Monthly Archives: February 2021

90 million, 27% of Americans are immune!

Image Credit: R Shane McGary, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Storm of small Mt. Rainier earthquakes occurred Feb. 17-18

On February 17, 2021 at 3:13 p.m. local time, a small swarm of earthquakes began at Mount Rainier. Activity associated with the swarm ended about five hours later (around 8:00 p.m. local time), although a single earthquake occurred the morning of February 18. 

In total, nearly 20 earthquakes were located by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN). The maximum magnitude was a M2.5 and depths were between 0 to 1 km (0.6 mi) below sea level, according to PNSN.

Most of the earthquakes were centered beneath a point southwest of the summit crater about halfway to Point Success, an area that has seen many earthquakes since 2010.

There have been no reports that the earthquakes were felt at the surface.

Earthquakes are part of the background activity at Mount Rainier, and swarms of this number of earthquakes typically occur once or twice a year. The most notable swarm occurred between September 20 and September 22, 2009, when over 1000 earthquakes were detected. 

Since the early 1980s, Mount Rainier seismicity has been monitored by PNSN and the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) via a network of seismic stations located within 20 km (12 mi) of Mount Rainier, including new stations installed late last year to help detect lahars. From the data, scientists believe that earthquakes at Mount Rainier occur by hydrothermal fluids moving along thus “lubricating” existing faults within basement rock underlying the volcano.

Info:  shpr.fyi/rainierquakes

View of Rainier’s volcanic plumbing

The above image was made by measuring how the ground conducts or resists electricity in a study co-authored by geophysicist Phil Wannamaker of the University of Utah Energy & Geoscience Institute. Resistivity to electric current is a close indicator of rock or magma temperature as when molten, magma has very low resistance. It also confusingly is indicative of water or wet ground, as ground water also has low resistance.

The image shows the underground plumbing system that provides molten and partly molten rock to the magma chamber beneath the Mount Rainier volcano in Washington state. The scale at left is miles depth. The scale at bottom is miles from the Pacific Coast.

The Juan de Fuca plate of the Pacific seafloor crust and upper mantle is shown in blue on the left half of the image as it dives at about two inches per year eastward beneath us.

The reddish orange and yellow colors represent molten and partly molten rock forming atop the Juan de Fuca plate or “slab.” The image shows the rock begins to melt about 50 miles beneath Mount Rainier, the red triangle at top. Some is pulled downward and eastward as the slab keeps diving, but other melts move upward to the orange “birdhead” magma chamber shown under but west of Mount Rainier.

The line of sensors used to make this image were placed north of the 14,410-foot peak, so the image may be showing a lobe of the magma chamber that extends northwest of the mountain.

Small red ovals and clumps of them on the left half of the page are the hypocenters of earthquakes shown at their depth and distance from the coast.

The image doesn’t reveal the plumbing tying Mount Rainier to the magma chamber 5 miles below it.

Editor: Though the survey and image were done seven years ago, there is no indication the magma situation beneath the mountain has changed significantly since then.

Info:  shpr.fyi/rainiermagma

Student Mars
Challenge still open

There’s still time to join the Perseverance adventure with 1,056,301 students worldwide!

In honor of a successful Perseverance Mars landing, we’re rolling out two additional weeks of the Mission to Mars Student Challenge! These bonus weeks can be done any time and even extended over a longer period of time. After all, the Perseverance rover mission is planned to last more than two Earth years. Register today to receive guided education plans with resources from NASA to engage students in the Perseverance rover mission on Mars!

Who can register?

NASA is inviting schools, classrooms, educational organizations, homeschools, and families to register their students. Students under 18 should be registered by a teacher or guardian. Educators can register once on behalf of their entire classroom or organization.

Is there still time to register?

Yes! All the dates for each of the education plans are completely flexible. Education plans can be done in part or in full and in any order as schedules allow. A link to the web version of the newsletters sent out during each week of the challenge is available in the education plans section below.

Info:  shpr.fyi/studymars

COVID Variants

Variant B.1.1.7 found in UK:

United Kingdom (England) identified a variant called B.1.1.7 with a large number of mutations in the fall of 2020.

This variant spreads more easily and quickly than other variants. In January 2021, experts in the UK reported that this variant may be associated with an increased risk of death compared to other variant viruses. Detected in the US at the end of December 2020.

Variant B.1.351 found in South Africa. Reported in the US at the end of January 2021.

