Clean Cabin?

Posted on by Thor

If you traveled early in the pandemic you may have noticed the cabins in airlines were getting meticulously deep cleaned. Now three years into the pandemic, airlines are getting lazy and do not bother as much when they realize that surface contact is not the primary way the virus was spread, it is airborn. “As more was learned about COVID and transmission routes of COVID, it was recognized that deep cleaning was overkill,” said Leonard Marcus, founding co-director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI) and co-director of NPLI’s Aviation Public Health Initiative. Marcus and other “experts” noted that airlines are still prioritizing air filtration and that flying can be “generally” safe, but recommended that passengers continue to take precautions such as wearing a high-quality mask while flying.

Another magnificent advantage to not cleaning up or disinfecting the cabin after passengers disembark is that it saves money. We all know that public health is less important than saving money. It is the passengers responsibility to try and avoid infection when they fly in these cesspools in the sky.

When it comes to COVID, one infected person, on average, will infect over three more people. They have an opportunity to infect even more in the tight enclosed space of a plane cabin.

Cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing are all needed to combat COVID-19.

  • Cleaning uses soap or detergent to wash away dirt, grime, and grease to give a good appearance but does not necessarily kill germs. It merely physically removes them from a surface.
  • Disinfecting uses specialized chemicals to kill germs on surfaces. Although it does not necessarily give a “clean” look, it is highly effective in neutralizing active germs to stop the spread of infection.
  • Sanitizing is simply lowering the number of germs on a surface to a safe level, as prescribed by public health authorities.

If you need to travel, be sure to wear your personal protective equipment (PPE) including a quality KN-95 mask worn properly. and carry hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol for maximum effectiveness; use it liberally and frequently.

Arctic Virus Lockdown

Posted on by Thor

A COVID outbreak of an Antarctica research station has forced a temporary travel ban to the site. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has confirmed that 10% of the people at the McMurdo Station have tested positive so far. There are 885 researchers at the station. That means about 88 researches have been infected. The outbreak was first reported by NBC News of November 4, 2022.

NSF operates the station on the southern tip of Antarctica’s Ross Island. Measure are now being taken to try and control the outbreak. “Consistent with the U.S. National Science Foundation’s commitment to balance research and operational needs while containing the spread of Covid cases in Antarctica, NSF is implementing a pause on all travel to the continent for the next two weeks, effective immediately, while we reassess the situation,” agency officials said in a statement released November 5, 2022.

Essential travel including medical staff is still being allowed. In a half hearted, pussy footed memo, the agency said it “highly recommends” KN-95 masks be worn at all times and will provide them to residents. Most COVID protocols, like quarantines, and multiple PCR tests have been relaxed, allowing the virus easy access to spread in this frozen petri dish. Of course these people are socially isolated from the rest of the world on this tiny island literally at the frozen ends of the earth.

 

Hoard

Posted on by Thor

Stat reported that rich countries like America have stockpiled far more vaccines that they can use while other nations have yet to get a first dose of any COVID vaccine out to the population. Part of the problem is that drug companies manufacturing the vaccines want to make a hearty profit. In America a shot of vaccine now costs $130.

Even if everyone in America were to get the recommended booster shot (which they will not) there is still plenty of vaccine to help other nations stop the spread of the virus. Any country which remains vaccinated becomes a breeding ground for future variants which could be more deadly ohave a greater ability to evade immunity.

About 11 billion doses of COVID vaccine have been manufactured but they are nor all being distributed. Only 7.1% of vaccines have been distributed to low income countries. The first Omicron wave came from low income South Africa. The biggest obstacle to global supply is in the stockpiles of excess vaccines that wealthier countries are holding onto. Hoarding vaccines allows the virus to mutate and spread unchecked and then return to America to infect the un-vaccinated and vaccinated alike.

The United States and Switzerland have allowed countries in dire need to take newly created vaccines first. However this is not enough to meet the demand. Distribution is often more expensive than the vaccines themselves. Nigeria recently was unable to use 1 million Covid-19 vaccines, according to Reuters, largely due to a rollout that’s limited by shortage of funds and staff.

The hardest step is always getting shots in arms.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Paul’s Chapel

Posted on by Thor

Saint Paul’s Chapel at 209 Broadway (between Fulton and Vesey Streets) New York, N.Y was built in 1766. St. Paul’s was the tallest building in New York when it was finished.  It is Manhattan’s oldest surviving church building. Land for the church was granted by the Queen of Great Britain at the time, Queen Anne, and was designated in the Parish of Trinity Church.

