Forever?

Worldwide (Map) 
August 26, 2021 – 213,854,000 confirmed infections; 4,463,000 deaths
July 29, 2021 – 196,414,175 confirmed infections; 4,194,100 deaths

 
US (Map) 
August 26, 2021 – 38,222,000 confirmed infections; 632,300 deaths
July 29, 2021 – 34,724,000 confirmed infections; 612,050 deaths

 
SA (Coronavirus portal) 
August 26, 2021 – 2,722,205 confirmed infections; 80,470 deaths
July 29, 2021 – 2,422,155 confirmed infections; 71,431 deaths

News blues

The virus will be around “forever”? Advice on how to live with it  – a compendium of articles from The Atlantic Monthly

COVID-19 is not going away. The virus that causes it is on track to become endemic, like the ones that cause the common cold. You’ll probably encounter it at some point, if you haven’t already. 
That doesn’t mean you should stop taking precautions. We can still buy ourselves time  — time to vaccinate more people and avoid deadly hospital surges. But the virus will be part of our lives in the long term.
“We need to prepare people that [the current wave of cases is] not going to come down to zero,” one psychologist warns…

• The virus itself could still get worse.  “Delta could continue to ratchet up its rate of spread, or it could be ousted by another super-infectious variant,” our staff writer Katherine J. Wu warns. “There is no playbook for evolution.”
• Global inequities could worsen as the virus transitions to endemicity. “The human and economic costs of new diseases are borne by all, but unequally,” the historian Kyle Harper reminds us.
• But eventually, the coronavirus will become a less worrisome part of life.  “When everyone has some immunity, a COVID-19 diagnosis becomes as routine as diagnosis of strep or flu”….

***

Deaths Data Shows 80% of South Africans May Have Had Covid 

As many as four out of five South Africans may have contracted the coronavirus, indicating that the country may be one of the world’s hardest-hit nations by the disease, the chief actuary at Africa’s biggest health insurer said.
Emile Stipp, the actuary at Discovery Health, based his calculations on the country’s case-fatality rate and excess deaths, a measure of the number of fatalities compared with an historical average. They are thought to provide a more accurate picture of the impact of the pandemic than the official toll.

***

The Lincoln Project The Best of Us  (0:41 mins)
Monster Trump Rally  (1:00 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Well, I’m snowed under. My new job – at a Covid vax clinic – presents an hour each way commute for 28 miles each direction. Stop and go traffic up the wazoo. Nine hours putting out fires at the job, supervising the vax-ing of at least 200, and sometimes more than double that number, per day.
The staff is truly amazing. Project manager type that I am, this job presents multiple tasks, from big to little – to occupy my busy mind.
I’ve so much to say about the wonderful work – exhausting as it is - and share what I’m learning about Covid-19. There’s nothing secret or confidential about the information. It is available to anyone who knows where to look. That’ll be my role: indicating areas of good information.
I fly to Texas today, but I plan to begin sharing information over the next couple of days.
Tune in for more….

Hip deep

News blues

The not-so-blue news: “The U.S. administered more than 1 million vaccine doses Friday, marking the third day in a row more than a million shots were distributed, including 526,000 first shots. 
So, finally, with Covid-19 hospitalizations increasing, a greater number of Americans have recently made the decision to get vaccinated than in the last six weeks. .”
(See below for a personal experience of front vaccinations of at least 600 of those 1.05 million doses.)

***

According to Daily Maverick, 80% or as many as four out of five South Africans may have contracted coronavirus, indicating South Africa may be among the world’s hardest-hit nations. 

***

The Lincoln Project Ducey  (0:38 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party, next episode  (1:45 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

We can’t predict the next coronavirus variant. But there are some fundamental principles that explain why the virus has morphed as it has and where we could be headed next. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Posting here took a backseat to working this week – and posting will continue to take a backseat as long as I work in a Covid vaccination clinic. It’s a wild, wild ride!
A reminder: the day after I returned from my 1.5-year unexpected sojourn in South Africa, I was vaxed at a local grocery store. No line, no wait, in and out with vital vax record card in hand. Three weeks later, I repeated the process at the grocery store. Easy peasy. Why travel to a hospital and stand in line?

