Category: Uncategorized

No Alarm Yet — But Bird Flu Just Mutated — In Louisiana Patient: CIDRAP

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The concern is that this new mutation may more easily infect humans’ upper respiratory tracts. And regular readers will recall that the first confirmed US children’s case was seen in California about a month ago, now.

The “Louisiana” mutated form of virus hasn’t been shown to easily invade hosts in the wild yet, but experts in Minnesota say it now plainly has that potential, as a matter of pure biology. Here’s the latest, out of San Diego:

…The CDC said the mutations in that patient were similar to ones observed in a hospitalized patient in British Columbia, Canada. The changes may make it easier for the virus to bind to receptors in a person’s upper respiratory tract.

“Although concerning, and a reminder that A(H5N1) viruses can develop changes during the clinical course of a human infection, these changes would be more concerning if found in animal hosts or in early stages of infection… when these changes might be more likely to facilitate spread to close contacts,” the CDC said in the report. “Notably, in this case, no transmission from the patient in Louisiana to other persons has been identified….”

Now you know. Onward — be careful out there.

नमस्ते

And Now, Kosovo Sees Its First Mpox Clade 1b Case — A Man Returning Home, From Western Africa…

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The good news is that all the people he interacted with in Kosovo — and the contacts of his contacts — may be vaccinated promptly. And the vaccine (closely related to the smallpox vaccine) is nearly 100% effective.

The tough news (as we said last night, most recently) is… this is going to be a fairly regular news item, country by country for the foreseeable future, into 2025. Here is Reuters reporting, on it all:

…Kosovo health authorities said on Friday they had detected the country’s first case of mpox, in a man who had recently returned from Africa.

Kosovo’s Institute of Public Health said a 30-year old Kosovo citizen was admitted to hospital on Dec. 24 after returning from a west African country. It did not name the country.

“His symptoms were fever, chills, and skin changes in face and hands,” the institute said in a statement, adding that the patient appeared stable….

Even so, we plan to meet the new year with hope, and a sense of purpose — in blunting the darker, more hateful and malign forces now taking shape in our nation — and the wider world. Onward.

नमस्ते

A Venus Motif Ring — Last Seen 1,700 Years Ago — In Northern France / Brittany…

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These sorts of finds will always fire my imagination — whose finger did this last adorn? Was she royal? Or was she just very, very lucky?

And, why the warring version of Venus? It clearly was not made for a man’s hand. Was it dropped plunder from a road robbery? How did it come to rest between cobblestone cracks in that long abandoned roadway?

In any event, here is the latest:

…Archaeologists in France recently unearthed a 1,700-year-old ring engraved with an ancient religious motif. The ornately decorated artifact was unearthed during an excavation in Pacé, a small town in Brittany, according to a December 19 news release from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP).

Specifically, archaeologists found the ring while digging up an ancient road… and it depicts the “war-like” version of Venus…

This mystery (whose — and how and why) is unlikely to be unraveled, even with the passage of another 2,000 years’ time. Onward, to a new year!

नमस्ते

Belgium Sees Its First Mpox Clade 1b Case…

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While the overall risk outside of DRC remains very low, this is likely to be a several month theme here: more EU geographies seeing sporadic Clase 1b outbreaks.

Obviously, had world health cooperatives and authorities pushed the identified vaccine candidate ahead, two years ago — and then stockpiked quantities in Western African nations. . . this all might have mostly been averted. Here’s CIDRAP, with the latest:

…Belgium reported the case on December 18 in an adult traveler returning from an African country where the clade 1b virus circulates. The patient, who had sexual contact with a person with mpox-like symptoms, isolated on their own before diagnosis. No high-risk contacts in Belgium have been identified, and the risk to the public in the country remains low, according to the ECDC.

Clade 1b cases have also been reported in Canada, Germany, India, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States….

Now you know… with more grown kids now due in to the cacti, by Friday night. Grin!

नमस्ते

Mirengoff: 29 Paragraphs To Avoid The Obvious: Musk Is An Unlawful Lobbyist.

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The sheer number of paragraphs proves his mendacity.

Because Paul well knows Musk’s non registered efforts are presently… felonies, he makes his long winded argument about… strawmen.

The facts are these: Musk bent the CR to his whims, and did so to protect his China agenda in his EV company.

The CR was changed twice — both times, in his favor — after private meetings and phone calls with GOP US House Reps.

This violates our post-Watergate “open government” federal laws.

Full stop.

He hasn’t disclosed his interests under the LDA. That’s a felony, carrying five year prison terms, and $200,000 fines.

Take a seat, Paul. You’re an apologists’ putz.

Bill Otis Cannot Accept That Just Because 51% Might Want It — That Doesn’t Make It… Moral, Or Right.

