H1N1 suddenly appeared in 2009 and then basically went away all by itself: The vaccine rollout took too long, underdelivered, and flopped

There are no outbreaks of H1N1 at the scale of 2009 in the years following. It basically subsided by itself before the vaccine was ready, and when it was, people pretty much ignored it:

In the U.S., the Health and Human Services Department estimated in July 2009 that 120 million doses would be available by October. By late October, only 17 million doses had been shipped — and fewer than that had been administered. By the time vaccine was becoming available, infections had peaked and flu activity was declining sharply.

 

1

2

3

4

5

 

6

COVID-19 in the largest countries by population: Update for Sun 5/2/21

Countries with 200 million population or more: China, India, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria.

Data isn't available in all categories for all countries, and data quality varies dramatically.

One should assume figures in the Big Seven are more or less gross underestimations except in the USA. 

China in particular is a JOKE. Why anyone takes them seriously as a "global partner" is beyond me. Show me an honest communist and I will give you six free winning lotto numbers.

Hospital reporting is the worst. Very few countries report the data at all, which tells you they are neither motivated nor equipped to do so even though this is a pretty serious situation which is over one year old. Given how important that data is in judging the progress and severity of the pandemic, it is more than discouraging. The top five for hospitalizations are all US and Europe, the difference between true civilization and the rest being that we know the numbers at all.

The situations in Brazil and especially India are alarming given the high positivity rate in India and the high death rate in Brazil. Reports concentrating on India underreporting deaths (from Reuters and the like) in recent weeks are a sick joke compared with neighboring China which the charts say is a COVID utopia. India is a developing nation struggling to cope under an enormous strain while still remaining part of the free world, but journalists would rather criticize it than question China's glaring effrontery. The myopia is damning.

These Big Seven represent 4.065 billion of the world's population of 7.79 billion, 52.2%, and we don't have a clear picture of what's really going on with them.

What reason would there be to think positively?

Daily new cases, and deaths, per million in the US are still at last summer levels and have not made new lows. Same with hospitalizations. Case positivity is rising again and is actually at 5.8%, provisionally, in this data. Previous very recent levels in the 7s, however, have simply vanished from the record. Why? Johns Hopkins is currently showing 4%. What to believe?

Vaccinations still can't be pointed to for lowering the US numbers because the numbers remain too high. I'm sure they'll point to them once they decline as evidence for vaccine efficacy. Seasonality will be ignored. I will leave a vaccination horror story update for a separate, future post.

Why have cases and deaths and hospitalizations ebbed and flowed in the past in the absence of vaccines? I predict they'll never really say, same as we hear no good explanation for why H1N1 from 2009 simply dropped off the radar. Why did it go away despite the vaccine against it turning into a giant flop? 

They can't predict pandemics' comings and goings anymore than they can predict global cooling in the 1970s, global warming in the 2000s, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 or the end of the Reagan Bull in 2000.

Man is a worm, according to the Bible, a poor player upon the stage, according to Shakespeare, an idiot whose tale is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Nothing!

 

daily new cases per million

daily new deaths per million

case positivity rate

share of population vaccinated usa v world

Top five countries for C19 hospitalizations

share vaccinated in the largest countries by population

 

daily new deaths/million

daily new cases/million

LOL, SpaceX Crew-1 Commander Mike Hopkins, first out, didn't need no stinkin' ramp to exit Dragon, did a little dance too afterwards

Second out, pilot Victor Glover, on the other hand . . ..

Well, it was Glover's first spaceflight.

SpaceX cut away before Glover got all the way out and didn't show the egress of the two others.

Watching the whole thing, one sees the SpaceX team install the ramp for Hopkins, but when he exits suddenly it's not there. Then they reinstall the ramp for Glover.

Listening to the color commentary, the narrators had indicated we would not see egress by any of the crew members but then you do. 

Hopkins no ramp

Glover, ramp and stretcher

Glover, ramp and stretcher

Glover ramp, stretcher close by

Glover ramp, feed cuts away

Glover ramp

Hopkins no ramp, no stretcher

Hopkins no ramp, no stretcher

Hopkins, fist pumps, dances, walks away

Cool visuals of SpaceX Dragon nighttime splashdown 11:56pm off Panama City, Florida Saturday, May 1, 2021

Time from undock from ISS to splashdown was fewer than seven hours.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Racist FDA is going to ban menthol cigarettes

I never thought I'd admit that there is, in fact, systemic racism in America, but there it is.

What's next, fried chicken and watermelon?

Story.

Ain't it great to be a Democrat?

Ann Coulter's best tweet ever

 

"America is an idea, not a place, not a people" is the BIG LIE mantra of neo-conservatism and libertarianism. 

If that's true, one should be able to explain it, write it down, teach it, and put it into practice successfully anywhere. No need to come here for it.

And of course it isn't just an idea. Millions come here and never come to learn it anymore. Millions more aren't taught it in school anymore, and don't see it in practice at home anymore.

That's why the country is a mess.

A famous Italian-American once had it figured out, as I, a German-American, once had it figured out. He starts in, in earnest, at about minute ten:

Ice-Out in Nenana Alaska happened and I didn't even realize it

When I checked the Nenana Ice Cam yesterday the Tripod was still standing on the ice, but I didn't realize the event was already over.

