Those pesky numbers

Week 14's pesky numbers compared to Week 13's

• July 2 - worldwide: 10,729,340 confirmed infections; 517,055 deaths
  June 25 - worldwide: 9,409,000 confirmed infections; 482,190 deaths
• July 2 – US: 2,688,250 infections; 128,104 deaths
  June 25 - US: 2,381,540 infections; 121,980 deaths
• July 2 - SA: 159,333 infections; 2,749 deaths
  June 25 - SA: 111,800 confirmed infections; 2,205 deaths

And, despite all the staying at home going on around the world, atmospheric CO2 continues its upward trajectory

• 27 June 2020: 416.05 parts per million
• This time last year: 413.50 ppm
• 10 years ago: 391.44 ppm
• Pre-industrial base: 280ppm
• Safe level: 350ppm

Reading from Mauna Loa, Hawaii . (Source: NOAA-ESRL)
Scientists have warned for more than a decade that concentrations of more than 450ppm risk triggering extreme weather events of temperature rises as high as 2C, beyond which the effects of global heating are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible.

News blues…

A brief scan of new numbers:

• Gauteng’s Health MEC expects “Covid-19 cases to reach 120 000 by the end of July. "Our predictions tell us that we will be … getting closer to 250 000 to 300 000 by August, [and in] September which is expected to be the peak, we will be having more than that," Dr Bandile Masuku told News24 on Wednesday. 
• The SA government’s official coronavirus figures could be missing more than half the deaths caused by the pandemic, a new report from the Medical Research Council (MRC) reveals. 
• As a number of US states reversed course on their reopening plans amid spiking case counts, Trump told Fox Business in an interview that he still believed the virus would simply go away on its own. “I think we’re gonna be very good with the coronavirus,” he said. “I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” 
• With 4 percent of the world’s population, the US accounts for a quarter of worldwide coronavirus deaths. On Wednesday, the US reported 49,932 new coronavirus cases, the fifth single-day case record in eight days…. North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas also hit daily records, with Texas reaching more than 8,000 new infections. 
• The US experienced 15,400 'excess deaths' from March to April 4 compared with last year, suggesting coronavirus death toll is higher than known, according to an analysis conducted for The Washington Post. During the same time period, the official death count from COVID-19 was 8,128. The discrepancy exists in data from around the world, and suggests the true number of coronavirus-related deaths is being significantly undercounted. New Orleans Health Director Jennifer Avegno believes the actual death toll may be 15 percent higher than what is officially reported.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Ah, the satisfaction that comes with recycling an elderly concrete mixer into a compost mixer….
For months, I’ve composted kitchen scraps and collected leaves, ash from veld fires, pond weed, sawdust, peat, vermiculite, even excavated soil from mole hills….
Today, those ingredients – including earthworms - went into the concrete mixer… and came out as sweet smelling, fecund, garden soil. (Earthworms came out dizzy but alive – and ready, I think, for the upcoming garden phase.)
Figuring out how to start the mixer was a challenge. Incentivized by a potential 220-volt jolt if I got it wrong, I consulted the Internet – which wasn’t much help. I spent some time searching for the on/off switch, then, finally, realized there was only a three-prong plug to push into a live socket.
Voila!
It was hard work, but the sweet smell of compost made it all worthwhile!

***

(c) Charles J Sharp, Sharp Photography
Click to enlarge.

Yesterday, I spotted a Giant Kingfisher perched on the overhead electric power cable peering into the garden pond.
It was in the same spot today.
The Giant Kingfisher is Africa’s largest kingfisher species – up to 18 inches tall – and it dives from its perch to catch crabs, fish, and frogs.
In this set of four photos by Charles J Sharp, a female Giant Kingfisher returns to perch with a tilapia from Lake Naivasha, Kenya. She smashes the fish against a post to break its spine.

Ah, can’t help thinking of my goldfish!
Haven’t seen goldfish fin nor tail for weeks. I assumed they’d dived deep for warmth.
Would the Giant Kingfisher offer any insight into goldfish whereabouts?

