DaveRant

197 million, 60%, perhaps even 75% of Americans are immune!

Washington fruit
growers’ foreign sales challenged by
competition for ocean shipping containers
Nearly 28% of Washington state apples were shipped to 60 different countries during the 2018-19 season.
Exporting apples and other agriculture commodities remains a challenge due to impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, longstanding trade disputes with several countries and a lack of available shipping containers from ocean carriers.
U.S. demand for products made in China, such as personal protective equipment for COVID-19, furniture and toys, increased considerably at the end of last year.
The demand has driven ocean carriers to prioritize getting shipping containers back to China as quickly as possible to get imports to the U.S. and other countries.
That has resulted in ocean carriers opting to leave the U.S. with empty shipping containers rather than filling them up with U.S.-made products, including apples grown in this state.
Info: shpr.fyi/fruitshipping

Remember the 1984 cookie cutter three-ton hunk of earth that got up and moved 73 feet away?

Weird news report from 1984 near Grand Coulee Dam in Eastern Washington:
Quoted from an unidentified 1984 publication:
“No one can figure out how, but a chunk of earth weighing tons was plucked out of a wheat field, as though someone used “a giant cookie cutter,” and put down, right side up, 73 feet away. “All we know for sure is that this puzzle piece of earth is 73 feet away from the hole it came out of,” said Greg W. Behrens, a geologist with the Bureau of Reclamation at Grand Coulee Dam.”
The displaced slab, mostly soil held together by roots, is about 10 feet long and 7 feet wide. Its thickness varies from 2 feet at one end to about 18 inches at the other. The shape and thickness of the piece exactly match the hole that was left behind, just like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, though it was rotated about 20 degrees. There are no marks to indicate machines were used, the Seattle Times reported Friday, and the land is fairly flat.
Watch the Seattle King5 TV News report:
https://youtu.be/JxpBc64mtYE


Supermassive black holes appear before universe had grown enough for them to accumulate

In 2017, astronomers started finding monster black holes in the very early universe. Contain-ing roughly a billion times the mass of our Sun, these black holes were surrounded by disks of in-falling matter shining so intensely that we can detect them across immense stretches of space and time.
These gravitational giants existed when the universe was only 700 million years old, or 5 percent its current age. At that point in cosmic history, the uni-verse was still a toddler. Gravity was just beginning to rein in clouds of gas and dark matter to form structures that would later evolve into mature spiral and elliptical galaxies. Stars were beginning to pop into being, but they existed in far fewer numbers than they do today.
According to the traditional picture of black hole formation and growth, the universe at this time simply had not existed long enough for black holes to bulk up to a billion solar masses. So, based on our general understanding of how black holes form and grow, these black holes should not exist.
And yet they do — posing a major challenge that astrophysicists have yet to unravel.
Info: shpr.fyi/blackholes

Yakima fairground
mass vaccination
site expanded

Since last Wednesday, the capacity of the recently opened Yakima Fairgrounds site in-creased from 200 to 1,200 vaccine doses each day and operations expanded from five to seven days a week.
Yakima’s center is primarily set up as a drive-thru site, but individuals also can walk up. Those driving should use Gate 15, and those walking on to the site should use Gate 1. People who need a fare-free ride can call 211.
The hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, except for Thursday when the hours are noon to 6 p.m. People can register at https://prepmod.doh.wa.gov/ or call 1-800-525-0127.
Since last Wednesday, vac-cine eligibility expanded to restaurant, food service, construction and manufacturing workers; anyone 60 and older; and anyone with two or more underlying conditions. Those previously eligible still qualify.
Info: shpr.fyi/fairvaccine

Effective April 15, all Washingtonians over the age of 16 will be eligible
Washington governor announced that effective April 15, all Washingtonians over the age of 16 will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
Info: shpr.fyi/blackhole

A note about the thermometer above:
Change: Immunity required for herd immunity is now estimated to be at least 75%.
The number of Infection & Recovery (Dark Green) I’ve used is just the actual number known and reported by CDC.
However, CDC, Dr. Fauci and others suspected and reported that very many additional, originally perhaps 30% of the U.S. population, had been infected and recovered without symptoms, without even knowing they were sick or had COVID. These cannot be not counted.
Probably the same percentage of those 30% originally estimated additional infected & recovered are among the 51%, now vaccinated so I have reduced the original 30% unknown recovered number by the percent vaccinated, so now to 15%.
I have added this 15% of us who are probably immune as a lightly colored green section.
This would bring our real to-tal American immunity to around 75%- now equal to the 75% herd immunity goal!
With herd immunity, the virus continues to be spread by infected symptomatic victims, but that virus can’t spread well because 75% of the people it reaches are immune.
This is the reason that the daily number of new infections and hospitalizations has plummeted so wonderfully.
With herd immunity, masks and shutdowns may no longer be justifiable!

