It may be Sunday, but the news streams have continued to develop from what I read early this morning. I could probably take as many notes now as I did this morning if I were willing to use the time I'll spend writing this on that note-taking. Particularly frightening were comments from Dr. Fauci and NIH director Collins on the morning news shows. You can find the whole article here. Particularly scary were Dr. Fauci's comments on the potential of the US going into a fifth wave, based on the current rising case numbers and stagnating vaccination rates. My fear is best illustrated in his comment, "How bad it gets is dependent upon us and how we mitigate." Returning to a comment made more than several times in the early days of this blog, we're fucked.
The experts say that it will take two to three weeks to know for sure just how transmissible Omicron is and just how well it works against vaccine-induced immunity. Given how quickly the percentage of South African cases caused by Omicron has passed those cause by Delta, the transmissibility question seems answered to me. I've got a bad feeling about the immunity one, too.
The doctor who discovered Omicron says that the world is "panicking unnecessarily" and the symptoms are "extremely mild." They did later concede that the cases they had found were in younger adults in their 20s or 30s, some of whom presented with just fatigue and a mild headache. Moderna's chief medical officer says the answers will come based on how Omicron affects the elderly or people with underlying conditions. The UK health minister says that people should continue "as normal" with their plans for Christmas, though at the same time says that vaccines may be less effective against Omicron. "There is reason to think that maybe, and I stress the word may, that this variant may turn out to make our vaccines less effective, it may not. We just don't know enough. We will learn to live with this." Live with this?!?! Is the alternative to die with it?
There is more coronavirus news, but all of it is Omicron. The list of countries in which Omicron has been found will be longer tomorrow morning as will the list of specific travel or entry bans or requirements. Just know that more countries have identified it as present this afternoon than did this morning and that there are countries blocking anyone from coming in or their own citizens from leaving to visit Africa. At least they're taking the risk seriously.
WHO announced officially why nu and xi were skipped when naming Omicron. "Nu" was seen as being mistaken for "new." "Xi" is a surname for many Chinese including the current leader. WHO policy requires "avoiding causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups" when assigning names.
And now for something totally different. Canada has responded to a maple syrup shortage by releasing 22,000 tonnes from its maple syrup reserve. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers is the OPEC of syrup; they cite a short and warm growing season in 2021 and a 36 percent increase in demand as responsible for the shortage addressed by the release. Syrup harvesting is highly dependent on weather, requiring daytime temperatures over freezing and nighttime temperatures under freezing. Some seven million extra trees will need to be tapped in 2022 to make up for the shortage.
Word of the day: armamentarium. According to dictionary.com, its definition is
2 comments:
So then the 3rd bedroom in my home is really a quilter's armamentarium, and the workbench in the garage is the homeowners' armamentarium. I like it (even if spell-check does not).
Bird 'Pie
I am pleased to hear that there is a national maple syrup reserve. It's something interesting to think about as a distraction from gales, snow, masks, Christmas and shortages of tinned tomatoes and brown rice in my local store.
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