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Bill Otis is angry that we’ve put too few people to death in America — for crimes over the last two decades, minimum. [Never mind that we are the last post industrial Democratic nation to do so, at all.]

He’s mostly mad that Mr. Biden is morally opposed to the death penalty — and has chosen to use power we the people conferred upon him, to give 37 convicts… natural life without parole.

Note here that all his other would be arguments in favor of capital punishment fall to the wayside in these circumstances.

You see, any argument about “preserving deterrence”, in the handing down of the penalty still stands, because it will only ever be Democratic presidents who might commute what were otherwise capital sentences. So it would be preposterous to argue that murderers bank on ending up in front of a Democratic President after committing murder.

Bill lives in an amoral world, where if the people want it, by Gum, Tangerine 2.0 will give it to them, good and hard.

So apparently Bill’s political philosophy has defaulted to the point where all that matters to him is what does the least common denominator want.

Personally, I expect more of my elected leaders. And Tangerine 2.0 (like his boy Matt Gaetz) falls well short of the minimal mark. I strongly suspect Bill knows it, but is too much a coward to say that he would cross Tangerine about this.

That may be the saddest part of all of his essay today. He also failed to mention that Mr. Biden explicitly did not commute three other convicts, of the 40 awaiting death in the federal ststem, believing that their sentence of death… probably represents justice. I suspect that those three will ultimately not be put to death, even under Tangerine 2.0.

But we shall see.

This Past Week The ‘24 Marburg Outbreak Was Declared… OVER.

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And that is some very good news (and highly contrasting — news, to the latest DRC Mpox updates). Marburg is considered far more lethal (on a par with the dread Ebola virus) — taking the lives of up to 88% of those who contract it.

And Rwanda’s top-flight public health response to this latest outbreak is in large measure the reason it was so quickly abated. Here’s the official “all clear“, from WHO, early last week:

…The World Health Organization and the Rwandan government on Friday declared the outbreak in Rwanda of the Ebola-like Marburg fever — over after no new cases were registered in recent weeks.

The country first declared the outbreak on Sept. 27 and reported a total of 15 deaths and 66 cases, with the majority of those affected healthcare workers who handled the first patients.

Without treatment, Marburg can be fatal in up to 88% of people who fall ill with the disease. Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss….

And… now you know. Be excellent to one another. Onward.

नमस्ते

Congo’s Kinshasa — Home To 17 Million Souls (Essentially Like NYC/Triborough), Is Under Siege From Mpox Clade 1b — Over 70,000 Cases Suspected…

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This is particularly poignant news, at Christmas-time.

The Mpox outbreak is showing scant signs of abating — and even where vaccine stock is available, some contacts of contacts shy away from coming in to get it — for fear of neighbors’ stigma. All of which creates a very dangerous situation, for this regional outbreak — becoming a… full-scale pandemic — in Africa. Here’s the NYT on the latest:

…Mireille Efonge got sick a few months ago, with a fever and painful blisters on her groin. She became too weak to move, so neighbors carried her to a health center with walls of plastic sheeting in Pakadjuma, a crowded, poor community in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There, a nurse called an ambulance to take her to a hospital. Soon lesions broke out on her head and the rest of her body, each one a hard nub of throbbing pain.

Finally she was given a diagnosis: mpox. “I’d never heard of it,” Ms. Efonge said.

This was back in August, when the mpox virus — closely related to smallpox — was still almost unknown in Kinshasa, a city of 17 million people.

Some researchers now recall that time almost wistfully, because it might still have been possible back then to fence in the mpox virus, to fend off disaster….

The virus is taking hold in crowded camps home to millions of displaced Congolese, who live crammed into rough shelters with limited access to water. And it has reached Congo’s cities, including its enormous, congested capital.

Belated efforts to control mpox in Kinshasa — by isolating patients and vaccinating their contacts — have been halting and haphazard, far outpaced by the speed of the virus’s spread and change….

This is deeply troubling. We have the tools and tech… but human nature is a tough nut to crack. Onward, just the same.

नमस्ते

In Sunday’s [Unintended] Hilarity: Giuliani Edition…

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I won’t link the 15 page filing Hizzoner’s new lawyer made in Manhattan — it was a largely irrelevant, and repetitive of prior arguments he’s lost — but the able USDC Judge Liman struck it without reading it, as the rules limit such a response to three pages — he was 5X over the limit. Flawless.

Next, it seems Hizzoner is going to call what he styles as a Catholic Monsignor to testify about the bona fides of his residency in a “homestead” in Florida — to blunt an attempt to foreclose on that condo, in favor of the defamation plaintiffs.

However, that “monsignor” has apparently been defrocked by the church, and it was apparently for sexual improprieties with young boys.

You literally could not make this stuff up, if you tried. Onward, to a swim workout at the club… grin.

नमस्ते