It seems the ice broke up just enough to allow the Tripod to move a short distance to trip the clock in the tower it is attached to by a long cable.

The hitch was most of the ice was still in the river, and the Tripod evidently flowed upstream only just a little, which is to the right on the screen, and very odd. Normally it flows downstream, obviously.

I should have realized something was up because the flag rope was down, lying on the ice.

When I checked a few hours later the Tripod was gone and the water was flowing and I realized I had missed it as the ice cam page had the message:

THE ICE OFFICIALLY BROKE AND THE CLOCK STOPPED ON APRIL 30TH, 2021 AT 12:50 PM AST. THE 2021 JACKPOT IS $233,591.00 

Should have looked for that message the first time.

The Washington Times had the story here.

So add another Ice-Out to the period April 30-May 7 when the vast majority of them have occurred anyway since 1917. The National Weather Service pretty much nailed it predicting April 29-May 5.

Hard to go wrong with that in any year, to be honest.

In the just 5 months since Joe Biden won the mail-in vote, the purchasing power of the dollar has already declined by 1.56%

 

The Great War, depression, gold confiscation, dollar devaluation, fiat money, More War, and inflationary monetary policy all have done a real number on the dollar long before this, so it's understandable if no one really notices anymore. 

We're witnessing a seemingly infinite division in a race to the bottom. 

Meanwhile in Apocalypse Watch, strong earthquake activity was muted in 2019-2020, but the first four months of 2021 have been busy

 

That Obama guy did an outstanding job of screwing up health insurance, and raising the price of hamburger, and Biden isn't far behind him

 

Hamburger in this data series averages $4.04/lb in March 2021.

141 pages of vaccine horror stories

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uS4krGJX-7sa8fuRlH7mhod-Xa5ZBsXU/view

The longer the pandemic continues, the more it looks to be a seasonal, 2-hump phenomenon

 

The Africa graph is the most compelling, since it represents the "control continent" where there has been the least human intervention to shape the progress of the disease in comparison with developed world places like Europe and North America.

But even Israel shows the phenomenon, as do California, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Early attempts to keep the virus at bay reduced the size of hump one, here more, here less, depending on the varying local containment efforts and the varying degree to which people complied with them.

Homo proponit, sed coronavirus disponit.

COVID-19 globally isn't over by a long shot, unfortunately

 

Johns Hopkins: US COVID deaths hit the 570k mark

 

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US are up 27% Mar 16-Apr 22, 2021

 

The face when you thought you tuned in to the oldies station but got the chucklehead playing Rush Limbaugh reruns instead

 

.

.

Even calling NASA's helicopter on Mars a helicopter is a gross exaggeration: It's a frickin' drone and doesn't even have room for Buzz Lightyear

Dimensions: Fuselage (body): 5.4 in × 7.7 in × 6.4 in

Someone should tell NASA Mars helicopter team that a Wright Brothers moment requires a HUMAN piloting a PLANE

NASA scores Wright Brothers moment with first helicopter flight on Mars :

"The twin-rotor whirligig's debut on the Red Planet marked a 21st-century Wright Brothers moment for NASA . . .. NASA engineers affixed a tiny swath of wing fabric from the original Wright flyer under Ingenuity's solar panel before sending it on its way to Mars."

Nothing captures the ridiculous character of the present exaggerated age better than this celebration over a 3-meter helicopter flight on Mars

 

                                                                                                         Dare Mighty Things!

US COVID-19 update Mar 20 - Apr 17, 2021

Hospitalized Mar 20: 33164

                     Apr 17: 39090

                     +18%

Case positivity rate Mar 20: 4.5%

                                Apr 13: 7.6%

                                +69%

Daily new deaths per million Mar 20: 3.13

                                               Apr 17:  2.17

                                               -31%

Daily new deaths Mar 20: 1038

                             Apr 17:   719

                             -31%

But . . .

The bi-weekly change in confirmed deaths was dropping much faster on Mar 23, 37.15%, than it is on Apr 17, 7.4%. Indeed, the Mar 23 low was a retest of the 2020 low from last June 2 at 33.6%, after the initial outbreak of the pandemic subsided. It is itself the new low in the series.

There's been a dramatic slow down in the drop of bi-weekly change. The measure has itself been consistently rising since the advent of spring.

 

That doesn't make any sense in an environment in which increased vaccination, which is supposed to reduce severity of illness and therefore hospitalization and death, is occurring.

Share fully vaccinated Mar 20: 12.9%

                                     Apr 17: 24.7%

                                     +91%

Hospitalizations are clearly up, and deaths are falling but at a much slower rate than they were falling when there was much less vaccination, and colder weather, in the country.

Warmer weather is supposed to mean improving conditions. People get outside and get fresh air and Vitamin D, reducing spread of the infection. That's the theory anyway.

But the data say otherwise.

Daily new confirmed cases per million hit an interim low of 162.17 on Mar 14, and retested that on Mar 23 at 162.12. As of Apr 16 the figure is 211.77, up 31%. Those levels are nothing to write home about. ~100 per million, as in September 2020, would be.

This virus has a mind of its own. 

Homo proponit, sed SARS-CoV-2 disponit.