In 1776, during the American Revolution, the Great Fire of New York destroyed one-third of the city. But a bucket brigade saved St. Paul’s.An archivist discovered an ancient bucket int he rafters of the church which could have been from that historic effort.

On April 1789 General George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States and then went to worship at St. Paul’s Chapel.

The chapel regularly hosts community events, concerts, and art exhibitions. It is open to visitors daily and worship services are held in the chapel every Sunday. Saint Paul’s Chapel welcomes over 1 million visitors every year.

In 2016, the church underwent an extensive restoration to modernize and repair the building. The interior was repainted, and landscaping was added outside. The church got air conditioning installed, repairs to the steeple, and a production room for webcasting.

St. Paul’s Chapel was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and an official New York City Landmark in 1966.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Mark’s in the Bowery

Posted on by Thor

Saint Mark’s in the Bowery 131 E. 10th Street at Second Avenue, Manhattan, New York.  In 1651, Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland, purchased land for a bowery or farm from the Dutch West India Company and by 1660 built a family chapel at the present day site of St. Mark’s Church. Stuyvesant died in 1672 and was interred in a vault under the chapel. This is why the church building faces true South, even though that makes it skewed from the City’s grid: it originally stood on a rural lane, before the city grew north to meet it.

in 1793, the Stuyvesant family sold the chapel to the Episcopal Church for $1. In 1795 the cornerstone of the present fieldstone Georgian style church was laid, built by John McComb Jr. who also built New York City Hall; it was consecrated on May 9, 1799.

Alexander Hamilton helped incorporate St. Mark’s as the first Episcopal parish independent of Trinity Church in the United States. By 1807, the church was flourishing.

St. Mark’s continued to grow in stature and prominence throughout the 1800s. In 1828 the church steeple, designed by Martin Euclid Thompson and Ithiel Town, was erected; in 1835, the Parish Hall was built; and in 1836 the Sanctuary was renovated, replacing its square pillars with slender Egyptian Revival pillars. The cast- and wrought-iron fence was added in 1838; in 1856, the Italianate cast-iron portico was added; and in 1861 the building gained a brick addition.

In 1903, beautiful stained-glass windows were installed (you can still see some of them in the Sanctuary’s first floor) and in 1913, St. Mark’s was given the altarpiece of the annunciation in the Parish Hall—a reproduction of an original created c.1475 by Andrea della Robbia.

On July 12, 1978 a fire started—apparently caused by a restoration worker’s acetylene torch. It turned into a three-alarm blaze. The iron fences around the church prevented fire companies from using normal equipment, and there was fear that the steeple would collapse. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the steeple stood the blaze—but a back section of the roof did fall in, and 9 of the 23 stained-glass windows in the church were destroyed. The 1836 church bell was cracked beyond repair. The bell and the steeple’s original clock still sit in the East and West churchyards today.

Saint Mark’s is New York’s oldest site of continuous religious practice, and the church itself second-oldest church building on Manhattan.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Patrick’s Cathedral

Posted on by Thor

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral‘s cornerstone was laid in 1858 and the doors opened in 1879. It is located at Fifth and Madison Avenues and Fiftieth and Fifty-First Streets in Manhattan.

In a ceremony at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Archbishop Hughes proposed “for the glory of Almighty God, for the honor of the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin, for the exaltation of Holy Mother Church, for the dignity of our ancient and glorious Catholic name, to erect a Cathedral in the City of New York that may be worthy of our increasing numbers, intelligence, and wealth as a religious community, and at all events, worthy as a public architectural monument, of the present and prospective crowns of this metropolis of the American continent.”

Ridiculed as “Hughes’ Folly,” since the proposed, site was considered too far outside the city, in what was perceived as the wilderness. Archbishop Hughes, nonetheless, persisted in his vision of building the most beautiful Gothic Cathedral in the New World in what he believed would one day be “the heart of the city.” Neither the bloodshed of the Civil War nor the resultant lack of manpower or funds could derail the ultimate fulfillment of Hughes’ dream and architect, James Renwick’s bold plan.

The Cathedral was built at a cost of approximately $850,000, not including the altars, furnishings for chapels, organs and other furniture. The stone chosen was white marble.

From October 22 to November 30, 1878 a fair was held to raise money for the opening of St. Patrick’s. It was the largest ecclesiastical fair ever held in the U.S. Forty-five parishes sponsoring tables. Receipts of $172,625 were raised to assist in purchasing furnishings for the Cathedral.

St. Patrick’s spires were completed in 1888 and The Lady Chapel in 1908. The Kilgen Organs were installed from 1928 to 1930. Major capital improvements were made in the 1940’s and the 1970’s. The Kilgen organs were restored in the mid 1990s, and the gem of the Cathedral, the Lady Chapel, was restored in 2003.

