Masks Work

Posted on by Thor

Masks work. COVID is airborne. COVID variant XBB.1.5 (Kraken) now accounts of 75% of cases in the north east. Kraken is the most transmissible variant of CODID to date. It does not care if you have been previously infected or if you have been vaccinated. If you breath air you will become infected unless you wear a quality and well fitted  N95 mask.

Masking during the pandemic means that you care about protecting other and protecting yourself. American society does not pivot fast enough for people to recognize the benefit of masking as case numbers exponentially rise. Wearing a mask protects you from inhaling airborne virus and it also protects others because you may be infected but not know it.

The science of masks is NOT complex, nor is it conflicting. Science shows very clearly that masking is effective in reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2. This has been shown in laboratory studies, natural experiments, modelling studies and randomized controlled trials. Masking is most worthwhile when COVID rates are high (which they will be in the coming weeks) and when vulnerable people are around.

Evidence for masking is strong, consistent and clear. A high-quality, well-fitting mask which meets a filtration standard (like an N95) works better than a home-made cloth mask with gaps round the sides, but even the latter is a lot better than nothing.

Kraken XBB.1.5

Posted on by Thor

Happy New Year.

XBB.1.5 nicknamed Kraken, is the cause of an increase in Covid cases and hospitalizations in New York. This new variant is a recombinant or combined version of two Omicron variants and has an increased level of transmissibility and is highly immune evasive.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) didn’t notice this variant until it  accounted for 40% of new infections in the United States. They were blindsided by the sudden surge. Cases have been doubling exponentially. From literally nowhere, XBB.1.5, aka the Kraken variant, has leapt to 40% of sequences on the US CDC’s weekly-updated variant tracker page. Last week, it wasn’t even listed as a variant.

Why are these figures so stunningly bad? For the simple reason that if you take a hyper-transmissable variant like XBB.1.5 and add a Delta variant like lethality to it, the country, or indeed the entire planet, could be facing an unprecedented and potentially irreversible disaster. The lethality of XBB.1.5 is unknown. It has a great affinity to ACE2, so likely it will be able to infect the lungs and the cardiovascular system with worse outcomes than previous Omicron variants.

XBB.1.5 has a “greatly enhanced” ability to bind to cells. It is a sub variant of Omicron but far more transmissible. “We’re projecting that it’s going to be the dominant variant in the Northeast region of the country and that it’s going to increase in all regions of the country,” said Dr. Barbara Mahon, director of the CDC’s proposed Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, in an interview with CBS News. More than 70% of infections in the regions spanning New Jersey through New England are now from XBB.1.5, the agency projected. Kraken is quickly spreading in Florida, Texas and Washington State.

Hospitalizations continue to tick upwards all across America. The Kraken is coming at a time when most of the public has abandoned masking and every other simple and basic mitigation measure. The Kraken is here to open the New Year. It is is resistant to many of the monoclonal antibody drugs that doctors had relied on earlier in the pandemic.  Omicron has caused more death than any other variant since the start of the pandemic simply because of the huge number of people infected.

The latest bivalent boosters appear to offer better “neutralizing activity” for Omicron variants, including XBB. So if you haven’t had your booster, it is advisable for the new year. The CDC has quietly begun recommending masking indoors but we all know that recommendation will go largely ignored and the lemmings will crowd together and infect one another. At home tests may prove less effective in detecting the new variant. One test, DxTerity’s saliva test for the virus, has proven itself useless.

Crealde casual

Posted on by Thor

This is another casual sketch to demonstrate that the figure does not need to fill the page when doing a sketch on location. I will usually one of these for each student to show how I might approach the scene they are sketching. I seldom push these to a finish. The main thing I stress is how to block in a scene quickly without getting caught up in minor details to start.

I am also pointing out how to set the stage. You can see a faint hint of the space under the tent and that mirrors the shape of the top of the table. The student is maskless So I make sure to sketch from a distance outdoors.

COVID Abducts Santa

Posted on by Thor

Hospitals are on high alert after the Christmas anticipating a surge of COVID infections associated with holiday gatherings. Flu cases seem to have peaked in the United States, but COVID cases are on the rise. The Omicron variant is still responsible for the new surge in cases.