I work in one vax clinic in a multiple-hospital system that is member-based. My role is to ensure smooth sailing of the day-to-day vaccine program so that medical professionals can vax as many people as show up at the hospital seeking one of the three currently available vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J).
With member medical records residing on the central computer system, check in is, in general, smooth. Member-clients make appointments before they arrive and have their documentation ready for check-in.
With the vaccines and associated collateral – syringes, etc. - provided by the federal government, vax clinic providers must guarantee that anyone who wants a free vaccination can have a free vaccination. In return, the Feds want documentation – and lots of it.
Our vax team consists of 2 client reps checking in clients, 1 client rep managing the line, 2 nurses prepping, 5 to 7 nurses jabbing, and me, smoothing the overall process. My workday begins with updating information on the numbers of registered member clients expected that day.
The member count is easy.
What is not easy is guessing how many unregistered, non-member clients will drop in for jabs – and when.
Until Friday, the process was, for the most part, smooth. Things slow down when nurses take fed Labor Department-mandated lunch breaks of one hour, but for the most part, we manage. Until Friday, numbers of drop ins each day averaged between 175 to 300 - each requiring the generation of a temporary member number and other necessary documents.
Then came Friday.
The unexpected news that immunocompromised people were eligible for a 3rd dose of vaccine threw off everything. Third doses are not booster shots (scheduled to begin mid-September), but people lined up for “booster” shots anyway. Dozens of people were given personalized explanations on the difference between “3rd dose” and “booster”; some went away resigned, some angry.
Dozens of immunocompromised members and non-members arrived, many in wheelchairs or using walkers (blocking hallways).
One person, after taking her second jab and staying for the mandatory 15 minutes of observation, left the clinic… then returned an hour later with dizziness and high blood pressure. The usual protocol is to wheel such a patient to the emergency department. This time, since her symptoms were ambiguous, a nurse and I wheeled her to an upstairs clinic for further observation by an emergency department doctor.
Third dose protocols coincided, too, with opening Pfizer vaccinations to children over 12 years old. Dozens of children - some braver than others - accompanied by parents or guardians, arrived for their first jabs.
Most touching, a young man, blind, came in with his parents for a shot. It took some persuading to seat him, have him raise his sleeve, and accept the jab. Afterwards, he received an ovation.
My next several months promise to provide many insights into people and pandemic. My current over-riding emotions? Grateful that We the People are at the point of accepting lifesaving vaccinations; being part of a team providing lifesaving vaccines; and love, yes, love for the many, many people coming into the clinic, trusting we’re doing our best for them, offering their arms for an Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) vax, and supporting one another, young and old, firm and infirm, all human.
On Friday, our team administered about 600 of the more than 1 million vaccine doses - the third day in a row more than a million shots were distributed across this nation.
Amazing times.,

We expect the FDA to fully approve the Pfizer vaccine on Monday. Once that happens, well, last Friday’s rush will have been a precursor to many more people flooding in…
Bring ‘em on…

Hip to Covid

Worldwide (Map) 

August 19, 2021 – 209,892,500 confirmed infections; 4,401,700 deaths
May 20, 2021 – 164,620,000 confirmed infections; 3,413,350 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 82,656000 confirmed infections; 1,8040100 deaths

US (Map) 
August 19, 2021 – 37,201,600 confirmed infections; 625,150 deaths
May 20, 2021 – 33,026,300 confirmed infections; 587,870 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 19,737,200 confirmed infections; 342,260 deaths

 
SA (Tracker) 
August 19, 2021 – 2,652,660 confirmed infections; 78,694 deaths
May 20, 2021 – 1,621,370 confirmed infections; 55,510 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 1,039,165 confirmed infections; 28,035 deaths

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A sparse post for today but…
I’m now supervising a Covid vaccination clinic for a large hospital system in California. Soon – this weekend – I’ll have much information about Covid, about folks getting vaccinated, and about the day-to-day life of a worker with one hour commutes at the start and the end of the day.
How do people commute like this for a lifetime?
After just one week, the answer to the question is, “who knows? I couldn’t do it…."

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 >> 

***

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

***

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)

***

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!

***

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.

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!

Next phase

Worldwide (Map) 
August 12, 2021 – 204,965,350 confirmed infections; 4,328,770 deaths
July 15, 2021 – 1,888,565,400 confirmed infections; 4,061,275 deaths

US (Map)
August 12, 2021 – 36,198,200 confirmed infections; 618,520 deaths
July 15, 2021 – 33,952,000 confirmed infections; 608,120 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
August 12, 2021 – 2,554,300 confirmed infections; 75,775 deaths
July 15, 2021 – 2,236,800 confirmed infections; 65,595 deaths

Tracking coronavirus vaccinations around the world >>

News blues

Kids and Covid.

The timing of the latest COVID-19 surge [in the US] isn’t great for children. Millions have already started the school year, the rest will do so in the coming weeks, and COVID-19 vaccines aren’t yet available.
Vaccine availability will not bring this pediatric outbreak to a halt. But it will help curb the spread of the virus for everyone, and give many families a better sense of how to plan for the future. Particularly for the 50 million Americans who haven’t reached their 12th birthday.

Read “Why Is It Taking So Long to Get Vaccines for Kids?” 