Variant P.1 found in Brazil. Detected in the US at the end of January 2021.

Variant CAL.20C found in California. By Jan. 15, represented more than 40% of cases in California.

So far, studies suggest that antibodies generated through vaccination with currently authorized vaccines recognize these variants. This is being closely investigated and more studies are underway.

Bottom line: Michelle Walensky, new CDC Director, on Feb. 19, “We don’t know yet the efficacy of our vaccines against the new variants.”

However, a top U.S. health official said last week, “In areas where the variants are prevalent, as far as we know, no person given the new vaccines has died or required hospital care for COVID.” So current vaccines thus far appear to handle the variants.

One dangerous but necessary kind of study has been started in England where paid vaccinated volunteers are intentionally inoculated with the Variant B.1.1.7 to see how various vaccines protect against it.

The more people infected, the more variants occur, so the defense against variants is to quickly achieve immunity of nearly all people against the virus.

Our only way to proactively increase immunity is by increasing vaccinations.

Get vaccinated as soon as you are eligible!

Editor Dave: I got my vaccination last Thursday- no after-effects!

Info:  shpr.fyi/covidchgs

Practical Nursing
program

A new four-quarter Practical Nursing program launched at Yakima Valley College this winter term, taking on 10 students in its first cohort to contribute to the high-demand profession.

“PNs provide direct hands-on patient care including monitoring patients’ health, measuring blood pressure and other vitals, administering basic patient care, providing for the basic comfort of patients, discussing the patients’ care, documenting patient concerns, and charting patient care service,” the college said in a statement Friday.

These nurses work under the guidance of registered nurses, nurse practitioners and doctors in hospitals, residential care facilities and other health care settings.

The new program, which began this winter quarter, is the only PN program on the eastern side of the state. There are six statewide, it said.

The region has a critical need for these professionals, the announcement stated. It pointed to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that anticipate PN positions to grow by 9% from 2019-29. The median annual income for a PN is $47,480, it said.

The new YVC program has prerequisites in biology, math, English and psychology, and requires a GPA of 2.0 in core courses. The college pitches the program as a stepping stone to a career as a practical nurse, or toward Licensed Practical Nurse, Registered Nurse or Bachelor’s in Science Nursing credentials.

The program will be expanded to serve 20 students in winter quarter of 2022.

For more information about YVC’s new PN program call 509-574-4902 or email nursing@yvcc.edu.

Info:  shpr.fyi/practnurs

A note about the thermometer above: The number of Infection & Recovery I’ve used is just the actual number known and reported by CDC.

However, CDC, Dr. Fauci and others have long suspected and reported that very many additional, perhaps 30% of the U.S. population have been infected and recovered without symptoms, without even knowing they were sick or had COVID. These are not counted.

I have added this 30% of us, which is about 100 million additional Americans, who are probably immune as a lightly colored green section.

This would bring our total American immunity to around 58%- getting close to the 70% herd immunity goal!

This may be the reason that the daily number of new infections has plummeted so drastically and wonderfully.

WDFW to capture &
test entire Tieton
bighorn sheep herd

 “We’re trying a ‘test and remove’ process that has been successful in other western states.”

The goal is to test and collar as many of the herd’s 100 adult sheep as possible.

Info:  shpr.fyi/tietonbighorns

Dave Bunting

80 million, 24% of Americans are immune!

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to land on Mars by skycrane on Feb. 18

NASA’s next flagship Mars rover Perseverance will land  on the Red Planet about the time you read this.

On Feb. 18, the Mars rover Perseverance will attempt a daring skycrane landing similar to one aced by its predecessor Curiosity August 2012, and an epic NASA video shows exactly how it’ll be done.

Skycrane is a landing method where the very high velocity of the spacecraft is slowed by a succession of methods involving friction with the very light atmosphere, ending in a big parachute, from which the craft lowers itself gently toward the surface on its own rockets firing downward. The final step is cables fed slowly from the rocket platform letting the craft down to the surface.

The new 4K Perseverance landing video opens with a shot of Mars, soon followed by Perseverance streaking towards the surface after separating from a protective backshell.

None of the skycrane sequence can be controlled or adjusted from the earth as the time for a radio signal from Earth to Mars is about 20 minutes. Perseverance must make its own decisions about the landing steps based on weather, its distance from and observations of the surface terrain.