Dave Bunting

173 million, 52%, perhaps even 69% of Americans are immune!

Japanese Beetles, threat to crops, jobs and economy, found in Grandview
OLYMPIA — The state Department of Agriculture is asking residents and farmers to keep an eye out for Japanese beetles, the latest invasive pest posing a threat to local crops.
The beetle, which feeds on roses, grapes, apples, hops and turf grasses, among other plants, was discovered in traps in Sunnyside and Grandview last year, prompting concern.
It’s the first time the beetles were found so far inland, according to a WSDA news release issued Thursday. Previously they only had been found at ports and other entryways into the state.
If Japanese beetles were to become established, it would have trade and economic impacts in addition to direct damage to numerous state crops.
WSDA issued a pest alert at the time. On March 1, a Grandview resident further reported the Japanese beetles had devoured her roses the previous summer and provided photos showing flowers covered with the pests. She reported picking off as many as 75 beetles from her roses in a single day.
The agency and Washington State University have scheduled an educational webinar at 9 a.m. April 1 in the hopes of getting help in identifying where else the beetle might be located.
Sightings, including those from last year, can be reported online at agr.wa.gov/beetles, at PestProgram@agr.wa.gov, or calling 1-800-443-6684.
The website also includes information about identifying the pests.
Info: shpr.fyi/japbeetle

Sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) to be released
Inexplicable sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) will be released for public scrutiny in June — including a UFO that broke the sound barrier without producing a sonic boom.
Speaking on Fox News, the former director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, said Saturday (March 20) that the sightings are “difficult to explain.” Ratcliffe, who served in the Trump administration, said he’d hoped to declassify the reports during his tenure but that they will be released by the Pentagon by June 1.
It’s not the first time the military has released strange reports, and even videos, of UFOs, known in military parlance as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). But check your excitement, the military is generally more concerned about whether UAPs might be secret aircraft or weapons developed by other nations than it is about finding evidence of ET in our midst.
Info: shpr.fyi/ufojune
COVID Reinfection:
In two groups each of about 17,000 people, none of whom were vaccinated, one group having had been infected and recovered from COVID, the other group having not been infected: 213 became infected with COVID who were not previously infected and recovered, compared with only one who became infected who had been previously infected and recovered.
So having been infected and recovered from COVID offers very strong- like 99.6%- immunity but not quite 100% perfect immunity to being reinfected (and these results are still questionable– the chance of reinfection may still indeed be zero.) The chance of being reinfected after recovering from infection is much higher for older people so even people who’ve been infected and recovered should be vaccinated.
Governments’ strong pushes for continued masking and shutdowns is half based on this small chance of reinfection (they doubt the science.)
These record analysis results were published Mar. 17, 2021 in The Lancet, the British equivalent to the U.S. JAMA.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00575-4/fulltext
COVID Variants:
All three of the FDA-approved vaccines against COVID-19 show efficacy against the mutated strains of the virus, according to an analysis by the New York Blood Center (NYBC) published in Science Magazine.
NYBC found that the Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna vaccines create enough antibodies to fight the virus variants, according to the article “Vaccine efficacy probable against COVID-19 variants” Mar. 20, 2021, by Dr. Christopher D. Hillyer and Dr. Larry Luchsinger, in Science, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.
“The Moderna vaccine conferred substantial protection from infection… Similar data were obtained using the Pfizer (10) and Johnson & Johnson (11) vaccines. In each case, the samples suggest that the vaccines will be effective against mutant strains.”
Governments’ strong pushes for continued masking and shutdowns is half based on remaining questions about the likelihood of additional new variants coming as well as the effectiveness of the vaccines against the variants (they doubt the science).
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6534/1116.1


A note about the thermometer below:
The number of Infection & Recovery (Dark Green) I’ve used is just the actual number known and reported by CDC.
However, CDC, Dr. Fauci and others suspected and reported that very many additional, originally perhaps 30% of the U.S. population, had been infected and recovered without symptoms, without even knowing they were sick or had COVID. These cannot be not counted.
Probably the same percentage of those 30% originally estimated additional infected & recovered are among the 32%, now vaccinated so I have reduced the original 30% unknown recovered number by the percent vaccinated, now to 19%.
I have added this 19% of us who are probably immune as a lightly colored green section.
This would bring our real total American immunity to around 66%- getting close to the 70% herd immunity goal!
This is the reason that the daily number of new infections and hospitalizations has plummeted so drastically and wonderfully.
With herd immunity, new infections drop to low levels!

