Discoveries

News blues

Deltacron – the new hybrid version of the coronavirus combines the delta and the omicron variants of the virus. What to know >> 

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On history Yesterday, 21 March, was the public holiday of Human Rights Day in South Africa. It’s also close to or on the spring equinox.
I asked several South Africans what, if anything, was the focus of Human Rights Day. Or is it a day to recognize humans and their rights. All shrugged. Being a curious curmudgeon, I tackled the Internet. Human Rights Day:

Human Rights Day is a national day that is commemorated annually on 21 March to remind South Africans about the sacrifices that accompanied the struggle for the attainment of democracy in South Africa.

And

The day is linked with the Sharpeville Massacre of 21 March 1960, when 69 people died and 180 were wounded after police opened fire on a group protesting against apartheid pass laws. It is intended to commemorate those ordinary people who united to proclaim their rights.

This is more like it. Sharpeville, a day and a place that lives on in infamy.

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On War:
Photos from Ukraine >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:

Ohio GOP Debate - Any Questions  (0:35 mins)
The Union  (1:20 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Celebrate wildlife – in pictures >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’ve muttered deprecations each time I’ve opened the door to my late mother’s fridge. The door’s design is unfamiliar: no door or pull handle in sight. Made no sense, but I figured my mom had opted not to purchase a handle when the fridge could be opened with fingers pulling at the door “seam”. 

Odd, but no more odd than other decisions people make. 

Then, a foray into purchasing a box of frozen fish revealed the fascinating truth. Not much of a frozen food purchaser or eater, I'd had few reasons to open the freezer section before. If, however, I’d opted for frozen food earlier, I may have saved myself much muttering about painful fingers and odd decisions. How,?
On placing the frozen fish package into the freezer section of the fridge, I tugged at the clearly visible groove that runs horizontally along the top of the door. I returned to opening the “regular” fridge by tugging along the door “seam”… and grunting my dissatisfaction with sore fingers. 

Then, a ray of light! An "ah hah" moment. 

The fridge door is opened with a similarly designed groove that runs horizontally along the bottom of the door. Imagine! An invisible door opener! Such a design concept.
It is in such moments that one recognizes the impact of a blind spot, the years of complaining about an unsupported assumption. Such recognition humbles. And frees. My fingers are gleeful, too.
Time to re-examine other assumptions. Where to begin?

Over the rainbow?

News blues

About three weeks ago, COVID case rates in the United Kingdom made an abrupt about-face, spurred on by a more transmissible Omicron subvariant called BA.2. (So far, there is no reason to believe the new subvariant causes more severe disease.) Case rates are rising, too, in Switzerland and Greece and Monaco and Italy and France. Given that BA.2 is already present in the United States, The Washington Post reports that epidemiologists and public-health leaders suspect that North America will be next. After all, the paper said, “in the past two years, a widespread outbreak like the one in Europe has been followed by a similar surge in the United States some weeks later.”

Read “Another COVID Wave Is Looming. How bad will it be?” >> 

Dr. Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, also is concerned about current case increases in Europe, which usually predict a rise in the U.S. a short time later >> 

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America’s Flu-Shot Problem Is Also Its Next COVID-Shot Problem.  

***

In South Africa, the Department of Health has called for public comment on new regulations under the National Health Act to replace the state of disaster Covid regulations. Once approved, the Department of Health said regulations will be implemented without being tabled in parliament (as they’re subordinate legislation already delegated to the minister). 

New regulations (sound a lot like the old regulations):

• all people entering or exiting South Africa during a pandemic should present negative PCR tests not older than 72 hours in the event they do not have a vaccination certificate.
• continued restrictions will be placed on night vigils and after-funeral gatherings 
• Indoor and outdoor gatherings may be occupied up to 50% of the venue capacity, provided valid vaccine certificates are produced. For gatherings where no valid vaccine certificates are required, artificial limits of 1,000 and 2,000 people will apply for indoor and outdoor gatherings, respectively. 
• Social distancing of one metre must be maintained
• Face masks will be compulsory for indoor gatherings, people cannot enter public premises or make use of public transport without a mask.

The regulations also leave the door open for other restrictions, labelled as ‘advice giving’ between different departments. This advice can relate to curfew, national lockdown, economic activity and the sale of alcohol, among others.  The Minister and Health Department have called for public comment by April 15.

 Needless to say, there’s pushback.
 A local community group, ‘Dear South Africa', reports “ We have filed legal papers and are going to court to end the State of Disaster and regulations, to make sure that no one can abuse the tyrannical powers afforded by the Disaster Management Act ever again.”