NASA dubbed the similar skycrane Curiosity rover’s landing in 2012 a harrowing “seven minutes of terror” as it had never been done before. The rover had to nail its entire landing sequence on its own, from atmospheric entry and parachute release to an unprecedented rocket-powered hover maneuver as Curiosity was lowered to the Martian surface, because the sequence happened faster than a signal could reach Earth from Mars.

Perseverance will have much the same approach, but the terror is still there as not every landing mission to Mars has never made it safely to the surface.

Watch artist’s video of planned landing at:

Info:  shpr.fyi/persevlanding

Radio Shack’s AA Batteries are most power at lowest cost

Surprisingly, the Radio Shack AA alkaline batteries provided better power than many others in a recent test of may brands and they’re among the lowest-priced at 33 cents, $19.99 for a 60-pack.

The next best is Energizer Max Alkaline AA with slightly more power at 52 cents from Walmart 48-pack for $24.98.

Almost as good is regular CopperTop Duracell alkaline.

Most lithium batteries have more, some only a little more power than alkaline batteries but their higher cost makes them much more expensive per unit of power.

Info:  shpr.fyi/aabtty

Lease your Yakima basin water rights?

Trout Unlimited is working to lease landowner water rights in Yakima River Basin in low water years, funded by Dept. of Ecology.

The leased water would be used to help maintain minimum flows in the rivers and streams to protect trout and other fish.

Info:  shpr.fyi/waterlease

Apple and Google have issued urgent security updates

Users of Google’s Chrome browser have faced three security concerns over the past 24 hours.

On several versions of Mac OSX, a local attacker may be able to get control of the machine.

Most Chrome users and Apple Mac OSX and iOS users should update their machines immediately.

Info:  shpr.fyi/msupdates

Local vaccination sites learn when vaccines
will arrive

Though Pfizer and Moderna vaccines rate of manufacturing and shipment has been planned and ongoing under the Warp Speed program for months, Washington State has only now learned how to inform local vaccination sites when vaccines will arrive three weeks in advance.

Recall that Inslee refused to accept or coordinate with a vaccine approved under Trump.

Up to now, local hospitals, clinics and other vaccination sites only learned what was coming when they arrived.

Info:  shpr.fyi/vaccineplan

It’s official: Farfarout is our solar system’s most distant known object.

The planetoid dubbed Farfarout was first detected in 2018, at an estimated distance of 140 astronomical units (AU) from the sun — farther away than any other object.

One AU is the average Earth-to-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers. For perspective, Pluto orbits at an average distance of about 39 AU.

Farfarout’s inherent brightness suggests a world roughly 250 miles wide, only about one-tenth as big as the moon, barely enough to qualify for dwarf planet status. But the size estimate assumes the world is largely made of ice, and that assumption could change with more observations.

Info:  shpr.fyi/farfarout

Higgs Boson Decay found

Scientists have spotted the first evidence of a rare Higgs boson decay, expanding our understanding of the strange quantum universe.

In 2012, scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland won a Nobel Prize in Physics with a breakthrough finding: they detected the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle predicted by the Standard Model of physics nearly 50 years prior. The Higgs boson doesn’t live very long, quickly decaying into smaller particles like two photons (light particles).

Now, researchers have found evidence for a rare Higgs boson decay in which the subatomic particle decays into either a photon and a pair of electrons, or a photon and a pair of muons with opposite charge.

Info:  shpr.fyi/higgsdecay

Dave Bunting

	corona virus, human

42 million Americans have been vaccinated!

Warp Speed gets
vaccine into rural arms.

One afternoon this past December, a package arrived at Mora Valley Community Health Services in northern New Mexico. The rural clinic, which serves a county of 4,521 people, is nestled beside a pasture with a flock of chickens and a few goats. A mile up the road sits the town of Mora—a regional hub just big enough for a trio of restaurants, two gas stations, and a single-building satellite office for a nearby community college.

Shortly after the package arrived, clinic staff received an email explaining that this “ancillary convenience kit” was a test of the system designed to transport SARS-CoV-2 vaccines from the state’s warehouse to Mora and other rural communities across the state. While this package contained supplies for administering the vaccine — syringes, needles, alcohol swabs, and more—the real challenge would occur the following week. That’s when 100 doses were scheduled to be delivered, and the clinic’s staff would have 30 days at most to administer the doses before they spoiled.

As promised, the vaccine arrived on December 21. Staff worked in phases, stationing patients in exam rooms in numbers to match the doses coming from each vial. Each patient completed a health questionnaire, received a shot, and then was monitored for 15 minutes to be sure the vaccine did not trigger an adverse reaction. Within a few weeks, all 100 shots were in arms.

