Pandora’s Box

Posted on by Thor

How did the novel coronavirus first made the leap to humans? A senate report hints that the Wuhan lab may have been having trouble in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of COVID-19. Vanity Fair, in partnership with ProPublica, spent five months investigating underlying evidence. Communist official documents have been hiding in plain sight indicating that something might be amiss at the lab. U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP), concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic was “more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.”

Dispatches archived on the website of the Wuhan Institute of Virology offer some hints about what may have happened. On November 12, 2019, a dispatch by party branch members at the BSL-4 laboratory appeared to reference a biosecurity breach.

“once you have opened the stored test tubes, it is just as if having opened Pandora’s Box. These viruses come without a shadow and leave without a trace. Although [we have] various preventive and protective measures, it is nevertheless necessary for lab personnel to operate very cautiously to avoid operational errors that give rise to dangers. Every time this has happened, the members of the Zhengdian Lab [BSL4] Party Branch have always run to the front line, and they have taken real action to mobilize and motivate other research personnel.”

One of the Wuhan research labs is just 8 miles from the wet market where the virus gained the attention of the world. The Wuhan labs became operational in 2018. Scientists had to report to the Communist party to demonstrate their loyalty and extol the idea that their research is forwarding the goals of the Communist party. The lab had three ongoing problems, no equipment and technology standards, no design and construction teams, and no experience operating or maintaining such an advanced lab.”

The Senate report does not conclude that they know for sure the source of the pandemic outbreak. Lack of transparency from China makes that impossible. In the weeks following the outbreak China did everything in it’s power to deny the virus was circulating and obfuscate the fact that it was airborne and could travel from person to person. The COVID virus may have been circulating as early as November 17, 2019.

On January 1, 2020, Wuhan officials closed the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and carted away all the animals that were for sale. Stalls were sanitized and an epidemiology team spent days collecting environmental samples. So where was the possible animal host? On February 25, 2022, a team of researchers from China’s CDC published a preprint revealing that of the 457 swabs taken from 18 species of animals in the market, none contained any evidence of the virus. Rather, the virus was found in 73 swabs taken from around the market’s environment, all linked to human infections. Since there is no animal host “smoking gun” human to human transmission is more likely. The case for the lab leak theory remains circumstantial. I remain hopeful that with all the information in this digital age that someday, the truth will come out.

COVID Cuts Brain Synapses

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The Hindu reported that lost connections between nerve cells in the brain may help explain symptoms of long COVID. For some who are infected by COVID-19 symptoms can persist for months and even years after the initial infection. Even people with mild symptoms during the initial infection can get long COVID symptoms.

Some experience “Brain Fog” which affects memory, concentration, sleep and speech. There is also concern that those infected can develop brain disorders, such as dementia years after getting infected.

Stem cell research is helping researchers discover how long COVID may be developing. By infecting these cells called organoids, researchers found that an excessive number of synapses (the connections between brain cells) were eliminated – more than you would expect to see in a normal brain. Synapses are important because they allow neurons to communicate with each other. The elimination of these connections could explain why some experience  cognitive symptoms as part of long COVID.

This excessive pruning process is similar to other neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia, as well as neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. One limitation of the study is that the cells tested are more similar to a fetal brain rather than an adult brain. It can not be postulated therefor that these effects are the same in an adult brain.

COVID is an RNA virus.  Similar lost connections  have been seen in mice infected with other RNA viruses that can also cause residual cognitive symptoms, such as the West Nile virus.

Research needs to be done to see if any drugs can inhibit the changes caused in the brain after infection with COVID-19.

Halloween Mask

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COVID is airborne and you can be much further than 6 feet from an infected person to get infected yourself. Despite this, children are sent to poorly ventilated schools to spread the virus and bring it home to parents and grand parents. The idea that children can not be infected was a lie perpetuated to keep the economy rolling. If children are not in school, parents can not be as active in the workplace. Kids get sick, Kids spread the virus.  Kids have lasting side effects.

Halloween lines up with the rise of a tripledemic of Flu, COVID and RSV. Pediatric wards are filling up. Nearly half of a Virginia High school is out due to a “Mystery” flu like illness. Now these germ factories and their unvaccinated parents will be walking door to door to spread disease.  These new variants are spreading at outdoor events like Octoberfest.

Kids will wear costumes as they go door to door, but how many will have qua#analogartistdigitalworld #covid_19 #illustrator #illustrativejournalist #sketch_daily #sketchbook #illustration #art #orlando #florida #centralflorida #floridaart #forsale #StayHome #StopTheSpread #SaveLiveslity KN-95 masks? How many parents will wear masks?  Halloween is the second most expensive holiday in America after Christmas, and the cost of candy has risen by 30% this year, so everyone wants the resulting sales and profits. Profit over public health is the American way.