Dave Bunting

156 million, 47%, perhaps even 66% of Americans are immune!

Antikythera mechanism:
Another layer learned

The device, found on the
Mediterranean Sea bottom in
2,200-yr-old shipwreck, was
designed well enough to fairly
accurately reproduce the motion
of the Sun and Moon, as well as
the planets Mercury and Venus.
But that leaves out Mars, Jupiter,
and Saturn, which were also
known in antiquity.
X-rays of the almost totally
disintegrated front cover reveal
it accurately calculated the cycles
of Venus and Saturn—462
and 442 years, respectively.
“After considerable struggle,
we managed to match the evidence
in Fragments A and D to
a mechanism for Venus, which
exactly models its 462-year
planetary period relation, with
the 63-tooth gear playing a crucial
role,” said co-author David
Higgon.
There are still plenty of mysteries
surrounding the Antikythera
mechanism, however, such
as whether this latest version
could really have been built
using ancient manufacturing
techniques.
Info: shpr.fyi/antikythera2

Restaurants to 50%

Inslee bestows entire state
with Phase 3 on March 22.
Indoor spaces, like restaurants
and movie theaters, can have
50% occupancy. Up to 400 people
can attend indoor and outdoor
activities, such as concerts
and high school graduations, as
long as physical distancing and
masking is enforced. Outdoor
events with permanent facilities
can have 25% occupancy.
Info: shpr.fyi/waphase3

Yakima Fairground
vaccination site expands
to 1,200 per day

The Federal Emergency Management
Agency announced a
fixed, drive-thru vaccination site
will open March 31 at Central
Washington State Fair Park as
well as mobile vaccination units.
Through this partnership, vaccination
capacity at this location
will expand from approximately
200 vaccines per day to 1,200
vaccines per day between the
drive-thru site and mobile units.
Those seeking vaccinations
should check their phase eligibility
using Phase Finder. Then,
register for an appointment on
Prep-Mod or call 1-800-525-
0127. Proof of eligibility is required,
which may be an employer/
provider letter, work ID
badge or screenshot of Phase
Finder approval.
Info: shpr.fyi/yakfairvacc

Asotin’s Science
Olympiad team
wins championship

ASOTIN — The COVID-19
pandemic may have brought a
lot of activities to a halt, but a
science team at Asotin figured
out a way to catapult to the forefront
of competition.
The school’s Science Olympiad
team, which serves between
25 and 35 kids from fifth
to 10th grades, adapted its program
over the past year by competing
in virtual tournaments, so
students could “travel” online as
far as Boston and remain focused
on a shared goal.
The extra effort paid off.
The Asotin team recently
wrapped up its regional tournament,
featuring 30 teams from
eastern Washington, by placing
first and winning a bid to the
state tournament in April, for
the fourth consecutive year. The
small-town team, which
achieved the top slot in the region
for the first time in school
history, battled against students
from much larger Pullman, Spokane,
Moses Lake and other
schools throughout the area.
Info: shpr.fyi/asotinsci

Single Pill for COVID?

Molnupiravir, was randomly
assigned in various doses among
182 participants across several
medical centers who showed
coronavirus symptoms within a
week of testing positive and
were not hospitalized.
By day five, no one who took
the pill still tested positive for
coronavirus, while 24% of those
who got a placebo drug did.
Info: shpr.fyi/molnupiravir


Virus tolls similar
despite governors’
contrasting actions

Nearly a year after California
Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered
the nation’s first statewide shutdown
because of the coronavirus,
masks remain mandated,
indoor dining and other activities
are significantly limited, and
Disneyland remains closed.
By contrast, Florida has no
statewide restrictions. Republican
Gov. Ron DeSantis has prohibited
municipalities from fining
people who refuse to wear
masks. And Disney World has
been open since July.
Despite their differing approaches,
California and Florida
have experienced almost identical
outcomes in COVID caserates.
How have two states
that took such divergent tacks
arrived at similar points?
California and Florida both
have a COVID-19 case rate of
around 8,900 per 100,000 residents
since the pandemic began,
according to the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
Connecticut and South Dakota
are another example. Both
rank among the 10 worst states
for COVID-19 death rates. Yet
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont,
a Democrat, imposed numerous
statewide restrictions over the
past year after an early surge in
deaths, while South Dakota
Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican,
issued no mandates as virus
infections increased.
Excerpted from Associated
Press by David A, Lieb,
Info: shpr.fyi/coviddiffer

