Month: August 2021

  • The kids aren’t alright: COVID-21

    The kids aren’t alright: COVID-21

    different streaming platforms for download.. But these Greek letters all represent new stains of COVID-19 that are circulating around the planet..

    While some have argued that until all Americans are vaccinated these will continue to develop, others point out that many of these are coming from other parts of the world. America is not the end all, just a mixture on a big planet .. until the entire PLANET is vaccinated we are behind the eight ball on COVID.. it has time to develop and get smarter.

    Sure, you can point out that viruses don’t have a brain.. eventually they will weaken, you’ll profess. One day COVID will be as dangerous as the common cold! 

    While all of that may be true,  it sure seems the danger is steadily increasing as opposing to lessening.

    The new COVID Delta variant in the United States is getting more people sick quicker–and these people are younger.

    A startling essay from Heather Haq in the Washington POST illustrates .. she is a pediatric doctor in Houston Texas. The state of Texas has been seeing an increased number of COVID cases–like other states in the nation. Haq writes, in part, this:

    Over the course of the pandemic, our hospital system has diagnosed more than 15,000 children and adolescents with covid – a number that is trending up. About 10 percent of them have required hospital admission. Up to one-third of children admitted to our hospital have required critical care – including oxygen delivered through high-flow nasal cannula, non-invasive ventilation and intubation with mechanical ventilation. When I discharge children from the hospital, I know that many of them have a long road to recovery, and many will require follow-up for cardiac clearance and long-term care in our hospital’s long-covid clinic. More than 300 children across the United States have died from covid since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most children with covid will make a complete recovery, but up to 10 percent, including those with mild illness not requiring hospital admission, go on to develop months-long symptoms of long covid.

    At this point some of the information seems anecdotal only.  However stories match. People who work in the medical industry report a very big difference between COVID in 20 vs 21.. 
    Nick Papacostas, MD, the president of the Alaska chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, tells the Anchorage Daily News, that he’s seeing in his emergency room people “sicker and younger than we were seeing last year, requiring either hospital admission or ICU admission. They’re really more intensive to care for, because they’re more ill.”

    Many people are unvaccinated and seems to be targeting younger Americans, those age 50 and under, more than did its predecessor, according to Inci Yildirim, MD, PhD, a Yale Medicine pediatric infectious diseases specialist and a vaccinologist.

    Back in June, this was widely reported: “The Delta variant comprises well over 80 percent of what is circulating in the U.S.,” Dr. David Hirschwerk, infectious diseases specialist at Northwell Health in New York, told Healthline. “It is likely that Delta will continue to circulate in the fall, but naturally we all will be carefully scanning for the emergence of new variants.”

    According to the recent CDC data, in the week ending July 24, people ages 18 to 49 are the largest demographic hospitalized for COVID-19.

    This age group is currently affected far more than those ages 50–64 — and significantly more affected than the next oldest group (ages 65 and older), a trend that began in March of this year.
    Just a few days ago, the New York TIMES reported more tidbits from around the nation of the average COVID patient being younger than the frail aging boomers in 2020.

    “Something about this virus is different in this age group,” said Dr. Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, La. “We always saw some people who we just said, ‘Why the heck did this get them?’ But that was rare. Now we’re seeing it more commonly.” “I think it is a new Covid,” she added.

    A new COVID.. 21 style?

    A new reason to wash your hands harder than ever before..

  • THE LONG WAIT FOR ELEVEN

    THE LONG WAIT FOR ELEVEN

    Netflix finally dropped a new promotional ad for STRANGER THINGS 4 — but it wasn’t much to see..

    You can judge for yourself;

    The ‘teaser’ was more of a clip-by-clip rehash of seasons 1 through 3–even a little promo was included to remind viewers that those first three seasons were still on Netflix..

    But the real news, if there is any, is a very much alive and thinner Hopper holding what appears to be a weapon in one second of the clip, and Eleven with long hair …

    The show will be dropping in 2022.

    That’s right, 2022.

    The biggest obstacle Netflix may now face is lack of interest.

    With the crew from Hawkins aging quickly, how much more can these delays do to hurt a potential season 5? Or ..is four it and then the branch off shows with side characters and other stories?

    As always we will happily watch season 4. But .. it sure gets tough waiting when the last time we saw the gang was Fourth of July so many years ago now.

  • Apple to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse! Privacy experts alarmed at the possibilities of technology

    Apple to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse! Privacy experts alarmed at the possibilities of technology

    Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused by governments looking to surveil their citizens.