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No immunity in the community

What does it mean when members of a country’s elected governing body does nothing while the leader of a major country refuses to lead during a pandemic, shuns advice, and chooses to play golf and Tweet (“The Lone Warrior”) rather than attend to deadly perils that citizens face?
One of my friends would answer: “It means a decadent ruling class…”
Another friend would say that “It means the governing body is maneuvering behind the scenes to solidify their positions….”
Another friend would say, “It means they’re all fascists….”
(I love my friends for their points of view: never a dull moment.)
I would answer: It means We, the People of the world, are in deep, deep trouble….

News blues…

Testifying at the Senate coronavirus hearing yesterday, Dr Anthony Fauci said, “We are now seeing 40,000 cases [of Covid infections] per day. I won’t be surprised if we see 100,000 per day if this does not turn around. I am very concerned.”

Trump, meanwhile, has been largely silent on the continued spike in cases, instead focusing on vandalized statues and his own ego. As more than 40,000 new cases and more than 800 new deaths were reported in the U.S., the president was busy tweeting “photos of 15 people the U.S. Park Police said it is attempting to identify ‘who are responsible for vandalizing property’ in a park in front of the White House.” 

Moreover, to celebrate July 4th this year, Trump plans to insert himself amongst George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will travel to Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota, on Friday for an early Fourth of July fireworks celebration and flyover, the first of its kind in more than a decade. The event will gather "thousands" together during a global pandemic with no social distancing, and comes amid a national conversation on monuments with racist histories.

Need I add masks and social distancing will be optional?

Another point of view regarding the wearing of masks.

Most examples of people failing to follow social distancing measures [in the UK] are not evidence of individual selfishness, said John Drury, a professor at the University of Sussex and one of the country’s leading behavioral psychologists, but rather of the hardships that many face and the failure of public officials to offer clear guidance or provide for their needs.
“Despite media campaigns to vilify some people as selfish and thoughtless ‘covidiots,’ the evidence on reasons for non‐adherence shows that much of it was practical rather than psychological,” Drury and his colleagues wrote in a recent paper in the British Journal of Social Psychology. “Many people had to cram into Tube trains to go to work because they needed money to survive and government support schemes were insufficient. People were told they could go out to exercise, but those in urban areas had limited public space. And some employers failed to provide the support for social distancing and hygiene. Those with less income and wealth also live in more crowded homes.”
Now, with Boris Johnson encouraging people to eat, drink, and be merry — and the decision to relax restrictions further on a Saturday seems designed to facilitate just that — it’s no wonder that the public seems to be adopting a looser stance toward the coronavirus.
But it remains the government’s responsibility to make sure that the lifting of lockdown restrictions doesn’t result in a second wave of infections. Many health officials have looked on with dismay as the U.K. and the U.S. press ahead with reopening plans despite the lack of robust testing and tracing systems that would allow them to identify and isolate new outbreaks quickly, before they spread throughout the community.

Talking about statues…

The statue of British colonialist 

Cecil John Rhodes was removed 

from the University of Cape Town 

as a result of a month long protest 

by students citing the statue 

"great symbolic power" which glorified 

someone "who exploited black labour [sic] 

and stole land from indigenous people".

© Mail and Guardian 

(Charlie Shoemaker/Getty Images)

Click to enlarge.

The current wave of protests sweeping the world is nothing new to South Africans.

Students orchestrated the removal of the Cecil John Rhodes statue from the University of Cape Town campus back in 2015. Now, activist groups in the city are threatening to dismantle more relics of the past if the government does not act to remove them.
Lester Kiewit reports that the Black People's National Crisis Committee will intensify protests if those demands are not listened to. "These symbols inflict psychological violence on the minds of people whose ancestors were murdered by people who are being glorified by statues," said a member of the group.

Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s The Last Word, interview: Bill Moyers: Instead Of A 'Soul,' Donald Trump Has An 'Open Sore'
This interview is from 2017, shortly after the Charlottesville violence that resulted in one death (and about which Trump said, “great people on both sides”). Moyers’ words are still timely in 2020 as he explains that the inherent message of Confederate statues in the South “was not to honor the soldiers of the Civil War. It was to remind blacks and whites that the force of the state would still be used to subjugate them to a different form on slavery. All of those [statues] could come down without affecting history at all…. We could put them in museums where teachers could explain why they were put up in the early part of the 1900s. (Segment at about 6:30 min and continues at 10:00 min).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another warm and sunny winter day that I began with an early walk around the neighborhood.
I passed the house with the black Great Dane that, as usual, barked and stalked me. His barking, as usual, alerted the two dogs guarding the corner house who then barked and stalked me, too.
As usual, I pass and talk to the dogs: “Hello, dogs, what good barkers you are, dogs…” As usual, they bark (“stay away from our house, stay away, we say…”)
Today, however, I met a young girl who lives in that house. She told me the dogs’ names: Zack and Chloe.
Now our relationship – dogs and mine – changes forever.
Tomorrow, I’ll pass and say, “Hello Zack. Hello Chloe. What a good barker you are, Zack. What a good barker you are, Chloe….”
I’m dying to see how they respond.

***

I collected two large bags of dry leaves from a neighbor’s avocado tree (“avocado pear tree”)… plus three planters made from recycled tires/tyres.
Back home, I raked dry leaves of the exotic camel’s foot tree, and collected a bucketful of soil from mole hills dotted around the garden as well as another bucketful of wood ash from a recent veld fire outside.
I’ll combine leaves, mole hill sand, wood ash, and other ingredients with compost and mix in a recycled concrete mixer to produce wonderfully rich soil for the veggie garden.

Tens of thousands of people around the world struggle with a deadly infection while millions more struggle to remain infection-free.
Gardening is a metaphor for regeneration.

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Timing is everything?

Click to enlarge and read.

A friend (American) texted me this joke.

As I read it, I thought, “Oh, no, a conspiracy theory…”
Then I got to image of the valve stem – and laughed.
Phew, thank the gods! It’s a joke!
I Whatsapp’ed it to friends (South African).
So far, all have thought it serious!
I might have to text a disclaimer!

Dark humor. Another (American) friend enduring stay-at-home in New Mexico and commiserating with our Lockdown, texted, “Things are the same here: comfortable and voluntary house arrest. It’s like prison but without the sex.”

***

Typical 15-seat mini-bus taxi.
Click to enlarge.

There are more than 200,000 minibus taxis South Africa, with full capacity at 15 seats (although more passengers are frequently carried). More than 15-million commuters use mini-bus taxis each day.
The growing industry is worth about R50 billion a year, with 69 percent of South African households using them. (More facts about this industry.)
Even as numbers of confirmed cases surge between 5,000 and 6,000 per day in South Africa...

“Santaco - National Taxi Council in KwaZulu says government's R1-billion relief fund is not enough.
The association says it has now resolved to load taxis to full capacity and it will hike fares [as of] Monday.
Santaco’s resolution goes against government’s COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines that stipulate that minibus taxis must load at 70-percent capacity during level three of the lockdown.
Government says there is simply no money to offer anything more.

With commuters jammed into taxis again, how long before numbers of confirmed cases surge above 6,000 per day?

***

Testing, testing…

Hundreds of COVID-19 test kits have been found dumped next to the N2 highway near… East London [Eastern Cape].
The used kits were discovered by a jogger late on Tuesday last week.
The tests were on their way from surrounding hospitals to a laboratory in Port Elizabeth.
It's not clear how or why they were disposed of.
The National Health Laboratory Service has now collected the remaining tests.
The jogger told eNCA that he normally sees the tests when he watches the news. "When I saw them I knew immediately that these were the sticks they use to test people for COVID-19. I didn't touch them.
"I shoved them away with my running shoes. I could open them up using my foot, and I saw that these were COVID-19 tests."

As of today, South Africa has conducted 1,596,995 tests. How many have been read in a timely fashion?

