Catching up...

Worldwide (Map) 

February 25, 2021 -128,260,000 confirmed infections; 2,805,000 deaths

February 25, 2020 -  112,534,400 confirmed infections; 2,905,000 deaths

January 21 – 96,830,000 confirmed infections; 2,074,000 deaths

US (Map)

February 25, 2021 -  30,394,000  confirmed infections; 551,000 deaths

February 25, 2020 - 28,335,000 confirmed infections; 505,850 deaths 

January 21 – 24,450,000 confirmed infections; 406,100 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)

February 25, 2021 -  1,547,000   confirmed infections; 52,790 deaths

February 25, 2020 -  1,507,450 confirmed infections; 49,525 deaths

January 21 – 1,370,000 confirmed infections’ 38,900 deaths

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

News blues…

President Ramaphosa addresses and updates the nation on Covid-19 Lockdown  (27:40 mins) :

Alert Level 1 remains in place, however measures put in place for Easter weekend to combat a rise in infections

• Curfew remains midnight to 4am
• Public spaces such as beaches, parks, and dams remain open, but subject to usual health protocols – social distancing, wearing masks, sanitizing
• Funerals restricted to 100 attendees, maximum of 2 hour services
• Inter-provincial travel permitted though caution required
• Alcohol restrictions: sale at offsite locations prohibited Easter Friday through Monday. Onsite sales – restaurants, bars, shebeens – allowed, subject to licenses
• Easter religious gatherings restricted to 250 people indoors and 500 outdoors
• Small venues: no more than 50 percent of capacity allowed.

Within 15 days there’ll be a review of the pandemic, the state of compliance, and will respond swiftly at any signs of a resurgence of infections.

***

A must read:  “How mRNA Technology Could Change the World: mRNA’s story likely will not end with COVID-19: Its potential stretches far beyond this pandemic.” >> 

***

This week’s news controversy:
It was supposed to offer insight into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, but since its release last Tuesday, the long-awaited World Health Organization investigation has drawn criticism from governments around the world over accusations it is incomplete and lacks transparency. Here’s an excerpt from Tuesday’s story:

According to a draft copy of the joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19, transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely.”
…researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the virus named SARS-CoV-2. Topping the list was transmission through a second animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread through “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.
The closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats, which are known to carry coronaviruses. However, the report says that “the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, suggesting a missing link.”
…
The draft report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of cases in December 2019.
The discovery of other cases before the Huanan market outbreak suggests it may have started elsewhere. But the report notes there could have been milder cases that went undetected and that could be a link between the market and earlier cases.
“No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn,” the report says.
As the pandemic spread globally, China found samples of the virus on the packaging of frozen food coming into the country and, in some cases, have tracked localized outbreaks to them.

Read “WHO Report Says Coronavirus Likely Spread From Animals To Humans. According to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press, a lab leak is “extremely unlikely” as the source of the virus. 

And... here’s the (inevitable?) news blowback:

In a joint statement, the United States and 13 other governments, including the United Kingdom, Australia and South Korea, expressed concerns over the study's limited access to "complete, original data and samples."
The European Union issued its own statement, expressing the same concerns in slightly softer language. The criticism follows an admission from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, that investigators faced problems during their four-week mission to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in December 2019.
In a news briefing Tuesday, Tedros appeared to contradict the study's central findings by suggesting the theory that the virus escaped from a Wuhan laboratory should be followed up - even though the report noted such a possibility was "extremely unlikely" and did not recommend further research on the hypothesis.
The WHO investigation, conducted more than a year after the initial outbreak, came under intense scrutiny from the outset. Some scientists and the US government have questioned the independence and credibility of the study, raising concerns over Chinese government influence. Beijing, meanwhile, has accused Washington and others of "politicizing" the origin of the virus.  

Read “14 countries and WHO chief accuse China of withholding data from pandemic origins investigation” >> 

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In a White House press conference Monday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said she felt a sense of impending doom over the uptick in COVID-19 cases.

“I’m watching the cases tick up. I’m watching us have increased numbers of hyper-transmissible variants. I’m watching our travel numbers tick up, and the sense is, I’ve seen what it looks like to anticipate the oncoming surge,” Walensky said. “And what I really would hate to have happen is to have another oncoming surge just as we’re reaching towards getting so many more people vaccinated. You know, we’re still losing people at 1,000 deaths a day. And so I just can’t face another surge when there’s so much optimism right at our fingertips.”  (1:22 mins)

***

In the macrocosm, for people who’ve had the privilege of making their own life decisions, aka “following your bliss …”, not knowing is the most difficult state of being to accept.
Kudos then, a year into Covid-19, for admitting that, when it comes to coronavirus, “We just don’t know” what comes next.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic may drag on for years, but the nightmare of last year—of an entirely new viral illness, emerging in a specific sociopolitical context—is behind us. Instead we’re facing a new set of challenges, and they are not easily comparable to what has come before. It’s worth considering a new way of thinking about the period of the pandemic now ahead of us—one that leads us neither to complacency nor to paralyzing despair. In many ways COVID-19 is already over. What lies ahead is COVID-21.
Diseases are not static things. Pathogens change, hosts change, and environments change. In the case of COVID, all three are now different than they were in 2020. What began as one coronavirus has infected well over 100 million people and evolved into new forms that appear to transmit more readily and infect us in subtly different ways. Our immune systems have changed as well, as a result of fending off infections. And, of course, our lifestyles have changed, as have social standards, medical systems, and public-health programs.
COVID-21 is the product of all these changes in aggregate.

Read “Covid-19 is different now” >> 

***

The Lincoln Project: 

“Rupert”  (0:55 mins)

"Why we fight" (0:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Photo essay: The Great Vaccination Campaign 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

South African days getting shorter while nightfall happens earlier:
Feb 26:    sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm
March 2:  sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm
March 9:   sunrise 5:55am; sunset 6:21pm
March 16: sunrise 5:59am; sunset 6:13pm
March 25: sunrise 6:05am; sunset 6:01pm
April 1:     sunrise 6:09am; sunset 5:54pm

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….