A note about the thermometer
above:
The number of Infection &
Recovery (Dark Green) I’ve
used is just the actual number
known and reported by CDC.
However, CDC, Dr. Fauci and
others suspected and reported
that very many additional, originally
perhaps 30% of the U.S.
population, had been infected
and recovered without symptoms,
without even knowing
they were sick or had COVID.
These cannot be not counted.
Probably the same percentage
of those 30% originally estimated
additional infected & recovered
are among the 32%, now
vaccinated so I have reduced the
original 30% unknown recovered
number by the percent vaccinated,
now to 19%.
I have added this 19% of us
who are probably immune as a
lightly colored green section.
This would bring our real total
American immunity to
around 66%- getting close to the
70% herd immunity goal!
This is the reason that the
daily number of new infections
and hospitalizations has
plummeted so drastically and
wonderfully.

With herd immunity,
masks and shutdowns
will prevent few new
COVID infections!

-Dave Bunting

136 million, 41%, perhaps even 61% of Americans are immune!


Restaurants to 50%: Inslee bestows entire state with Phase 3 on March 22.
Indoor spaces, like restaurants and movie theaters, can have 50% occupancy. Up to 400 people can attend indoor and outdoor activities, such as concerts and high school graduations, as long as physical distancing and masking is enforced. Outdoor events with permanent facilities can have 25% occupancy.
Spectator capacity is also expanded for high school and youth sports. High school contact sports, like basketball, wrestling and cheerleading, can resume.
The state will also move to a per-county-based system, re-evaluating counties every three weeks with the first re-assessment planned for April 12.

Vaccines effective against variants
Genetic variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are emerging, but so far the three vaccines being used immunize against the variants very well.
Watch a video from the Journal of the American Medical Association:
Info: shpr.fyi/vacceff

British variant B.1.1.7 more serious but covered by vaccines
Infection with the new B.1.1.7 variant led to 227 (0.41%) deaths in a sample of 54,906 COVID-19 patients, compared with 141 (0.25%) among the same number of patients who were matched for age, sex, sociodemographic background, date of infection, and other factors, but infected with other variants.
Scientists say it is also 40%-70% more transmissible than currently dominant variants.
Info: shpr.fyi/b117worse

U.S. Solar Panel makers can’t compete with China
American-made solar panels “cannot compete” with Chinese prices as the demand for green energy increases under the Biden administration.
The U.S. Dept. of Commerce concluded that China violated the countervailing duty law by providing heavy subsidies to Chinese solar manufacturers. The Department calculates that China supplied solar producers with subsidies ranging “from 27.64% to 49.79%”.
These findings led the Trump administration to impose tariffs on “solar panels from China ranging from 18.56% to 35.21%,” bringing U.S. manufacturers level with the Chinese.
President Biden, while suggesting 10,000 Keystone Pipeline workers whose jobs he destroyed get jobs making solar panels, is removing those tariffs, so U.S. solar panel makers and their employees will again be unable to compete with China.
Info: shpr.fyi/solarchina

U.S. Military Rare Earth Metals Supply Threatened by China
China has the largest known rare earth reserves worldwide and is one of the major producing countries of these elements.
Roughly 80% of rare earth metals go into ultra-high-strength magnets used in many electronic products and high-temperature superalloys, especially those used to manufacture the turbine blades for commercial and military aircraft jet engines.
For example. an F-35 fighter jet contains over 900 lb. of rare earths.
China moved to tighten control over the rare-earth metals industry in what some experts see as part of its military response to the ongoing trade war with the US. Even rare earths mined in the US must be sent to China for processwing.
China may ban the export of rare-earths refining technology to countries or companies it deems as a threat on state security concerns, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Mining in the Mt. Margaret metals area south of Randle may become existential for America.
Info: shpr.fyi/rarechina

Testing defense against Earth-bound asteroids
NASA Project DART will target a binary asteroid system that consists of a larger asteroid called Didymos, which measures about a half mile wide, and a smaller asteroid satellite called Dimorphos, which measures 540 feet across.
The mission will test a new planetary defense technique, requiring the spacecraft to slam into Dimorphos to change the orbital speed of the asteroid through a kinetic impact. If successful, this technique could be used to deflect asteroids that pose a threat to Earth.
Info: shpr.fyi/dartprotect

