fauci!

***

Ed Yong, staff writer at The Atlantic Monthly, has consistently turned out some of the best writing on the pandemic and coronavirus. His most recent piece, “How the Pandemic Ends Now,” is another excellent source of (non-politicized) information.
Read it >> 

Healthy planet, anyone?

First, a photographic reminder of the beauty of our planet >> 
Then, how We the People wreak havoc on that same planet – and how nature tries to respond:

Plastic bottles dominate waste in the ocean, with an estimated 1m of them reaching the sea every minute. The biggest culprit is polyethylene terephthalate (Pet) bottles.
A recent study found two bacteria capable of breaking down Pet – or, as the headlines put it, “eating plastic”. Known as Thioclava sp. BHET1 and Bacillus sp. BHET2, the bacteria were isolated in a laboratory – but they were discovered in the ocean.

Read “…the ‘plastisphere’: the synthetic ecosystem evolving at sea” >>

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

 I’d noticed the browning and shriveling of outer perimeters of the river’s vegetative islands of burgeoning hyacinth and other invasive plants. I suspected that some state department – Fish and wildlife? Regional water board? California State Parks Division of Boating and Waterways? All the above – were spraying herbicides again.
My suspicion proved correct when I captured this shot yesterday morning: herbicides being sprayed along the levee wall across from my houseboat.
While that’s not unusual, it boggles my mind that, knowing what “we” know about chemicals in our environment, “we” continue to choose this chemical way of addressing the problem.

Ironically, having expressed my distrust of environmental contaminants passed off to the public as “of no significance”, today I sprayed a pesticide advertised as “safe around people and pets” at residents of a wasp nest.
I’d repaired and repainted sections of wood trim and was nailing it back into place on the boat when several fierce wasps shot out from under the trim and stung my bare hands. Unlike bees, wasps live to sting again, and again, so I skedaddled – fast - and slammed shut the screen doors behind me.
Spiders, wasps, and similar bugs have staked out hunting and nesting territory on the houseboat. Not a problem. I’m not fearful of bugs. Indeed, I’ve built their presence into my life even as I enjoy my early morning ritual circumnavigating the boat with feather duster to remove the overnight crop of spider webs.
Through the closed window I watched several wasps aggressively patrol the area. They appeared to mean mean business.
I retrieved a can of “safe” insect spray that a friend had left on the boat and, carefully, aimed the spray nozzle in the direction of the hidden nest.
Naturally, the wasps became more agitated.
Since then, I've remained shut up in my hot and stuffy houseboat and given up my plan to finish the trim during daylight. Perhaps tonight, when the wasps are cozily tucked into their nest, I’ll sneak up and spray them. After all, as poet John Lyly wrote, “The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.”

 
Continuing the topic of environmental contamination, after two years away in South Africa, yesterday evening I participated in an online board meeting as a member of a community overseeing the federally mandated clean up of toxic waste of former Naval Air Station Alameda. 

I’ve participated in this enterprise – the Restoration Advisory Board, RAB - since about 2003, taken great pleasure in doing so, and learned a massive amount about environmental contamination and the effort required to clean it up.
RABs are common around the nation. Many, many contaminated sites, from military bases to private and public businesses, have CERCLA (Superfund) site clean up overseen by community members.
Our community’s cleanup consists of a 2,806-acre area once a Navy installation located on the San Francisco Bay. Solid wastes generated at the site were disposed of in two on-base landfills as well as many sites with unanticipated chemical spills. All liquid industrial wastewaters generated at the site prior to 1974 were discharged untreated into a manmade lagoon and local inner harbor. 

Since this base closed in 1997, about $1 billion has been spent on clean up and rehabilitation. And this NAS is only one of at least four similar sites, all former military bases on San Francisco Bay.
It was good to be back on the board. Moreover, with mixed emotion, we bade farewell to one member who’d been part of the planning of the base closure since 1995. Bert’s about to celebrate his 100th year of life – 26 years of which were spent serving on the RAB - and he’s decided to cut back on his many community serving activities.
Thanks for your many faithful years, Bert!

