Category of critter

Week 76
Day 535, Thursday, September 9 - Category of critter

Well, the United State continues to lead the world in Covid infections. Amazing.
Worldwide (Map)
September 9, 2021 – 223,101,000 confirmed infections; 4,604,450 deaths 

September 3, 2020 – 26,940,000 confirmed infections; 861,870 deaths

US (Map)
September 9, 2021 – 40,601,000 confirmed infections; 654,600 deaths 

 September 3, 2020 – 6,114,000 confirmed infections; 185,710 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
September 9, 2021 – 2,843,100 confirmed infections; 84,327 deaths 
September 3, 2020 – 630,596 confirmed infections; 14,390 deaths 

News blues

Finally, some sanity during an insane time in the life of America. President Biden expands vaccine push with mandates for the private sector and announces sweeping vaccination and testing requirements for federal government workers, contractors and even private sector employees, as his administration works to fight the spreading coronavirus.
About time, Mr. Biden!

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Hospitals in California’s Central Valley have been increasingly overwhelmed by the fourth surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, with officials scrambling to transfer some critically ill patients more than 100 miles away because local intensive care units are full.  

The San Joaquin Valley, the Sacramento area and rural Northern California are now the regions of the state being hit the hardest by COVID-19 hospitalizations on a per capita basis… The regions have lower vaccination rates than in the highly populated, coastal areas of Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area.

My houseboat is moored in the San Joaquin River, part of this region. I’m grateful that I’m not living on my houseboat right now.

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Seeking resources and information on Covid vaccines? Explore the CDC website  >>

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The Lincoln Project
Sad  (0:56 mins)
Ivermectin  (1:25 mins)
Last Week in the Republican Party – (reprise)  (1:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

An important article with full excerpt from the National Geographic newsletter by By Victoria Jaggard, SCIENCE executive editor:

Since the beginning of the pandemic, scientists and government officials have gotten sage advice from a group of people who were already battling a massive threat to public health: climate scientists. From piles of sometimes contradictory evidence to rampant misinformation  to mind-boggling denials of established facts, the issues that have plagued COVID-19 researchers and policymakers are starkly like those that have influenced the climate crisis. The pandemic has also laid bare similar issues with equity, access to healthcare, intergovernmental squabbling, and reluctance to embrace solutions that might harm the bottom line. But while the state of things may seem bleak right now, we actually have a lot to celebrate with COVID-19, in part because the pandemic spurred people to act urgently and drove a lot of innovation. Now mRNA vaccines are not only keeping people out of hospitals, they hold potential for combating a host of other diseases. More people are saying they will embrace masks as an effective way to prevent respiratory illness beyond COVID-19. And governments and institutions are investigating ways to improve healthcare infrastructure.  So why can’t we learn a few things from COVID-19 to get serious about tackling climate change? That’s what the editors of more than 200 medical journals are asking this week in an article co-published across their pages. 

“Many governments met the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic with unprecedented funding. The environmental crisis demands a similar emergency response,” the editors write. And yes, they add, “the science is unequivocal” that climate change is a huge risk to public health. Extreme heat already threatens the health of about 30 percent of the world’s population, according to a 2017 study. Shifting climate zones mean that tropical diseases—many carried by my personal archnemeses, mosquitoes—are pushing into higher latitudes, threatening even more people with ailments such as dengue fever, malaria, Zika, and valley fever. Droughts are making crops harder to grow and less nutritious, while floods create stagnant waters that can carry all sorts of icky infectious agents. Heck, climate change has even been implicated in making seasonal allergies worse  

The global response to COVID-19 has not been perfect. But it has shown the world what’s possible when people come together with the resources and the willpower to overcome a deadly challenge. And as the journal authors write: “Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.” All our lives depend on it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I still have not acclimated to my new life as a commuter, nor found a way to commute, work a full day, and come home regularly post on this blog.
I’m trying but it’s a learning curve.

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Currently, people who are medically immunocompromised – suffering from illnesses associated with underperforming immune systems such as cancers, organ transplants, untreated HIV, and high dose steroid treatments – can receive a third dose of a Covid vaccine.
Naturally, people being people, many not suffering such illnesses arrive at the clinic and try to bulldoze their way into receiving this cautionary measure. One of my jobs is to try to explain to the latter category of people the difference between the third dose for the immunocompromised and “booster shots”. 

The simplest explanation? Booster shots are not yet available. 

I repeat the same information scores of times a day – while also performing my “real” duties. A part of me enjoys these glimpses into how the human mind works to bamboozle it’s way into getting third doses. Healthy people know they’re ineligible, but they’re willing to sign their names to Attestations and have false information entered into their medical records – in other words, create proof that they’re liars – simply to get a third dose of vaccine.
These people are the opposite of the people who’d rather take an anti-bacterial horse de-wormer – Ivermectin – than a human anti-viral vaccine.
Fascinating.
Humans. 

A hard to understand category of critter.