Daily Maverick reports,

Extending the national State of Disaster for the umpteenth time has bought the government time to shift Covid-19 lockdown extraordinary measures into regular, ordinary law. South Africa’s constitutional democracy now is at a dangerous tipping point.

Read “We’ve got the power: Government hangs on State of Disaster to keep control” >> 

***

On War:
Photos from Ukraine >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:

Pop up fact check  (0:56 mins)
The Parties on Putin  (0:55 mins)
Last Week in the Republican Party (March 15) (2:05 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A widely used kind of recycled plastic bottle passes more potentially harmful chemicals into their contents than newly manufactured bottles, researchers have warned.
Researchers from Brunel University London found 150 chemicals that leached into drinks from plastic bottles, with 18 of those chemicals found in levels exceeding regulations.
And they found that drinks bottled using recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) can contained higher concentrations of chemicals than those bottled using new PET, which suggests that problems with the recycling process may be causing contamination.
They are calling for more careful recycling methods to remove the potentially harmful chemicals.

Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Wake up at 3:30am (unplanned and not desired but…), read until 5:00am, coffee, don work/paint clothes, then paint walls…and paint…and paint. In between, I drag pond weed from the pond, check on blocked culverts, strategize with the electrician – the electrical system in this house is a nightmare.
I also force feed one of the two of my late mother’s dogs her meds. This dog breeds cysts all over her body. One on her neck regularly burst and bled. Ugh! Awful. 

A trip to the vet surgically removed these “knobs”, each incision requiring six or seven stitches. The dog’s recovering, thanks to pain pills and antibiotic she’s force feed twice a day.
Ugh!
For someone neutral on dogs – neither a dog lover nor hater - taking on someone else’s dogs is a “learning experience.” Dorothy put it well when she told Toto, “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” (But nor am I over the rainbow!)

***

San Francisco Bay Area
Sunrise: 7:12am
Sunset: 7:20pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:02am
Sunset: 6:10pm

No nukes!

Worldwide (Map) 
March 17, 2022 - 463,665,500 confirmed infections; 6,058,000 deaths
March 18, 2021 - 120,740,000 confirmed infections; 2,672,000 deaths
January 14, 2021 – 92,314,000 confirmed infections; 1,977,900 deaths

US (Map) 
March 17, 2022 - 79,631,710 confirmed infections; 968,330 deaths
March 18, 2021 – 29,550,000 confirmed infections; 537,000 deaths
January 14, 2021 – 23,071,100 confirmed infections; 384,635 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
March 17, 2022 - 3,696,850 confirmed infections; 99,730 deaths
March 18, 2021 – 1,531,000 confirmed infections; 51,560 deaths
January 14, 2021 – 1,278,305 confirmed infections; 35,140 deaths

Blog post from this time last year, Dilemmas 

News blues

The above image summarizes the proportion of each named variant present in
worldwide sequenced samples on a weekly basis.
These data help public health officials and government leaders track changes
 in the presence of variants of concern to help inform their communications
 to the public and design mitigation efforts.
Read more >> 
© Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center

***

Israel has detected cases of a new COVID variant that is a hybrid of Delta and Omicron. According to national broadcaster Kan, the variant surfaced in swab samples that were sequenced in labs. A limited number of cases have been detected among people who returned from Europe, and there is no community spread.
Read more >> 

China Covid cases surge with millions in lockdown (2:29 mins)

U.K. and Europe are suffering rising COVID-19 infections two weeks after the United Kingdom dropped its last remaining Covid-19 mitigation measure — a requirement that people who test positive for the virus isolate for five days. Cases and hospitalizations climb once again. 

Read more >> 

***

On War:
Photos from Ukraine >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:

Leader of Peace  (2:16 mins)
Last Week in the Republican Party (March 15) (2:05 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Say what? South Africa plans to shift from coal to nuclear 
Gotta say, I tremble at this news. A country that cannot systematically provide fossil-generated electricity (or drain two culverts in 6 years) has no business even contemplating nuke energy. No wonder President Ramaphosa sits on the fence with Putin’s deadly invasion of Ukraine. He will allow Russians to build nuke plants here. 

Terrifying.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Light at the end of the culverts?
Six years of kvetching may finally come to resolution. But don't hold your breath.

I celebrate receiving the following message from my local councilperson:

Hello, the roads and storm water drains manager was on site this afternoon for inspection. [The director] has instructed his teams to get down there and excavate the silt. Bongeka the roads manager has said she will also write to Blake this evening of her findings.  She agrees there are three parts to the problem. The water coming from the D road, the blocked pipes which on removing of excess soil and silt will unblock these. She noted the amount of water in your property and took photos.