Naso Vax

Posted on by Thor

Only about 30% of Americans are fully vaccinated and boosted. That means about 70% of Americans are frightened of needles, or they are anti vax lunatics. People are tired of COVID-19. They are done with the virus although the virus is not done with us. The virus is becoming more transmissible with each new variant.

The vaccines that are available have turned the deadly COVID virus into something more akin to the common cold for the fully  vaccinated people who get infected. While these vaccines are great at protecting against severe illness and death, they cannot stop vaccinated people from contracting the virus and experiencing mild symptoms and possibly spreading the virus to others.

To help prevent mild COVID infections, what is needed are vaccines that protect us where infections start: in the mucus membranes of the nose, mouth, and throat. And for that, we are likely going to need nasal vaccines.

More than a dozen clinical trials with nasal sprays are under way, The Guardian reported, but the development process is tricky. Nasal vaccines must create an immune response but not be potent enough to make people sick. If the dose it too weak then the vaccine will not work. This sweet spot becomes even harder to find when some people already have some immunity to COVID from past infections.

A nasal vaccine could be more easily manufactured and distributed because it’s stored in a regular refrigerator rather than ultra-cold temperatures like the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines. A nasal dose could be produced for about 30 cents compared to $30 for a Moderna or Pfizer dose. Needle pansies might be more inclined to get vaccinated if they can just spray it up their nose.

Crealde First Class

Posted on by Thor

On Sundays I teach an Urban Sketching Class at Crealde School of Art. From the very first class I encourage the students to explore the beautiful campus with their sketchbooks.

In each class I press a particular point and rather quickly get the students to apply the concept in their sketches for the day.

I sketch while they work and share each stage of my sketch to show how long I take on each step of the process. As I walk around I give each student individual attention usually doing thumbnail sketches on the back of my sketch to express how I might tackle the scene they are working on.

This sketch was done back when masks were required at Crealde. That requirement has been dropped, but I remain masked in public at all times. When sketching people will often approach to see the work in progress. They never seem to stop when the line work is being done, but once color hits the page, people become curious.

My last series of classes was canceled because not enough students signed up. That should give me a breather as COVID cases are rising in Florida again. I haven’t experienced a classroom full of unmasked students yet.

Judge Retreat Superspreader Event

Posted on by Thor

Have you heard this one? 70 judges enter a swanky Hampton’s Yacht club and…

Twenty out of those 70 New York City judges who attended tested positive for COVID-19 in the days that followed. All the infected judges were vaccinated.

The judges retreat or conference took place at Gurney’s Star Island on Long Island in New York, which is sometimes referred to by its former name, the Montauk Yacht Club, according to the New York Times.

The three-night retreat was sponsored by the New York City Criminal Court Judges Association.

One of the activities at the event was a karaoke session, according to an unnamed source who spoke with the New York Times. The New York Times noted that singing has been linked to spread of the virus. It is kind of reassuring that these high heeled judges are a dumb as most other Americans who think the pandemic is over. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.

Korean Military Fight Omicron

Posted on by admin

North Korea is battling an explosive COVID-19 outbreak. Experts are raising concerns that the virus could devastate a country where few have been vaccinated against the disease, medical supplies are limited and the health system in a dilapidated state.

Dictator Kim Jong Un, ordered the army to get to work “on immediately stabilizing the supply of medicines in Pyongyang”, where officials said the Omicron BA.2 variant was confirmed in at least one death last week.

As of 6pm on May 16, 2022, five days after announcing the outbreak, North Korea had reported a total of 1.48 million cases of ‘fever’, It also announced a further six deaths. It is almost guaranteed that those numbers are but a fraction of the actual totals since the dictator can in his own mind do no wrong.

The North Korean dictator had been offered assistance from South Korea, China, and the World Health Organization (WHO) but all help has been refused. Kim, who considers himself a god like figure, thinks that he is the only one who can help his people. Rather than accept vaccines from abroad, he thinks his nation will find the best cure for COVID.

Kim has said the outbreak is causing “great turmoil” in the country and on Sunday visited pharmacies neat the capital’s Taedong river, state media KCNA reported.

Despite the public health crisis, new satellite imagery indicates North Korea has resumed construction at a long-dormant nuclear reactor and officials in Washington and Seoul have warned that Kim is preparing to conduct another nuclear test.

Analysts have warned Kim could speed up nuclear testing plans to distract the population from the outbreak.

A huge military parade in North Korea on April 25, 2022 was likely a superspreader event that quickly spread the virus through the county. Send in the tanks.