Ivermectin trial shows little benefit against COVID
In this randomized clinical trial that included 476 patients, the duration of symptoms was not significantly different for patients who received a 5-day course of ivermectin compared with placebo. Median time to resolution of symptoms was 10 vs 12 days which is not much.
Among adults with mild COVID-19, a 5-day course of ivermectin, compared with placebo, did not significantly improve the time to resolution of symptoms. The findings do not support the use of ivermectin for treatment of mild COVID-19.
Info: shpr.fyi/ivermect



A note about the thermometer above:
The number of Infection & Recovery (Dark Green) I’ve used is just the actual number known and reported by CDC.
However, CDC, Dr. Fauci and others suspected and reported that very many additional, originally perhaps 30% of the U.S. population, had been infected and recovered without symptoms, without even knowing they were sick or had COVID. These cannot be not counted.
Probably the same percentage of those 30% originally estimated additional infected & recovered are among the 32%, now vaccinated so I have reduced the original 30% unknown recovered number by the percent vaccinated, now to 20%.
I have added this 20% of us who are probably immune as a lightly colored green section.
This would bring our real total American immunity to around 61%- getting close to the 70% herd immunity goal!
This is the reason that the daily number of new infections and hospitalizations has plummeted so drastically and wonderfully.
With herd immunity, COVID will no longer necessitate masks & shutdowns!
Dave Bunting

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

Facebook Censures
Cardinal for criticizing New World Order

Facebook has censored a video of Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, archbishop emeritus of Guadalajara, Mexico, for suggesting that globalist leaders are exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to bring about a new world order.
“What they’re after is a world government, a new world order,” the cardinal asserts in the video.
“They want a single world government, a single army, a single currency, a single economy, and also a single religion — that will certainly not be the Christian religion,” he said. “It will be the religion of Mother Earth, in the name of humanity and universal brotherhood.”
“To this end, pandemics serve to weaken nations; they impoverish and indebt them, bringing down their economies,” Sandoval said. “They also weaken education, closing schools and replacing them with distance learning.”
“These pandemics also impede religious practice, as we saw all last year,” he said. “They close the churches, reduce the number of people who can worship.”
“But above all, they are creating fear, a terrible fear among the people,” he warned.
Editor: And terrible fear soon
turns to terrible anger.
Info:shpr.fyi/facebookcardinal

Ivermectin no longer forbidden for COVID

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has dropped its recommendation against the inexpensive antiparasitic drug Ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19, and the agency now advises it can’t recommend for or against its use, leaving the decision to physicians and their patients.
Ivermectin is an old, cheap medication used to treat many types of parasite infestations including head lice, roundworms and river blindness. It can be taken by mouth or applied to the skin for external infestations.
Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines.[12] Ivermectin is an FDA-approved agent.
Ivermectin was used successfully only against test tube COVID virus. It has not been used against COVID in humans.
The plasma concentrations of Ivermectin necessary for the antiviral efficacy detected in test tubes would require administration of doses up to 100-fold higher than those approved for use in humans.
The approved dose for intestinal roundworms in humans depends on body weight, for example one single pill dose of 9mg for a 100-lb. person.
After treatment with Ivermectin-type medications, patients with hyperreactive immune systems may be more likely than others to experience severe adverse reactions.
Passionate arguments have been waged for and against the drug’s use against COVID.
The drug is “safe at relatively high doses, widely available, and relatively cheap, too,” say a group of doctors pushing its use. The next step is more research to find the best dose for fighting COVID-19. Then researchers can begin testing in people, he says.
“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.
Partly excerpted from Medscape.com
Info: shpr.fyi/ivermectin

Yakima Vaccinations- Don’t Come Until Scheduled

Local health officials implore people not to line up at Yakima-area hospitals and health clinics for COVID-19 vaccines after Yakima Valley Memorial was met with a line of people outside its emergency room over the weekend.
The hospital had no more vaccines available to the public as of Jan. 18.
In the future, as doses are available, Memorial will set up a vaccine clinic with a scheduling system. People will not be able to just show up, he said.
Officials from Memorial and from the Yakima Health District encouraged people to make sure they are getting information about local vaccine distribution directly from the health district’s website or their provider, not from non-official social media channels.
“They need to look at our website, health district website,” said Lori Green, chief nursing officer at Memorial. “We absolutely want to vaccinate everyone. The No. 1 thing is we need vaccine.”
Excerpted from The Yakima Herald-Republic
Info: shpr.fyi/covidsched