I want to believe. I want this to be true. I need this.
Lord, make it so!

***

The last season the US practices daylight saving time?
Don’t say the US Congress gets nothing done. Last Tuesday, the Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 that would make daylight saving time permanent across the U.S. beginning in 2023. Approved by unanimous consent but requires House approval and President Biden's signature to become law.

San Francisco Bay Area
Sunrise: 7:16am
Sunset: 7:18pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:01am
Sunset: 6:13pm

Mortality rate backlog

News blues

Covid-19: South Africa records 3 more deaths, but there may be mortality rate backlog. 
South Africa and Covid-19: what’s up with National State of Disaster?  (5:34 mins)

***

A new, hybrid variant on the horizon? 

***

I get that we'd all rather talk about anything than Covid at this point, but it's still surprising how little coverage the spike in cases in Asia is getting at the moment.  Read more >> 

 On War:

Photos from Ukraine >> 

***

Last Sunday, U.N. agencies warned that the escalation of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, including attacks on health care facilities, could prolong the pandemic.

“Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has already put health systems and health care workers under enormous strain, such attacks have the potential to be even more devastating for the civilian population,” reads a joint statement issued by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the United Nations Population Fund.
The statement cited 31 attacks that destroyed or damaged health care facilities since the beginning of the Russian invasion, curtailing Ukrainians’ access to services, including vaccinations against COVID-19.

Read more >> 

***

The Lincoln Project: Brent Renaud  (1:00 mins)
Putin’s Puppet  (1:00 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Take a climate pledge. 
The climate emergency is the biggest threat to civilisation we have ever faced. But there is good news: we already have every tool we need to beat it. The challenge is not identifying the solutions but rolling them out with great speed. 

Read some reasons to be hopeful >> 

***

Another bad idea whose time has come - and gone? Was cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a bad idea? Scientists worry that flashy efforts to clean plastic from the ocean do more harm than good.
Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Painting, painting, painting. I’ve painted a bedroom and I’m almost finished painting a large living room. I prefer walking and swimming as exercise, but several hours of painting each day is a decent workout.
The best part of painting? Cleaning and putting away tools – brushes, rollers, paint trays, paint cloths – then inspecting the finished product. Sometimes inspecting the finished product, however, reveals yet another coat of paint is required. Grrr. In that case, finishing a third coat provides a form of bliss I’ve seldom encountered.

***

The saga of the block culverts continues. This is what happens after 6 years of trying, unsuccessfully, to get the appropriate department to maintain their tax-supported responsibilities in the community.
Heavy rainfall has nowhere to go and dams up behind the blocked culverts. 

Blocked culverts mean water cannot drain ...

Believe it or not: two culverts hidden within this overgrown, muddy, debris-filled zone...
The problem now? Mid-right: Water borne silt pouring into the already over-silted area.
That silt is now more than 1 meter/3 feet deep - and hardening by the day.
One would assume this circumstance would bring out a team of workers to alleviate the problem.
Here? Nope. Despite 10 years of paying property taxes ("rates") and six years of asking for 
assistance, this is the state of affairs. Distressing.

R.I.P.

News blues

A pandemic and a regional war threatening to morph into a wider conflagration – plus the threat of the use of nukes. Humans are in a pickle even as economies reopen and governments look to move beyond their "pandemic footing." 

Read more >> 

***

US Congress failed to approve additional pandemic response funding and prominent Covid-19 experts are worried. Congress may yet approve more funding but experts warn of potentially devastating consequences if the federal government runs out of funding to invest in more therapeutics, vaccines, testing, and other pandemic response initiatives. 

Read more >> 

***

Two years of a pandemic: photo essay >> 

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The Covid-19 pandemic may have claimed more than three times the official death toll, a new study suggests  – some 18.2 million lives around the world.
The higher figure is a better estimate of the true global casualty figure to the end of 2021…
Read more >> 

***

On War: Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion of their country began to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border between Tijuana and San Diego this week. They were met with pair of court rulings on Title 42 - cruel restrictions put in place at the beginning of the pandemic by the Trump administration.
"The fact that we're using COVID as an excuse to keep out asylum seekers at this moment in time, it's just becoming more and more absurd and untenable for the administration," said Blaine Bookey, an attorney at the Center for Gender & Refugees Studies, who is representing the Ukrainian family.
Read more >> 

***

The Lincoln Project: Red phone (0:35 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Notice our world, its little and the large critters: photo essay >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

