The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 88 (588)

Taking a day off doesn't change some things. Russia is still setting covid records with 37,678 new cases in one day along with 1,075 deaths. The official death toll is now 229,528 though the government statistical agency Rosstat says the death toll may actually be over 400,000. Moscow will shut non-essential services between October 28 and November 7; there will be a nationwide paid week off starting on October 30. The Russian-made vaccine Sputnik V has not yet been approved by either the EU or WHO; only 36 percent of Russians are now fully vaccinated. 

Things are grim in Romania, with covid killing one person every five minutes this month. (The Professor asked when all the Romanians will have died at this rate.) The death rate is now higher than that in the US or UK during their worst surges. Emergency beds and morgues are both running at full capacity. Scientists in Cape Town, South Africa are attempting to reverse-engineer the Moderna vaccine, a move backed by WHO. A biotechnologist involved in the effort explains, "We are doing this for Africa at this moment, and that drives us. We can no longer rely on these big superpowers to come in and save us." Only 0.7 percent of vaccines have gone to low-income countries; nearly half have gone to wealthy countries. Starting Friday, when 80 percent of people in Australia's state of Victoria are expected to be fully vaccinated, people will be free to travel throughout the state and masks will no longer be required outdoors.  

A member of the UK's Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation is warning against complacency as hospitalizations and deaths rise in the UK. The biggest risk is among unvaccinated people including young adults. Vaccinations won't be enough to keep the spread of covid under control. What I called Delta-Squared and some others call Delta-Plus or AY.4.2 has been designated a "variant under investigation" in the UK as cases involving it rise. 

And now for something completely different not to mention light-hearted. The Salt Lake health department looked at covid vaccination rates depending on Zodiac sign. Leo led the list with 70 percent of Leos vaccinated. Scorpio held up the bottom with 46 percent of Scorpios vaccinated. However, those percentages depend on two numbers, the number of people of each Zodiac sign who are vaccinated and the number of people in each sign in the county overall. A table of how common each Zodiac sign is in America is a near-exact inverse of the Salt Lake vaccination one. A Salt Lake health department spokesperson reported, "Obviously, it's not super scientific because we are talking astrology. We did the math really quickly ... We thought, we can use this to continue the conversation around vaccination, when there's so much message fatigue on the topic. People are tired of hearing about it. So [we said] let's put a new spin on it. ... I want to thank the Leos and congratulate them for being at the top; they always knew they belonged to be there. They deserve to be there, and they're proving it. But I also don't want the Leos to rest on their laurels: 70% is not 100%. To the Scorpios, I really want to tell them that their key to being in control and continuing their dominance of sort of the dark side of the Zodiac is in being able to be out and influential, and vaccination is the key to that influence." 

Finally, most experts say that the US has gone through five waves of covid so far. There is cautious optimism about this winter. There might be a small bump, though there could be a larger one if people radically change their behavior or a new variant surfaces.