Info:  shpr.fyi/warprural

Rapid Implementation
of a Vaccination
Superstation

On January 6, 2021, a short call between key leaders at UC San Diego Health and the San Diego County public health services resulted in a conceptual agreement to open a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine superstation with a target of vaccinating 5000 health care workers daily.

Five days later on January 11, the teams opened the first large-scale vaccination site in California, and 2 weeks later more than 58 000 community members had been vaccinated.¹

This report describes lessons learned in this rapid implementation with the hope this experience will catalyze similar centers across the country at a time when COVID-19 has become a leading cause of death in some age groups.²

The first key decision was to identify an aligned partner and location large enough to handle 5000 vaccinations daily. UC San Diego Health had an existing relationship with the community-minded San Diego Padres. The San Diego Padre parking lots offered a large size (280 000 square feet) in an outdoor location that is centrally accessible to both personal and public transportation with controlled access during the day and ability to be secured overnight. The city police were familiar with traffic flows associated with large events.

San Diego County provided vaccine supply and funding, along with essential contacts for police, fire marshal, and traffic control.

The Padres provided the land and extensive event planning experience, including expertise in hosting drive-through activities during the COVID-19 pandemic with access to tents, trailers, signage, fencing, and restrooms, security and parking vendors to manage on-site flow.

A critical component of any vaccine superstation is IT (information technology) infrastructure. In parallel, the technology team installed 5000 feet of power cable and deployed 85 laptop computers. The San Diego Padres provided wireless internet for the entire parking lot. Since the EHR was already integrated with the state immunization registry, all administered vaccine doses would be visible to other sites around the county to assist second-dose logistics.⁴

The initial delivery model required more than 300 personnel each day, approximately 120 in clinical and 180 in administrative roles.

Info:  shpr@fyi/vaccsuper

Hopefully U.S. new cases/infections per day will continue dropping

The new cases number per day apparently peaked on Jan. 7 at 227,970 cases.

On Feb. 7 the number of new cases was 91,762.

Info:  shpr.fyi/uscases

Our intestines may be important in COVID

The small bowel may serve as a viral entry site

SARS-CoV-2 uses the ACE2 receptor as its main attachment point to invade human cells. ACE2 receptors are present in various tissues including the oropharynx, nose, lungs, kidneys, pancreas and the small bowel.

Thus, the small bowel may serve as a viral entry site.

The virus infecting the intestines might be directly causing autoimmunity like other viruses breaking the body’s tolerance to itself, setting people up for autoimmune diseases.

Info:  shpr.fyi/eatcovid

Ivermectin no longer prohibited for COVID

Ivermectin is a 45-yr-old cheap medication used to treat many types of parasite infestations including head lice and scabies but also intestinal roundworms.

Reports from in vitro studies suggest that ivermectin acts by inhibiting the host importin alfa/beta-1 nuclear transport proteins, which are part of a key intracellular transport process that viruses hijack to enhance infection by suppressing the host antiviral response. In addition, ivermectin docking in vitro may interfere with the attachment of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein to the human cell membrane.³

“It is important to stress that no one should try to self-medicate with versions of ivermectin that are for veterinary purposes or head lice.” The only safe way to get ivermectin is by prescription from a doctor, he says.

Excerpted from Medscape

Info:  shpr.fyi/ivermectin2

Why COVID kills

Reduced innate antiviral defenses coupled with exuberant inflammatory cytokine production are the defining and driving features of COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2 blocks one virus-fighting set of genes but allows another set to launch, a pattern never seen with other viruses.

“Most other viruses interfere with some aspect of both the call to arms and the call for reinforcements,” the researcher said.

COVID, however, uniquely blocks interferons, a cellular defense but activates the other, the inflammatories, he and his colleagues reported in a study published last week in Cell.

The result is essentially no brakes on the virus’s replication, but a sometimes fatal storm of inflammatory molecules in the lungs, which is what the researcher calls a “unique” and “aberrant” consequence of how SARS-CoV-2 manipulates the genome of its target.

They found that within three days of infection, the virus induces cells’ call-for-rein-forcement genes to produce cytokines. But it blocks their call-to-arms genes — the interferons that dampen the virus’ replication.

Info:  shpr.fyi/covidhijacks

Also: shpr.fyi/covidcell

Dave Bunting