We gathered yesterday to carry out my late mother’s wishes for her ashes and those of her dogs and significant others: scatter them at what was her home for more than 6 decades.
It was a seat-of-the-pants event. Just the way she’d like it.
I transported the many boxes of ashes - I was late to the gathering. (I discovered all the cargo-laden trucks plying the road between Johannesburg and the Port of Durban were on the main drag. And that 3 lanes of traffic had been whittled down to one lane. A Toyota Yaris is very small and vulnerable amid hundreds of trucks. The main drag is under repair and widening efforts for the entire distance I had to drive.)
We all made it, though, including family flying own to Durban from Johannesburg.
Some might have found our “ceremony” too informal, but I believe it worked for my mother. We snuck onto the property – now overgrown with weeds and vegetation (my mother would approve as she resisted pruning trees), emptied the many boxes of ashes into a common receptacle, then walked around and drizzled them out onto “her” land.
Never did I expect to have my hands dusty with the ash residue of so many once-thriving critters.
R.I.P. mother and friends.

***

US daylight saving time and that means no more darkness upon waking and setting off to work. Yay!
San Francisco Bay Area
Sunrise: 6:22am
Sunset: 6:14pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:58am
Sunset: 6:18pm

More of the same

Worldwide (Map) 
March 10, 2022 - 449,958,700 confirmed infections; 6,016,600 deaths
March 11, 2021 – 117, 645,000 confirmed infections; 2,612,000 deaths

US (Map) 
March 10, 2022 – 79,369,500 confirmed infections; 961,950 deaths
March 11, 2021 - 29,222,420 confirmed infections; 529,884 deaths
Amazingly, the 1 million death toll predicted two weeks ago is still in our future in the US. Or not. Perhaps Covid-19 deaths will cease and we’ll never reach that dire statistic. Here’s hoping.

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
March 10, 2022 - 3,686,560 confirmed infections; 99,625 deaths
March 11, 2021 – 1.522,700 confirmed infections; 50,910 deaths.

Blog post from March 11, 2021: “Load shedding, reprise” >>  

Ironically, load shedding continues. We are without electricity for three 2.5-hour stints each day. 

News blues

As South Africa heads towards the dreaded 100,000 Covid-19 deaths toll, Ministerial Advisory Committee and director of CAPRISA, Salim Abdool Karim reviews the last two years of Covid-19 and its successes in South Africa.  (8:19 mins)

***

The US CDC says 90 percent of people no longer need masks. Experts who've been very careful thus far are starting to shift their approaches — but just a little >> 

***

On War: “Ukraine: Mother of Russian soldier asks, 'Whose door should I knock on to get my child back?' >> 

***

The Lincoln Project: Last Week in the Republican Party (March 8)  (1:35 mins)
The Lincoln Project Re-airs President Biden's Remarks on Ukraine  (12:38 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Described by the head of the UN Environment Programme as the most important multilateral environmental deal  since the Paris agreement in 2015, the new legally binding treaty world leaders recently agreed upon covers the full lifecycle of plastics from production to disposal. This could provide an essential tool to hold governments and companies accountable for their environmental impacts.
Read more >> 

***

For Svitlana Krakovska, Ukraine’s leading climate scientist, it was meant to be the week where eight years of work culminated in a landmark UN report exposing the havoc the climate crisis is causing the world. But then the bombs started to crunch into Kyiv.
Krakovska, the head of a delegation of 11 Ukrainian scientists, struggled to help finalize the vast Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report ahead of its release on 28 February even as Russian forces launched their invasion. “I told colleagues that as long as we have the internet and no bombs over our heads we will continue,” she said.

Read “‘This is a fossil fuel war’: Ukraine’s top climate scientist speaks out” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

In drought-ridden California, I adore the sound of rain. In waterlogged KZN, I dread the same sound.
A little more than one year ago, I shared the most recent information about KZN’s Dept of Transportation’s (DOT) lack of effective maintenance of culverts  adjacent to my mother’s property. Requesting maintenance has been an ongoing project over several years.
It’s not that DOT is unresponsive. Bulldozers and diggers show up, but these are the wrong tools for the job. What is required? Strong people wielding shovels. Here, as in many places, manual labor is considered less sexy than driving a diesel-powered bulldozer.

Blocked culverts back in April 2019

One of two culverts, this one totally blocked - April 2019

March 9, 2022 - now not only utterly blocked, also invisible.
Is this is how ancient cities "disappeared"?