    Apple said its messaging app will use on-device machine learning to warn about sensitive content without making private communications readable by the company. The tool Apple calls “neuralMatch” will detect known images of child sexual abuse without decrypting people’s messages. If it finds a match, the image will be reviewed by a human who can notify law enforcement if necessary.

    But researchers say the tool could be put to other purposes such as government surveillance of dissidents or protesters.
    — Read on apnews.com/article/technology-business-child-abuse-apple-inc-7fe2a09427d663cda8addfeeffc40196

  • NO MORE DRUNK DRIVING THANKS TO THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL!

    NO MORE DRUNK DRIVING THANKS TO THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL!

    BURIED IN THE NEW BILL: “ADVANCED IMPAIRED DRIVING TECHNOLOGY” . ..

    If passed and signed into law, it will mandate “a system that … passively and accurately detect[s] whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration” of .08, in which case the system would “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation.”

    Automobile manufacturers would have a three-year grace period to comply with the regulation.

    MORE..

    The provision gives ammunition to Republican critics who say the scope of the bill expands far beyond bridges and tunnels. Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said he would oppose the bill over its subsidies for green energy, while Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) questioned whether the federal government could efficiently allocate more than $1 trillion in spending. Meanwhile, a number of House Democrats say they oppose the deal for not doing enough. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) attacked her partymates in the Senate for compromising with Republicans.

    “It certainly looks like this opens the door for mandatory breathalyzers in every new car. It’s crazy,” said one senior Republican aide, who requested anonymity to speak candidly due to ongoing negotiations in the Senate.

    Although the exact type of alcohol monitor the bill would require is unclear, passive alcohol sensors are described in a report by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). The group recommends “driver monitoring systems, touch-based systems that can read your blood alcohol concentration through your fingertips and air-sampling systems that can test and isolate just the air exhaled by the driver.”

    MADD president Alex Otte praised Senate negotiators for using the infrastructure bill as a vehicle to pass the group’s “most significant” legislative push in recent years.

  • SO YOU WANT YOUR MTV?

    SO YOU WANT YOUR MTV?

    MTV WENT LIVE ON AUGUST 1, 1981, EXACTLY 40 YEARS AGO TODAY.. as the joke goes. Music television gave us 14 years of music in the past 40..

    Let it be known forever that the first song ever played on MTV was VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR.
    And since then, everything–INCLUDING MTV–killed the Video Star!
    History. 40 years to the date..

    Here is some cool video of the first two hours of what the network offered this day in history:

  • VACCINATED ICELAND SAYS THEIR COVID RESTRICTIONS MAY EXIST FOR 15 YEARS!

    VACCINATED ICELAND SAYS THEIR COVID RESTRICTIONS MAY EXIST FOR 15 YEARS!

     WITH ICELAND’S POPULATION NEARING RECORD LEVELS OF VACCINATED POPULATION, THIS NEWS IS CAUSING SURPRISE IN THE NATION:

    15 YEARS OF RESTRICTIONS!?

    MORE..

    Iceland, one of the first countries in the world to abolish all COVID-19 restrictions for vaccinated tourists, may see recently reimposed safety protocols in place for 15 years, according to one of the Nordic country’s chief medical experts.

    Despite the overwhelming majority of Iceland’s adult population having been vaccinated, chief epidemiologist Thorolfur Gudnason said he cannot rule out that reintroduced COVID-19 restrictions may become necessary for many years to come.

    MORE..

    His comments come amid a rapid rise of the Delta strain, with the fully vaccinated making up a large proportion of the new infections.

    “It can happen, no one knows what the future holds,” Gudnason told local newspaper Morgunbladid. “That is what we have been saying all along, that there is no predictability in this.”

    Thorolfur Gudnason saidthat the COVID-19 epidemic will not end in Iceland until it is abolished all over the world.

    He also admitted that the vaccine protection against infection was lower, maintained that the defense against serious illnesses was still estimated at 90 percent.

    On 26 June, the Icelandic authorities chose to remove all domestic restrictions, prompting media outlets across the globe to hail it as the country that vanquished coronavirus. At that time, not a single case of COVID-19 had been registered in several weeks, and no deaths since December of last year had occurred.

     Meanwhile Iceland, along with other nations such as Italy, have been removed from COVID safe countries by Norway.. 

    The bottom line: Despite 90% of adults / 70% of the full population in Iceland having being vaccinated, Covid cases have recently rocketed.