Early Santa

Covid-19 won't stop NORAD from tracking Santa's Christmas Eve flight around the world.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, responsible for protecting the skies over the US and Canada, says it will be ready to follow Santa on December 24 as he flies from the North Pole to visit children's houses all over the world.
This will be the Santa Tracker's 65th anniversary. It dates back to a typo in a 1955 Sears ad and an Air Force officer, who's now known as the "Santa Colonel."
NORAD was even able to keep the tradition going during the [Trump-inspired] 2018 government shutdown.

News blues…

Recently, G20 leaders – excluding Trump, who played golf instead – pledged online to “spare no effort” to ensure the fair distribution of coronavirus vaccines worldwide. They offered no specific new funding nor a roll out plan to meet that goal.
I offer no insights on funding, but I have a suggestion on distribution: Santa’s Christmas Eve flight around the world.
There may be more Santa skeptics in the world than there are Covid-19 skeptics in the US, but surely even a diehard skeptic wouldn’t argue when a clatter of reindeer hooves sounded on the roof and, from heaven, a frozen package of vaccine dropped through the chimney?
Rollout is an challenge. Temperature, for example, is key to maintaining vaccine efficacy:

[Covid-19] vaccines use a novel technology—strands of messenger RNA (mRNA), held within lipid particles—that is vulnerable to degradation at room temperature and requires doses to be frozen for transportation, then thawed for use.
…The Moderna vaccine may have an edge: Unlike Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s offering, it does not have to be stored at –70°C, but can tolerate a much warmer –20°C, which is standard for most hospital and pharmacy freezers. 

African countries have a disadvantage: hospitals and pharmacies are in short supply and many that exist likely lack freezers.

A challenge beyond distribution:

We are likely to need several Covid-19 vaccines to cover everyone and as a contingency, in case the virus mutates and “escapes” the ability of one vaccine to neutralise it, a real possibility in light of the discovery of an altered form of Sars-CoV-2 infecting European mink. But we also need better methods of diagnosing and treating the disease. The recent suspension of two major vaccine trials due to serious adverse events is a salutary reminder that there’s much still to learn and a pandemic, while no one would wish for one, provides scientists with a golden opportunity for learning.
Like most Covid-19 vaccine candidates, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are injected into the muscle, from where they enter the bloodstream and stimulate the production of antibodies to Sars-CoV-2 (specifically to the protein that forms the spikes covering its surface). But antibodies are only one component of the body’s adaptive immune response, which develops over time, in response to invasion by a virus or other pathogen. There is also innate immunity, which we are born with and that is mobilised instantly upon infection, but is not tailored to any specific pathogen.
“There are a lot of moving parts to this,” says immunopharmacologist Stephen Holgate, of the University of Southampton in the UK, who wonders why scientists have focused on so few of them.

I assume it is out of the question to suggest scientists and G20 leaders – minus Trump – meet online with Santa to work out the details?
[Note: I admit a tongue-in-cheek flavor. Given the current moment replete with “alternative facts,” conspiracy theories, and old fashion lies, let it be known: editorial comments are satire… born of frustration, pandemic fatigue, and loss of confidence in top down leadership.]

Healthy planet, anyone?

Photo essay: The tiny, magical world of pygmy seahorses, one of the most elusive fish on the planet. 
Note photo #10: “a new species of pygmy seahorse, Hippocampus nalu … spotted in Sodwana Bay, in north-eastern South Africa … the first pygmy seahorse to have been recorded anywhere in the Indian Ocean.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday, I dreaded visiting my mother at the Care Center. Her ongoing complaints debilitate, from not enough cups of tea, “cold” tea, too many “old people,” “hard” vegetables (she’s old school English and expects cooked vegetables the consistency and color of Pablum), “unhappy” dog, “nobody” walks The Dog, etc., etc.
I groaned as I filled out the Covid tracking documents before entering the facility,  and learned my mother's escalating her complaints. Nevertheless, carrying two containers of cooked giblets and one container of rice – for The Dog – and a bottle of my mother’s favorite wine, I squared my shoulders and cautiously entered her room.
She was asleep. 
I set the dog food in the ‘fridge, placed the wine on the floor near her bed… and skedaddled.

Oh, I do believe in merciful Santa….