The Delta break throughs are aggressively progressing. Let us look first at the vulnerable vs break through and actuals. The actuals are exploding and most likely due to a much higher incidence rate than the CDC noted. The old numbers were 600 per 100,000 unvaccinated per week whereas the vaccinated were 100. However we believe the break through rate is closer to 400, slightly below the unvaccinated but not much! Yet the severity may not be that high.
The NY Times has an interesting story about a person who has allowed their property to naturalize. It describes a person who has allowed their property to just grow what is natural, for better or worse. Now I can appreciate that. I gather I am known as "The Tree Man" in my neighborhood since I have a significant number of trees, many are specimen and unique such as metasequoia and ginkgo and I have a minimal amount of lawn. It should be known that as a hybridizer of hemerocallis, daylilies, I am also an licensed and inspected Botanical Research Facility, thus somewhat protected by the law.
Now my next door neighbor appears to dislike trees, and anything to do with them. In the Fall, like now, he mows his law almost every other day to remove leaves. One can almost time it. When he moved in he removed every tree on his property, and planted a lawn like a golf course. Living next to me he must from time to time wonder but our Town has a tree ordinance that prohibits tree removal except under limited circumstances.
My property is a symphony of birds and other creatures. I am greeted each morning by my local squirrel for breakfast, then the birds, chipmunks, rabbits and so forth. I am a grower of many specimen trees and in the Fall it is a pallet of color, and yes leaves. Thus the perpetual mowing I assume.
Now I have observed three types of home owners. One, unique somewhat, are those like me, naturalists and naturalizers. Neat, groomed, well placed, but lawn minimalists. Then there are the lawn only folks. Perhaps a bush or two but all law, perpetually mowed, groomed, watered, fertilized and green. Devoid of any animal life.
The third type is what I call the "white plastic fence" people. These are the recent entrants from the less affluent part of the State who have come into some money, buy a house, and erect massive white plastic fences, which I assume are for some psychic benefit of protection from adversaries.
Now place a law person next to a white plastic fence person and one gets an 1950s Drive In Movie lot! A barren piece of land abutting a massive white wall.
Now I see fence people falling into three categories. The upper class hedge row folks, with long standing and well manicured hedges, always well kept, the middle class open metal fence people who put up a fence to keep out the deer but allow for visibility and have a fence which is fundamentally unobtrusive, and then the white plastic fence folks, the lower class of fence people, who are claiming some form of sovereignty over nature and their land.
Thus for The Tree Man that I am, I like to ever changing colors, shapes and residents of my trees. My deer fence is as unobtrusive as I can make it, and I believe based upon my training and education in Botany and Horticulture that leaves actually nourish the soil, reducing the need to apply any excess of harsh chemicals which run off to the water tables.
I am happy to be The Tree Man, and glad from time to time to show my interested neighbors the striking beauty of a metasequoia or taxodium, or ginkgo. And yes, I do mow my small patch of grass from time to time.
The above is the county for today. It is almost back to the peak of the peaks! What is happening? Thanksgiving break through cases. Most likely but the explosion is very alarming and not a peep from Trenton. Again asleep at the wheel.
Or, are these new infections a result of the FEDs sending them from down south? In my opinion we at this point should have some knowledge of the infected base.
Proteins are complex, really complex. The spike protein is about 1000 amino acids long. It is derived from a piece of RNA about 3000 nucleic acids long. Then this things gets folded in a very complicated manner with positive and negative charged amino acids creating sited for bonding with the ACE2 receptor, another complex protein.
Variants have some amino acids replaced and we get positive, negative, or neutral dislocations along with insertions and deletions. Simply, things never look the same. Add to that glycans which may attach to certain amino acids adding more or less charge effects.
Now along comes some academics in the NY Times showing the alleged "simplicity" of the new charges and then adding to that the aerosol element. We have discussed the aerosol issue many times, and it also is very very hard.
The folks in the article did a simulation, based upon what experimental evidence we do not know. We have always said the virus moves in aerosols, aerosols move in a random Brownian motion manner complicated by Stokes lift, gravity, lift, etc. They bounce around each other in this Brownian motion and the overall aerosol cloud is frankly a mess.
But the Times piece is a simulation, apparently without any experimental basis. It is a complex simulation, and of just one aerosol. Nice but no cigar! We must start with real data, measure it, count the aerosols, then try to figure out what leads to the infection. In reality, we still do not know.
The article is cute, very graphic, and took a great deal of effort. However, reality must at some time come to play. Unfortunately, not yet, not here.
The bottom line, we still do not know how the virus is transmitted. It is really hard.
The CDC is a week late and ten dollars short, again. As the NY Times notes:
Officials said the C.D.C. plans to strengthen screening of international arrivals as countries try to contain the Omicron variant.
So what went wrong?
1. Last week on the 24th we noted the explosion of the new variant. It was by that time known for three days.
2. The variant was spreading from South Africa and environs.
3. Thus testing anyone coming from there or having been with people coming from then starting on say the 22nd would be mandatory in any competent Public Health environment.
4. The CDC again "plans" to do something, just what is uncertain. By this point it is not as if they do not know what must be done immediately.
5. The CDC took a 4 day holiday over Thanksgiving, despite the explosion of the new variant. Yep, they took a 4 day weekend. Try that one in an ER!
The explosion in New Jersey we have been tracking will just get worse as we let the new variant in via New York's major international hubs. Well, Merry Christmas from the folks in Atlanta!
Take a look at these:
The above is the doubling time for towns. Anything under 200 is a real problem. Dozens of towns are in that critical class. Some just in double digits. These towns are almost 100% vaccinated or previously infected. The reported variants are all Delta and all break through. Frankly death rates are still 3-4%.
The below we have the county with a massive uptick. The rate equals or exceeds the previous two massive jumps. Since the Gov got re-elected he seems clueless and unresponsive.
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