This just in! In the event you've thought my comments about the Olympics still being on were in bad taste, the CEO of Tokyo 2020, the local group putting on the Games, said today that a last-minute cancellation of the Games could not be ruled out given the rising numbers of covid cases. There were 1,387 cases Tuesday, the second highest day since January 21. There are now more than 70 cases linked to the Games in some way. There are five parties that would likely have to agree in order for the Games to be cancelled now or stopped while in progress (I can't imagine that happening, but if things were to get to the ultra-mega-superspreader lever): the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the Japanese government, and the Tokyo metropolitan government. A Tokyo public health expert has declared that the Olympic bubble system "is not working well ... kind of broken." The plans did not include it, but there has been interaction happening between people there for the Olympics and local residents, people who live there. To recognize the efforts required to (try to) hold the Games during a pandemic, the Olympic motto has been amended to "Faster, Higher, Stronger--Together" or, in Latin, "Citius, Altius, Fortius--Communiter."
A bit more international news: As of August 9, US citizens and permanent residents will be allowed to enter Canada as long as they have been fully vaccinated for at least 14 days. Canada hopes to welcome visitors from other countries as of September 7. No word yet on when the US will reciprocate and allow Canadians to visit us. India's excess deaths during the pandemic could be 10 times the official toll, making it India's worst human tragedy. I would certainly call three million deaths a human tragedy. The US will send over one million Johnson & Johnson doses to Gambia, Senegal, Zambia, and Niger as well as three million to Guatemala.
The week of July 3, the Delta variant accounted for 50 percent of new cases in the US; this week, it accounts for 83 percent. The number of new daily cases is up 66 percent from last week and 145 percent from two weeks ago. The average number of new cases per day has tripled in the last 30 days. I find those numbers frightening. More frightening numbers: The average number of hospitalizations has risen 21 percent in the last 30 days, while deaths, which usually lag weeks behind cases, rose 25 percent in one week to average 250 per day. That's far below what it was at one point, but not at all where it could be if more people would get vaccinated. The 30 percent of Americans who are not yet vaccinated say that nothing is likely to persuade them to get inoculated. Their "no" is a hard "no." While some cities such as Los Angeles are reinstating mask mandates, the mayor of New York City has said he will not, adding," Masks have value, unquestionably, but masks are not going at the root of the problem. Vaccination is."
In news unrelated to the pandemic, Jeff Bezos became our second billionaire astronaut this morning. The flight went just as planned. Watching the rocket used to propel the capsule touch down in the center of a marked circle may have been more impressive than watching the capsule come down using three parachutes. The announcer said that two of the three could have failed and, while the landing might have been bumpy, one parachute would be enough. While making muffins and cookies today (for my mom on her 89th birthday tomorrow ... Happy Birthday, Mom!), I went back and forth on whether, were I to win one of those huge lotteries, I would most like to go to inner space (to my mind, outer space would be orbital while inner is sub-orbital) for a couple minutes of weightlessness and what is apparently a hell of a view of Earth or to the depths of the ocean. It may still be the case that we know more about the outer space above us than we do about the depths of the oceans. No weightlessness obviously, but a chance to see something no one else ever has and very few people ever will.
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