While the risk of transmission during trick-or-treating is greatly diminished because it is an outdoor activity, it is still possible to get sick if you are not careful. Here are some ways you could contract COVID-19 while trick-or-treating:

  • Not wearing a mask.
  • Traveling with a large group of trick-or-treaters who are not vaccinated.
  • Going indoors to receive candy.
  • Accepting candy from an individual who is contagious.
  • Reaching into a community candy dish to collect your candy.
  • Eating candy without washing your hands or using hand sanitizer.
  • Rubbing your eyes while trick-or-treating.
  • Touching your mouth or nose before washing your hands.
  • Attending an indoor Halloween event.

Trick

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Scary new variants, or scariants abound as we approach the Halloween season. As the weather cools, we are entering another pandemic winter. BA.5 is beginning to be overtaken my a wide variety of new variants. BA.4.6, makes up about 12 percent of COVID cases in the U.S, and BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, make up more than 11 percent of cases, as of October 2022, according to the CDC’s variant tracker. And those are steadily taking over. in Singapore, a sub-variant called XBB has been driving a surge in cases, and may be the most immune-evasive variant yet

Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, called this rising wave of variants “troublesome.” monoclonal antibody treatments are becoming ineffective against the new variants. Dr. Jha the White House’s Covid response coordinator, is advising people to get their omicron-specific Covid booster by Halloween, He said, ‘You don’t want to be that person who gives it to your grandma’. “Why Halloween? Because three weeks after Halloween is Thanksgiving, and there’s a lot of travel, and you’re seeing family, and you’re seeing friends — and a few weeks later, it’s the holidays,” said Jha.

Over the past two-plus years, we’ve learned new ways to enjoy pandemic holidays, and “outside is always safer” has been the mantra for these holiday gatherings. Luckily, that’s easy to do on Halloween, because trick-or-treating generally involves plenty of outdoor time.

CDC advice includes the following:

  • Stay home if you’re sick. Skip the Halloween party if you aren’t feeling well.
  • Get tested if you have COVID-19 symptoms.
  • Take precautions in crowded or indoor events as informed by your county’s COVID-19 Community Level, like wearing a high-quality mask (and Halloween masks don’t count). Consider making the mask part of the costume—like a doctor, nurse, ninja, or cowboy.
  • If you’re hosting celebrations, review options for improving ventilation in your home. This can help you reduce virus particles in your home and keep COVID-19 from spreading.
  • Keep your hands clean. If you’re out trick-or-treating, bring hand sanitizer. If you’re giving out candy, wash your hands frequently.

 

Variant Race

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There are over 300 variants of Omicron now circulating. Many are more able to escape immunity offered by vaccination and former infection. They are also more effective than than BA.5 at binding to the ACE 2 receptors. In this mad race to infect, the variants to watch out for are BQ.1.1, BQ.1, BQ.1.3, BA.2.3.20, BA.2.75.2 and BA.7.

BQ.1 has taken the lead in Europe, particularly in France, Germany and Great Britain. It is very likely that the wave comming this fall and winter will be driven by many variants rather than one predominant variant like past waves.

As of October 16. 2022, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, account for about 11% of the viruses sampled in the U.S., per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. BA.4.6 and BF.7 are also gaining traction in the U.S., accounting for about 12.2% and 5.3% of sampled viruses respectively, per the data. XBB, another mutated version of Omicron, may be best suited to evade immunity, including a breakthrough BA.5 infection, The Washington Post reported.

COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said earlier this month that the White House is monitoring “the rise of several subvariants.” NIAID director Anthony Fauci also warned last week about the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants, which he called “pretty troublesome” due to their rate of increase. Meanwhile the CDC director Rochelle Walensky has tested positive for a COVID-19 infection.

The director’s case comes amid concerns among Biden administration officials and public health experts alike about a tough Covid-19 winter ahead, with hospitalizations already on the rise in Europe. This despite the fact that Biden thought it wise to announce that he thought the pandemic was “over”. In the US, hospitalizations have leveled out,, and I suspect will begin to rise soon. About 300 to 400 people continue to die every day from the virus. This is the insane new normal. Just a quick news flash, COVID is an airborne virus and simply wearing a mask in crowded settings can greatly reduce your chance of infection. Walensky has abandoned advising mask wearing and look how that turned out.

Beluga Loose

Posted on by Thor

To encourage my Elite Animation Academy student to loosen up I abandoned the painting I was working on and instead did a quick 10 minute study where my primary goal was to make a mess and try and have fun. Color masses were thrown down with abandon and line was only thrown down at the bitter end.