With the unprecedented amounts of rain, my late mother’s garden is ankle-deep in water due to barely functioning culverts designed to drain water from the stream, under the roadway, eventually reaching Howick Falls. One is entirely blocked and covered with vegetation and debris. (Watching this occur over the past 6 years presents insight into how whole cities of the ancient world disappeared until intrepid archaeologists dug them out. Hmmm, maybe I need intrepid archaeologists on this job?)

Last night’s pouring rain had me frantically messaging our local councilperson – again.

I’m tempted to implement Plan B: appeal through humiliation. Write an article for the local weekly print paper explaining the issue then beg readers and local residents each to contribute R5,00 into a fund geared toward paying a non-governmental team of workers to work on public projects. Donations should be deducted from residents’ monthly rates (“property tax”) bill. 

This approach shares the burden of “fighting city hall” among members of the community rather than burdening one person with blowback.
Come to think of it, We the People could adopt the same strategies for other areas where the municipality fails to use residents’ property taxes for residents and public areas (potholes, storm drains, broken signage, dangerous roadways, severely cracked bridges and overpasses…).

***

Been working my half hour stint weeding the pond when it is not too rainy or too hot. Each day the pile of pond debris on the pond banks gets a little higher and the pond a little freer.

***

Hello, darkness, my old friend…. Escom (SA’s parastatal Electrical Supply Commission) began, again, depriving the citizenry of electricity. This area is at Stage 4, meaning our electricity goes down three times per day - from 6:00 am to 8:30am, 2:00pm to 4:30pm, and from 10pm to 12:30pm. 

Oh, and the price of electricity hikes up at least 10 percent each year.

***

Three days to US daylight saving time.
San Francisco Bay Area
Sunrise: 6:27am
Sunset: 6:11pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:56am
Sunset: 6:21pm

Second thoughts

News blues

Covid-19 case counts are falling in the United States and many parts of the country are starting to relax.
Cities like Washington, DC, and New York are lifting vaccine mandates for many public indoor spaces. National public health officials are easing up, too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now advises that communities with low levels of transmission can forgo universal masking. As spring draws near, is it finally time to feel hopeful? Is it possible the worst of the pandemic is behind us?

Read more >> 

But… even as the global number of new cases and deaths continued downward, falling by 16 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively in the week ending last Sunday, compared to the previous week, scientists caution that the end of the Omicron surge is not the end of the pandemic, but more like the plateau experienced between previous waves over the past two years.

As immunity wanes, and another variant emerges at some point, the population could again be susceptible to mass infections….
Epidemiologist Adam Kucharski, an associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it was hard to predict how long it may take for the next troublesome variant to emerge, but he pointed to similar plateaus experienced between the Alpha and Delta variants.
“Many countries with declining cases are likely to be in a ‘honeymoon period’ of lower transmission, especially if much of the reduction in transmission has come from vaccines, which can wane quickly in terms of protection against Omicron infection.”

Read more >> 

***

Meidas Touch Little girl sings “Let it Go” in bomb shelter in Ukraine  (1:35 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A new climate movement to persuade and support relatively well-off people to make “The Jump” and sign up to the six pledges. 

(With my current “lifestyle” of traveling to/from South Africa once a year, I already contravene one of the six pledges. Maybe my rare forays into stores to shop and/or buy “new clothing” balances out my travel climate bill? Enquiring minds wanna know….)

Our world in photos >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Garden pond: from pondering to foraying. I deemed too expensive the only quote I’d been given to clear the garden pond of over-growth. Overly ambitious, I took on the project, pledging to spend half- to one-hour per day ridding the waterway of its overgrown (“alien”) lilies and water grass. So far, so good.

Current pile of removed pond weed.
This stuff is heavy when wet. 

Still got to weed out all the remaining weeds seen here, plus a greater amount
of lilies growing densely on the other side of the pond.
Biting off more than I can chew?
Hmmmm. You think?

Alas, looking at these photos, I realize I’m working hard yet making little headway.
Either half- to one-hour per day is insufficient and I must up my game or I must bite the bullet and engage an actual pond landscaper to complete the work.
Moreover, the sun at 8:30am today is already too hot and intense to don waders and carry out my scheduled 30 mins. 

Or not. 

Maybe I'll head there after I post this.

Or not. 

Moreover, my stash of band-aids ("plasters") was in my wallet... stolen in Johannesburg airport the day I arrived. What do band-aids have to do with pond weeding? Well, the gumboots attached to my waders rub the skin off my ankles while I work in the pond. My socks are inadequate to protect my sensitive ankles from further irritation. I need to purchase more band-aids.

Hmmmm. 

Lack of band-aids might be today's perfectly logical reason to delay today's pond foray.