The advise given is that everyone should test for COVID prior to any gatherings. The White House has warned that the pandemic is far from over, and people should take precautions. The White house response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha stressed that the stakes are even higher since we now face a trio of threats, COVID, Flu and RSV.   Americans however prefer politics over personal protection or caring about others.

A new study had found that children are the primary spreaders of the virus. While children were being protected at home skeptics claimed that children could not get COVID and they were too small to spread the disease. SO children were sent back to cramped classrooms to infect one another and then their parents. Both asymptomatic and symptomatic children carry high levels of the virus and they can spread it. Children are infectious and no one is trying to protect them. These same children are then taken to sit in a strangers lap, namely Santa so that he might breath in their face and they in his.

Children act as reservoirs for the virus and new variants. The viral load in children is the same as the viral load in adults. There is no difference. Exactly how many children are being infected is unknown since wide spread testing has been dismantled. Masking is effective for children and adults in stopping the spread of the virus.

COVID 19 related pediatric emergency room visits have risen every year of the pandemic. One fifth of all pediatric deaths occurred during the Omicon surge of the virus.

“It’s no longer fair even to insinuate that Covid doesn’t affect children, that Covid deaths are only in unhealthy children or kids with risk factors. That’s just not true, by the data.” said Jason Kane, a pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago Comer children’s hospital. Allowing your children to become infected is not the way to protect them from this deadly virus.

 

 

Maskless

Posted on by Thor

During the pandemic, I hold most of my Crealde Urban Sketching classes outdoors. These sketches were done on the back patio of the studio. I would always demonstrate how to work fast, so these sketches were done in 5 minutes each. I demonstrate how to use every tool in the toolbox, including quick watercolor washes, to block in a sketch. To this day I am always mask when I teach students.

Students on the other hand have a choice at this stage of the pandemic, and many choose to go maskless when outdoors. I miss the masked days. It is impossible to draw a nose too large when you sketch a mask instead. It makes drawing faces so much easier. I however tend not to approach a student unless they mask up while I offer advice. So far this approach has worked since to the best of my knowledge I have not been infected.

I continue to sacrifice holiday gatherings and social events,which used to be what I sketched every day prior to the pandemic. I remain in a holding pattern, waiting to see what this year’s winter surge will look like. On the other hand, after 3 years of the pandemic it is becoming tiring to document the everyday horrors and ineptitude of the public response to this ongoing health crisis. As the proverbial artist canary in the coal mine I realize that people are happy to ignore the virus even though it continues to kill over 300 people a day.

Hazmat Santa

Posted on by Thor

Try and spread holiday cheer and not COVID this season. Santa is an elder and thus more susceptible to severe complications from an infection. Don’t sent Santa to the ICU. Wash your hands, social distance, and wear a quality n95 mask when indoors. Consider thinking about someone other than yourself this holiday season. By protecting other you are protecting holiday traditions.

The media has been talking of the tripledemic hitting this winter. Flu hit earlier than usual this holiday season and RSV has been sending plenty of children to hospitals instead of Santa’s lap. Then on top of it all the COVID pandemic is not over. I know many people have chosen to ignore the fact that over 400 people are still dying every day so that they can back to “life as normal.” Pandemic fatigue is real. Many cope by burying their heads in the sand or snow.

People are getting infected multiple times and the misguided hope was that they would build immunity. However each new infection gets worse. It turns out COVID destroys T Cells needed for immunity. People are suddenly more susceptible to flu and RSV infections that put them in the hospital. COVID is more like aids than a common cold. Convincing people that getting infected is the best way to battle the virus was stupid and criminal.

If you caught the  original strain of COVID you might infect 2 other people. With Alpha you might infect 3 other people. With Delta you might infect 5 other people. With Omicron you might infect 9 other people. Some claim that with BA.5, the variant circulating right now, you could infect 18 other people. That would make COVID more contagious than the measles. Rather than settling into a predictable endemic pattern, the virus is becoming insanely more infectious. 601 Americans died of COVID on December 22, 2022. 2,852 Americans died from COVID in the past 7 days.

The steps to protect yourself and your family are simple, wash hands, get vaccinated, wear a mask and be thinking about ventilation. Have everyone in your  family test for COVID if you plan to get together. Think for yourself and avoid infecting others.