Since I had no intention of pushing the painting to a final, I could just relax and encourage the student while I played. After seeing this mess, my student began a piece by just playing with brushes. A wave pattern brush was discovered and I was asked if using it was cheating. Nothing is cheating if it works, was my reply.

I stopped painting and watched my student work. I was pleased to see a wide variety of brushes being experimented with. Things progresses quickly until it came time to draw the people in the scene. Things ground to a halt. I did a quick demo to show gesture, the curve of a person’s back, rhythm and flow. It is a bit like explaining how to play jazz on a trumpet to someone who has never toughed the instrument.

Regardless we pushed forward with the goal of getting the sketch completed well enough so that we could put it aside and start another. Progress come from completing thousands of sketches rather than obsessing about any one piece. Accepting that there might be flaws and imperfections allows for far more acceptance, so long as it is not the worst thing ever created.  A sketch by definition is never complete.

Beluga Still Life

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I have a virtual student at Elite Animation Academy preparing a portfolio with specific requirements. One requirement is a still life. I asked my student to arrange a few objects, some large some small to paint. The beluga whale plush, acquired at a recent trip to an aquarium, became the subject along with several wooden tree sculptures.

I painted along with the student. I was attracted to the way the light illuminated the wall. My student an I both used lots of line work to construct the whale basic shape. However after several hours my student got frustrated, not knowing how to progress. The line work seemed to hinder progress as if painting the piece into a corner.

I stopped work on this to offer advice on how to loosen up the process. My student needed to transition for stiff to spontaneous. I suggested forgetting about the outside lines and just start playing with the digital brushes. That opened up the process making it play rather than a serious high stakes struggle.

Relaxing and having fun are the ultimate end goal. We started town that new track.

Beluga

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On Saturdays I have been teaching 8 hours of Elite Animation Academy private virtual classes. I always worry that my energy level might drop after the back to back zoom meetings. My final student of the day is preparing a portfolio for admission into a visual arts school. We were working on a still life and she was painting a stuffed Beluga whale she got on a recent vacation to an aquarium.

My student seemed to hit a brick wall with the still life since she felt it wasn’t painterly enough. Her usual way of creating art is to do detailed line art and then color it in. She felt this was making her piece stiff. We broke away from her still life and instead just started playing with brushes in Procreate.

She seemed to stop worrying about a final polished look and just started playing with the wide variety of brushes. She quickly blocked in a light blue field surrounded by dark blue. What emerged was a memory of her trip to the aquarium.

She paused when she had a head drawn on the page. I stepped n and gave her a quick example of how to use gesture lines to get the figure on the page. She quickly followed suit and drew the people into her sketch. While she worked, I blocked inn the water on my rough sketch and started painting the beluga whale in the tank. My sketch was a lesson in making a mess and hoping for the best. Control was surrendered for spontaneity. Is the sketch finished, heck no. Is it the best sketch I ever did, heck no, but it is also not the worst. On to the next.

Crealde Student

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In my Crealde Urban Sketching class I pose for students after explaining how to get a figure on the page. I realized I put on weight during the pandemic when I saw one of my student’s sketches. Anyway. We then each pose in turn for just 5 minutes and we use all the tools in our artist toolbox to get as much information on the page as possible.

One sketch is used as a demo and the others I walk around to show my process at different stages. My next series of classes were canceled sing no enough students signed up. That gives me time to branch out and start exploring with my sketchbook on my own on weekends.

I am including these 5 minute sketches since I feel it is important to documents how different people handled the pandemic. Some like myself remain fully masked while others wear chin straps or feel the pandemic is over. Sine my ear is to the rail, I know better.

Creating COVID Frankensteins

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CBS News reported that Boston University has been testing strains of the COVID virus they created by combining the ancestral and Omicron variants. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) partially funded the school research but these funds were not directly used to wards this research. and they were rather miffed to find out about this research through news articles. Federal health authorities say they are looking into whether the scientists should have sought their permission before undertaking the possible “gain of function” research. Such research being done in Wuhan back in 2019 could have potentially started the pandemic to begin with.

Scientist were looking into the Omicron variants spike proteins Mice were infected with combined versions of the virus creating a new variant of the virus. Hey what could go wrong, right? Boston University said it was under no obligations to report this gain of function research to the NIH.

100% of the mice infected with the original Wuhan strain of the virus died. When mice were infected with the recombinant strains created by researchers 80% of the mice died. What joy it must have brought researches to find they had created a strain with an 80% mortality rate.

“It is concerning that this research – like the research in Wuhan that may have caused the pandemic – was not identified by the funding agency as possible enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPP) research,” Rutgers University Professor Richard Ebright wrote on Twitter.