I wish everyone a peaceful Thanksgiving.

 For me, it will be spent as a party of two with the social butterfly, my 85-year-old mother. I have been very proud of her. She has turned down three different invitations to attend much larger and uncertain Thanksgiving Day dinners.

I have prepared a small turkey and all the fixings. She is looking forward to it.

Everyone this blog touches have a safe holiday.

Be well. That is the most important reason this Thanksgiving.

Ice on lakes and rivers will become less trustworthy.

Earth is warming and unfortunately, that absolutely effects ice structures both permanent and temporary.

Ice presents fun, competition, and culture to many Americans, including Native Americans. None of that has to be sacrificed if the method of freezing water is safe while still answering the qualified use. If running water under the ice is needed for cultural rituals a manmade facility can be engineered to provide that demand.

These temporary ice facilities provide a smooth ice surface if built and managed correctly. In some ways, we should be asking ourselves why did we allow the danger in the first place?

November 20, 2020
By Veronica Penney

New research (click here) on the connection between climate change and winter drownings has found that reported drowning deaths are increasing exponentially in areas with warmer winters.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal PLoS One, looked at drownings in 10 countries in the Northern Hemisphere. The largest number of drownings occurred when air temperatures were just below the freezing point, between minus 5 degrees Celsius and 0 Celsius (between 23 degrees Fahrenheit and 32 Fahrenheit).

Some of the sharpest increases were in areas where Indigenous customs and livelihood require extended time on ice. Across the countries studied, children under the age of 9 and teenagers and adults between 15 and 39 were the most vulnerable to winter drowning accidents....

AstraZeneca's data is not measuring up to reality.

If AstraZeneca has data that proves certain age groups and/or gender do exceptionally well with their form of vaccine; I would urge the company to redirect it's application to the FDA to specify the groups doing well on the vaccine. 

There is no catastrophe here so long as AstraZeneca can state the facts clearly prove effective in specific types of clients. With that, the company should restart it's investigation into a broadly effective vaccine that is proven for all people.

This is a highly dangerous virus and if AstraZeneca has a vaccine that is effective with specific populations it cannot simply disregard that as mistakes. It is okay to have specialized vaccines, especially at the beginning of the research which is only months old.

November 25, 2020
By Rebecca Robbins and Benjamin Mueller

...The regimen (click here) that appeared to be 90 percent effective was based on participants receiving a half dose of the vaccine followed a month later by a full dose; the less effective version involved a pair of full doses. AstraZeneca disclosed in its initial announcement that fewer than 2,800 participants received the smaller dosing regimen, compared with nearly 8,900 participants who received two full doses.

The biggest questions were, why was there such a large variation in the effectiveness of the vaccine at different doses, and why did a smaller dose appear to produce much better results? AstraZeneca and Oxford researchers said they did not know.

Crucial information was also missing. The company said that the early analysis was based on 131 symptomatic Covid-19 cases that had turned up in study participants. But it did not break down how many cases were found in each group of participants — those who received the half-strength initial dose, the regular-strength initial dose and the placebo....

I told you they were crackpots. They confuse aurhority of power with qualified opinion. It is malpractice of law.

They are subverting governance. What kind of decision allows guaranteed illness and possible death to become part of the USA democracy? Freedom and liberty that achieves adverse outcomes is not freedom or liberty.

The five crackpots from the Supreme Court decided it was their responsibility to decide the health and well being of citizens practicing their religion with indoor air dangers. The five crackpots, Alito, Gorsuch, Coney-Barrett, Thomas, and Kavanaugh, are not qualified to decide public health issues.

This is not a factious virus made up by Governor Cuomo to inhibit the practice of religion. Health Department officials that study the virus, it’s toll on citizens, and methods to stop THE SPREAD are to be upheld in their practices and not ignored to leave people to become ill, suffer and die.

The five crackpots are not qualified to override the sound decisions of a state or city’s health department because some other crackpots within the religious groups, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish congregation is crying about civil liberties at a time when the highest numbers of cases and deaths are being recorded in this country!

When a board of health presents itself and it’s policies with clear, concise data and sound science the Supreme Court has no right to disregard those policies. No right!

There are rock-solid examples in countries the size of New York that proves quarantine WORKS. So, this decision is ideological, disregards current science including remedies, and has no respect for human life.

Let me guess, Republicans, right? They might even be racists for all we know. Supreme Court Justices that put RELIGIOUS BELIEF before MEDICAL FACTS are malpractice of their status. These five crackpots would give Jim Jones permission to kill.

November 24, 2020
By Rebecca Randall

...Cell phone data (click here) was an early indicator that Sunday morning church attendance slowed significantly in the spring. According to a new model published in Nature, it also reveals the disparities in which segments of the population were able to stay at home and reduce exposure.

Researchers at Stanford University found that churches were among the top five sites for coronavirus transmission, alongside restaurants, gyms, cafes and snack bars, and hotels. According to an analysis of anonymous cell phone data, these places tended to have more visitors and longer visits. In all, the model calculates that visits to these sites accounted for 70 percent of transmitted cases during the first several weeks of the pandemic.

The study used mobility data from cell phone users in 10 large US metro areas throughout March and April. They calculated the transmission rate in various neighborhoods by overlaying US Census data with the density of infected individuals in those locations. (They compared it to the New York Times’ COVID-19 case tracker and found the model to be an accurate prediction.)

Even though black churches have generally been the most cautious about reopening, residents in black and Hispanic neighborhoods who met in person during this time carried a greater likelihood of transmission largely due to their higher mobility and more frequent visits to crowded places....