Worldwide (
Map)
December 16, 2021 – 272,521,350 confirmed infections; 5,333,815 deaths
December 10, 2021 – 68,849,000 confirmed infections; 1,568,750 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 68,849,000 confirmed infections; 1,568,750 deaths
Total doses of vaccine administered: 8,578,143,200
US (
Map)
December 16, 2021 – 50,408,000 confirmed infections; 802,770 deaths
December 9, 2021 – 49,547,400 confirmed infections; 793,350 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 15,385,00 confirmed infections; 289,500 deaths
SA (
Coronavirus portal)
December 16, 2021 – 3,231,100 confirmed infections; 90,226 deaths
December 9, 2021 – 3,071,100 confirmed infections; 90,100 deaths
December 10, 2020 – 829,600 confirmed infections; 22,580 deaths
News blues
In South Africa, it’s Day of Reconciliation (formerly aka Day of the Vow, Day of the Covenant, and Dingane's Day). Despite low temperatures for summer, in the time honored tradition,
South Africans flocked to Durban’s beaches.
Early this week, the US topped 800,000 Covid deaths…
that’s more than the population of Seattle (about 737,000), Denver (about 715,000), or Washington, D.C. (about 690,000) and roughly equivalent to all of Kansas City, Missouri, (about 508,000) and Pittsburgh (about 303,000) combined.
It’s also the highest confirmed death toll in the world by country.
America’s elderly population has borne the brunt of the suffering. From the start of the pandemic, 75% of the deaths in the US have been people 65 or older, according to a New York Times tracker, in all, 1 in 100 Americans over the age of 65 has died from COVID-19.
Many of the country’s COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided. Unvaccinated individuals have made up the vast majority of deaths since vaccines became widely available in the U.S. in the spring of 2021, CDC data shows.
 |
CDC data shows unvaccinated people were 14 times more likely to die from COVID-19
in September than their vaccinated peers.
© Centers for Disease Control and Prevention |
***
The Lincoln Project:
Last week in the Republican Party (2:04 mins)
Hotline (0:45 mins)
Healthy planet, anyone?
Recent
post shared information on what happens to old car batteries.
Today, a view of what happens to those trying to block desecration of land for car batteries:
…the Paiute and Shoshone people may soon see their traditions and cultural history uprooted: a multinational company plans to break ground on a new 1,000-acre lithium mine that would destroy sacred land in order to extract a central component for electric car batteries.
Indigenous communities across the US face difficult legal battles when trying to protect sacred spaces outside their jurisdictions. The sites’ religious significance is often misunderstood or treated with blatant disregard. And because there are no overarching legal protections for sacred Indigenous spaces, tribes have limited options in the courtroom .
Read more >> Similar thing going on along South Africa’s Wild Coast – a photo essay >>
And,
Royal Dutch Shell will move ahead with seismic tests to explore for oil in vital whale breeding grounds along South Africa’s eastern coastline after a court dismissed an 11th-hour legal challenge by environmental groups.
The judgment, by a South African high court, allows Shell to begin firing within days extremely loud sound waves through the relatively untouched marine environment of the Wild Coast, which is home to whales, dolphins and seals.
Read more >> “Out of an abundance of caution”: the buzz phrase that’s come of age during the Covid era. This week the City council of my small island city issued a Business Update “Out of an abundance of caution”:
The California Department of Public announced Monday that all residents — regardless of vaccination status — must wear masks in all indoor public places beginning on Wednesday, December 15th. The mask mandate will last until at least January 15, 2022.
State health officials said that the renewed masking requirement follows a 47% increase in COVID-19 case rates since the Thanksgiving holiday and the arrival of new variant.
The state mandate will override Alameda County's November 1, 2021 easing of masking requirements for certain controlled indoor spaces where everyone is fully vaccinated such as offices, gyms, and fitness centers.
While the requirement is specific to public spaces and does not extend to private gatherings, health officials recommend testing ahead of holiday gatherings and considering better ventilation by opening windows or convening outdoors when possible.
In addition to the new mask mandate, the state also announced that unvaccinated individuals attending "mega-events" with more than 1,000 people must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 24 hours of the event if using an antigen test, and 24 to 48 hours of the event if using a PCR test. The state is also recommending that travelers get tested before and after trips.
Rain and Omicron keep me home these days. Omicron might very well keep me locked down in California, too. My go-to travel agent in SA advises that, while the short once-a-day commuter flights to my small city
do continue, so too do restrictions continue for return flights to the US. Despite my eligibility for a booster shot in four days, Omicron rules! I’m (unofficially) locked down again.
Low temperatures keep me indoors – 8C overnight and lows of 3C predicted. To stay warm
and feel virtuous about not wasting money heating a badly insulated home, I’m revisiting the joys of baking.
My flaky, short pastry for quiche turned out tasty, despite mistakes due to trying to outwit the recipe. (I’ll say no more about those mistakes other than I learned from them.)
I also
made a simple, no-knead, very-hot-oven loaf (4:50 mins)
After years of having no time for baking, two changes in the world of baking jump out:
Change 1: ubiquitous use of high-end mixers. Rather than discuss merits of hand-kneading, bakers nowadays discuss merits of assorted attachments for their high-end mixers. Whatever happened to the joys of hand kneading whose purpose is to add air and improve the rise? (Compare
kneading bread to
wedging clay whose purpose is to remove air pockets to prevent cracking or worse, shattering, during firing. )
Actually, this bread requires no kneading. It is a wet dough, however, and requires patient hands.
Thank the gods for hands that allow me to knead and to wedge -
sans appliances. (Am I virtuous? sanctimonious? about the two-fer of heating my apartment by oven instead of space heaters
and producing edibles? Perhaps neither virtuous nor sanctimonious but using practical commonsense – also in short supply these days.)
Change 2: notice the warning label on this bag of whole wheat flour: "cook before sneaking a taste"? It implies flour purchasers complain to the flour-producing company about … well, flour being raw. By golly! Why doesn’t flour come ready cooked? (Actually, when it does come cooked it's called bread, pastry, donuts, etc.)