Western Cape healthcare workers have reported waiting up to 10 days for COVID-19 test results — and sources in Gauteng say they’re not alone. Delays in results leave many fearing that patients with the new coronavirus virus, who should otherwise be self-quarantining, could unwittingly be exposing others to the virus.
“The delay is not only being experienced in the Western Cape… and indeed other provinces — ramp up testing, [the National Health Laboratory Services] are finding it challenging to keep up and process these tests, resulting in a nationwide backlog in the results.”
According to the provincial health department… it is currently testing about 1600 people daily for the virus.

Turns out, testing is the easy part.
Throwing tests away is one way to handle the lack of capacity to read them in a timely manner.
Hmmm, how long will it take America’s failing political leadership to figure out this tactic in response to their testing controversies?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Months of stay-at-home/Lockdown prey on the mind and emotions – not to mention the body.
I’m experiencing mood swings similar to those reported by my American friends.
One moment, we feel vindicated that our projections were correct: the pandemic is out of control and no one of substance is in charge, at least in the US.
The next moment, we’re plunged into depths of despair: our projections were correct, the pandemic is out of control, and no one of substance is in charge.
South Africa at least tried to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 and the surging pandemic. Ramaphosa shut things down quickly, and tried – despite monumental challenges – to respond effectively.
The United States did – continues to do – few of those responses.
Trump poo-poo’d Covid-19 as “the flu” that would disappear “like a miracle.”

Remember the emergence of HIV/AIDS  in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1980s?
One day a colleague would fail to come to work, next day, he was reported sick, and soon after, dead.
That epidemic was associated with a specific group of people and  those outside that group were relegated the role of helper or observer.
Observing allows distancing.
Covid-19 is an equal-opporrunity pandemic that disallows observation.
We humans are amid a horrific time. Few of us know how to grapple with – and hold – the horror.
Yet , grapple we must ….

Gardening is my solace.
I hear seeds calling….

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Culture wars

News blues…

Culture wars
© Chris Hayes Highlights:
June 24 | MSNBC
Click to enlarge.

An excellent and thoughtful interview conducted by Chris Hayes of MSNBC with writer Adam Serwer  who maintains that the Republican Party has forgotten how to run /campaign against “an old white guy” like Biden after 12 years running against a woman and a black man. Trump’s playbook isn’t working this time around. Culture wars made it easier running against/insulting a woman - Hilary Clinton – and a black man – Obama.
(Interview with Serwer begins around 2:40 min.)
***
Stoking the culture wars…

Sacha Baron Cohen pranked a far-right rally Saturday in Olympia, Washington, with the actor — pretending to be a bluegrass artist — leading the crowd in a singalong to a tune with racist lyrics.
Social media accounts first revealed …that Baron Cohen was behind the hijinks at the “March for Our Rights 3” rally hosted by the far-right militia group Washington Three Percenters.
According to reports, Baron Cohen first disguised himself as the wealthy head of a political action committee in order to infiltrate the event, then populated the rally with his own entertainment and security team. With his plan in place, Baron Cohen was able to execute his prank — which may or may not been filmed for his Showtime series Who is America? — by severing organizers’ access to their own event.
In one video from the rally, Baron Cohen took the guise of a bluegrass artist and sang,
“Obama, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu.
Hillary Clinton, what we gonna do? Lock her up like we used to do.
Fauci don’t know his head from his ass. He must be smoking grass.
I ain’t lying, it ain’t no jokes. Corona is a liberal hoax.
Dr. Fauci, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu.
WHO, what we gonna do? Chop ’em up like the Saudis do,”
with some in the crowd gleefully singing along.

Audio is not great but listen carefully to the Tweet videos and you’ll make out the words.

• Randy Rainbow COVER YOUR FREAKIN' FACE! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
• The Lincoln Project “Debt”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The gardener worked today and, together, we moved the recycled freezer/greenhouse/cold frame into a sunny spot. I laid out the shelves and the seedling trays…then worried that the monkeys would find irresistible the new item in the landscape. No monkeys visited today so that worry falls to another day.
At the agri-store and purchased seed packs of chard, zucchini, inion (no starts available yet) to replenish what remains of last year’s seed packet collection.
Too busy in the garden to walk the neighborhood.
Tomorrow is another day.
The sun will shine, the air will warm…

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