***

SA administered its nine-millionth Covid-19 vaccination on Wednesday, making a positive milestone in the country's battle to stem the coronavirus.
But while this was an important victory, the number of new Covid-19 related deaths recorded in the past 24 hours — 573, according to the health department and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases — is a reminder that the fight is far from over.

Read more >> 

***

The Lincoln Project Back to school  (0:30 mins)
MeidasTouch …Infrastructure…  (1:13 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Pacific north-west prepares for triple-digit temperatures just weeks after heat resulted in hundreds of deaths in region  ... and, in Sicily, the highest recorded temperature, 48.8C /119.8F . 

***

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I reside in two different Bay Area counties, Contra Costa and Alameda. CCC, the county in which my houseboat is moored – and I’ve resided in for the past 2.5 months since returning from South Africa – has, for California, a high rate of Covid infections. This, because residents in certain parts of the county (including many marina residents) indulge the Trumpie mindset and hold confused and confusing ideas about “freedom” (freedom to avoid vaccinations and get Covid but Covid doesn’t really exist anyway, it’s all a Democrat Plan to take away our Freedom, Fauci works for Wuhan labs, Gates implants microchips via vaccines, etc., etc.). In other words, residents of this county hold mixed bags of ideologies, some of which promise to lead to infections. For health – and sanity - I maintain social distance with marina residents, ensure there’s lots of fresh air between us, never enter anyone’s boat, and take basic precautions to avoid infection.
The other county, edging the Bay and directly across from San Francisco, is Covid conscious with far fewer anti-vaxxers.
I’m heading back to that county and, for the next several months, these are my last few days living fulltime on my boat. As of Sunday, I return to the inner bay island city in which I have a condo. This, as I begin another stint of short-term work - after two years out of the workplace. I’ll also be back in cooler weather tempered by fog and bay breezes.
I’ll be back to ye olde 8 to 5 worker-bee slog and a long commute with thousands of other one-per-vehicle commuters – choosing to drive to work instead of my usual option, public transportation. It’s about the math: 1.5 to 1.75 hours getting to work via public transportation – bus, train – as opposed to 40 minutes by personal vehicle.
This will be the first time in years that I elect personal over public transportation – egged on by an additional advantage: not fretting about whether the person sitting next to me on public transportation has been vaccinated or is quietly spreading virulent coronavirus. I’m not overly cautious, but recent news about the efficacy of available vaccines against the Delta variant is worrisome. 
I enjoy life. 

Why risk it?

Running out of time

News blues

Another formal recognition that those of us living on planet earth are running out of time to turn things around and avoid cataclysm.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC - a group of the world’s climate experts, formed in 1988 and charged with preparing comprehensive reports on the state of our knowledge of the climate, has stated – yet again – that only drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions starting yesterday, might prevent us from raising global temperatures to a disastrous extent.
Their sixth and latest assessment report, 

addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations.

The dwindling number of people still lucky enough to live in environments that have not yet experienced extreme weather – and unlucky enough not to have to pay attention – might miss the what’s happening around the planet. The rest of us understand what’s going on but have no idea how to address it. Looking to neighbors is comforting (hopefully your neighbors will have your back when you need help). Looking to leaders and politicians is useless.
Coronavirus is simply one more, albeit devastating, symptom of the disrespect with which too many of the world’s people treat our planet.
Yet, few elected and unelected officials and politicians have a handle on the coronavirus pandemic. Some are worse than others – through choice. Florida Governor DeSantis is among the worst. As he rakes in money for being a stubborn idiot  Florida’s death toll increases by the day and DeSantis continues to scorn science and scientists in general and Dr Fauci in particular. 
Then there’s US Senator Manchin, supporter and supportee of fossil fuels industries, saying, against all evidence, “Eliminating fossil fuels won’t help fight global heating… If anything, it would be worse.” 
What to say?
What to do>?

***

The Lincoln Project co-founder – and former Republican operative - Rick Wilson accuses GOP leaders of destroying America to entertain Fox News viewers, “This is how the world ends….”
Last Week in the Republican Party (latest),  (1:40 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A look at the work of a favorite artist, Jason deCaires Taylor. recent in Cyprus.
Other sculptures around the world by this artist…. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Suffocatingly hot again.
I finished up painting the exterior and roof of the houseboat and erected the 10 x 10-foot pop up canopy. Alas, after pushing up a foam mattress and cushion, binoculars, water, and reading matter, I spent only an hour under the canopy shade before heat drove me back inside. But the canopy is up. When the heat dies down – after 8pm or so – I’ll head back up under the canopy and enjoy the expanded view.
I worked hard on these projects, carried them out alone, and now can enjoy the fruits of my labor. If only the extreme heat and weather would play ball…