Crealde Classroom Pandemic Sketch

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In my Crealde Urban Sketching course we tend to take one class to sketch fellow students as they work. I do quick 5 minute sketches to demonstrate how to position a figure on the page.  This particular sketch seems to be a sketch on top pf a sketch. I forget what I was demonstrating with the rough grid pattern. I was probably stressing how to avoid lining everything up on a grid and avoid horizontal and vertical lines.

Most classes are outside exploring the campus with our sketchbooks. I do this because it keeps my students safer during the pandemic. I was advised to offer an advanced urban sketching course but not enough students signed up so it was scrapped. No artist thinks of themselves as intermediate or advanced. Heck every one on my sketches is a series of mistakes.

The next series of Crealde Urban Sketching classes is starting up January 20, 2022. We meet on Sundays from 9:30am to 12:30pm.

COVID Bauble

Posted on by Thor

A bauble is a small, showy trinket or decoration. COVID is so tiny it can not be seen and therefor it is easy to ignore until someone in your family dies. China which had a zero COVID policy has decided to follow the lead of the United States and ignore that the virus ever existed. The reason the China zero COVID policy could not work was because countries like the United States let the virus rip through the country with little to no mitigation. America has had over 1.1 million deaths from COVID. Omicron was supposed to be milder, but with so many more people infected, more people died during the Omicron surge than any other surge.

Now China is facing the possibility of millions of deaths. The government did a complete 180. A week ago they spoke of the virus an an enemy that had to be defeated at any cost. Now they are encouraging citizens to go to work even if they are infected. The official death count from the Chinese government was 5 on Tuesday December 20, 2022. China now only counts those who die from respiratory illnesses, such as pneumonia as an official COVID death. The actual count is of course much higher.

Crematoriums in cities across China are straining to deal with an influx of bodies amid a widening COVID-19 outbreak, as authorities scramble to install hospital beds and build fever-screening clinics.

In the capital, Beijing, security guards were seen patrolling the entrance of a designated COVID-19 crematorium, where more than a dozen vehicles were waiting to enter.

Crealde Pandemic Study

Posted on by Thor

With my Crealde Urban sketching class, we focus in one class on sketching fellow students. I only give 5 minutes for these studies.Much of the class is on getting something on the page other than just the figure. I used the classroom tables as a way to frame the composition. I always stress to use foreground elements to point into the picture.

After Pulse: Olga Molina

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Olga Molina is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Central Florida (UCF). On June 12, 2016 Olga was in her car and turned on a Spanish speaking radio station. She heard announcements that blood was needed and that people were lining up at blood banks. Something terrible must have happened. For the longest time they didn’t say what had happened. When she got back home, she turned on the TV and started seeing the images of people coming out of the nightclub. She didn’t know how many had been killed yet. The community came together very quickly, bringing water to those in line to give blood.

Several days later she went to a conference in New York City. There she met the executive director of Hispanic Family Counseling who said that they were short of bilingual social workers. They were being overwhelmed with the number of clients they were seeing. There are not enough bilingual social workers in Central Florida. Olga volunteered. They were doing a lot of home visits since people were so frightened that they didn’t want to leave their homes.

Olga began a Spanish speaking support group for survivors. These were people who were in the nightclub on the night of the attack. About 6 survivors came into the group. They met for about eight sessions. Then people were transferred to therapists. That happened between June and October of 2016. The meetings happened once a week for about two hours. The stories were horrific. Confidentiality and safety and trust were important. It was about mutual aid. They were the only ones who had gone through this experience and so they would best know how to help each other.

Some could not sleep at night. Many lost their jobs. Several became homeless because the FBI was asking questions and the landlords didn’t want problems. Anxiety was high. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder had to be overcome just to go to the meetings.

They exchanged phone numbers, and began contacted each other during the week. After the group meeting they would go across the street to the coffee shop and talk for several more hours. They became friends, some attended church together, Some took English classes together. It was empowering.

After the eight weeks they decided they wanted to keep meeting and so a new counselor was brought in to continue the sessions. They worked with the new counselor for several more months and then decided to end the group. Progress was made as they shared and made their way back to society. The eight weeks were not enough for any type of full recovery but everyone made their own progress. People are still hurting and there are long term consequences of the attack. Bridges still need to be built.