Journalist Glenn
Greenwald resigns
upon being censored
Greenwald, who shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his reporting on National Security Agency domestic surveillance that was uncovered by contractor Edward Snowden, said his departure was related to a piece that he planned to write about former vice president Joe Biden.
Greenwald resigned from The Intercept on Thursday, alleging that the outlet he co-founded was attempting to censor a column in which he criticizes Joe Biden.
Greenwald said he would continue publishing a freelance column, joining a number of journalists such as Matt Taibbi and Andrew Sullivan who have moved their work to the independent publishing platform Substack. Sullivan announced in July that he would leave New York Magazine, writing at the time that editors and writers at the publication were forced to commit to “critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
Greenwald laid out the reasons for his own resignation in a Substack post.
“The final, precipitating cause [of resignation] is that The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden,” Greenwald wrote. Lashing out at “all New-York-based Intercept editors” who “vehemently” support Biden, Greenwald claimed that “modern media outlets do not air dissent; they quash it.”
Greenwald wrote that the article his editors wanted to censor referred to newly released documents pertaining to Joe Biden’s conduct in Ukraine and China. He criticized his former publication for “a deep fear of offending hegemonic cultural liberalism and center-left Twitter luminaries, and overarching need to secure the approval and admiration of the very mainstream media outlets we created The Intercept to oppose, critique and subvert.”
Info: shpr.fyi/greenwald


-Dave Bunting

Cases of reinfection
with COVID-19
have been reported
but remain rare.
So far, only a few dozen people worldwide have been confirmed to have been infected twice with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
“Our current understanding of the immune response is that the majority of people who are infected mount an immune response within a few weeks of infection,” a WHO spokesman said via email. “We are still learning about how long the antibodies last. So far, we have data that shows that the immune response lasts for several months.”
The research, which involved more than 12,000 front-line health care workers in Britain, found that just three of the 1,246 participants who had already developed COVID-19 antibodies retested positive for the virus — and they were all asymptomatic.
Info: shpr.fyi/reinfect

Team finds oldest, most distant galaxy GN-z11
Keck Observatory, Waimea, Hawaii, keckobservatory.org
A team of astronomers used the Keck I telescope to measure the distance to an ancient galaxy. They deduced the target galaxy GN-z11 is not only the oldest galaxy but also the most distant. It’s so distant it defines the very boundary of the observable universe itself. The team hopes this study can shed light on a period of cosmological history when the universe was only a few hundred million years old.
Kashikawa and his team measured what’s known as the redshift of GN-z11; this refers to the way light stretches out, becomes redder, the farther it travels. Certain chemical signatures, called emission lines, imprint distinct patterns in the light from distant objects. By measuring how stretched these telltale signatures are, astronomers can deduce how far the light must have traveled, thus giving away the distance from the target galaxy.
“We looked at ultraviolet light specifically, as that is the area of the electromagnetic spectrum we expected to find the redshifted chemical signatures,” said Kashikawa. “The Hubble Space Telescope detected the signature multiple times in the spectrum of GN-z11. However, even the Hubble cannot resolve ultraviolet emission lines to the degree we needed. So we turned to a more up-to-date ground-based spectrograph, an instrument to measure emission lines, called MOSFIRE, which is mounted to the Keck I telescope in Hawaii.”
The MOSFIRE captured the emission lines from GN-z11 in detail, which allowed the team to make a much better estimation on its distance than was possible from previous data. When working with distances at these scales, it is not sensible to use our familiar units of kilometers or even multiples of them; instead, astronomers use a value known as the redshift number denoted by z. Kashikawa and his team improved the accuracy of the galaxy’s z value by a factor of 100. If subsequent observations can confirm this, then the astronomers can confidently say GN-z11 is the farthest galaxy ever detected in the universe.
Info: shpr.fyi/farthest

Hot times comin’
In the next five years, the world has nearly a 1-in-4 chance of experiencing a year that’s hot enough to put the global temperature at 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial times, according to a new science 130 degrees (54.4 degrees Celsius) and Siberia hit 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius). The warming that has already occurred has “increased the odds of extreme events that are unprecedented in our historical experience,” Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said. For example, historical global warming has increased the odds of record-setting hot extremes at more than 80% of the globe, and has “doubled or even tripled the odds over the region of California and the western U.S. that has experienced record-setting heat in recent weeks,” Diffenbaugh added.
Info: shpr.fyi/hottimes

Dave Bunting