Deltacron

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Leonidos Kostrikis, A scientist in Cypress claims to have found a new variant of COVID-19 that he calls deltacron, which combines characteristics of both the delta and omicron variants. He is the University of Cyprus professor who runs the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology. He claims multiple tests show what’s called a recombinant form of the virus, something that happens when there are several variants of a virus.

Kostrikis said deltacron infections are higher among patients hospitalized for COVID than among non-hospitalized patients. He also said samples were processed for genetic sequencing in more than one country, including in Israel.

Of course if this is true it is very bad news since the super transmissible Omicron variants could be combined with the more deadly Delta variant.

However, other scientists think lab contamination is the more likely explanation for this new phenomenon, though one scientist interviewed by Bloomberg said a deltacron variant would not be completely surprising. Cypress’ health minister said more details would be given at a news conference this week, but as of right now deltacron was not of concern as recognized by the World Health Organization.

Of Mice and Omicron

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Where did Omicron come from? Researchers created a sort of family tree which shows how the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants branched off of the original Wuhan strain of the virus (B1.1).

The Omicron variant seemed to appear out of nowhere with 45 mutations to the spike proteins. It has mutations that are not found in all prior variants. It is on a completely different lineage of the tree with a long line of mysterious unknown development.

It was first identified in South Africa on November 24, 2021. It is believed to have diverged from the B1.1 line in mid 2020. Where has it been since then? Mutations to the virus normally happen at about 0.5 per month. Omicron had 45 mutations in the spike protein. Over 18 months when Omicron was hidden from view, it developed mutations 3,5 times faster than other variants.

So where was Omicron during these 18 months and why were the mutations happening so fast?

  • It might have spread in a population with low levels of testing and not been found. This is unlikely.
  • It might have developed in a person who was chronically infected. One theory was that it might have developed in someone with HIV.
  • It might have developed mutations in a non-human host and then jumped back to humans. We don’t test animals for COVID, so could have gone undetected.

A pier reviewed paper out of China explored this third possibility. The likely culprit is mice. The mutations that developed were significantly different that those that developed in humans. The mutations that develop in mice are similar to the mutations that developed in Omicron. The mutations allow the virus to fit well into mice cell receptors.

The idea is that airborne Omicron jumped from a humans into mice, the virus developed mutations that allowed it to better infect mice, then the virus jumped back into humans. This would be an inter-species evolutionary trajectory of the outbreak. This could explain why this virus can cause so many breakthrough infections in humans. Thankfully the Omicron virus causes an increased infection in the airways and not as much infection in human lungs. This may result in milder cases of disease. It will spread wildly throughout humanity with hopefully less death while offering some increased immunity for anyone infected. It could be a blessing in disguise by acting like a vaccine for the unvaccinated.

However we need to vaccinate as many people as possible around the world to avoid future mutations. We can not “boost” out way out of the pandemic. We might not be as lucky next time around.

DeathSantis Hoards a Million COVID Tests

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Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried accused Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis of stockpiling COVID-19 rapid tests while residents across the state are waiting for multiple hours for the opportunity to get tested in the Omicron Surge.

Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie confessed the state did have a warehouse full of one million COVID-19 rapid test kits that have since expired. Guthrie said the tests expired between Dec. 26 and Dec. 30 after being granted a three-month extension.

Guthrie’s remarks confirm what Fried, the lone Democrat in the Florida Cabinet who is challenging DeathSantis for governor, has alleged since Christmastime.

“It’s bad enough that Governor DeSantis has de-prioritized testing with Omicron exploding across Florida, but it’s an absolute disgrace for the governor and his communications team to have lied and covered up the massive failure of a million unused tests while Floridians wait in hours-long lines for local tests that are running out,” Fried said January 6, 2022 in a statement shared on her social media pages. “Now the governor has to beg President (Joe) Biden for another waiver to even use these expired tests — should they still be safe and effective. The governor’s executive failure during this pandemic continues to hurt Floridians. This is why I speak up.”

“Worst off, during this time period, they lied about it, they tried to cover it, they said that my accusations were unfounded, called me a liar, and the reality is this governor is not fit to serve,” Fried said. “He should have known that this stockpile of tests could have been distributed all throughout the state. This is not only a derelict of responsibility, but this is a complete failure of this governor.”

Fried said new leadership is needed and questioned why DeSantis didn’t contact local health departments, hospitals, nursing homes and pharmacies about a possible exchange program.

Will COVID Become a Common Childhood Disease?

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As Omicron infects everyone in the world, it will offer some immunity to Delta and possibly future variants of COVID-19. It will find everyone who is unvaccinated and infect them. We do not know yet how hard the virus will hit the unvaccinated. I follow hospitalizations and they are rising daily but not as fast as the daily case numbers, of which there were one million new cases in one day in America on January 3, 2022. That is truly astonishing.

With everyone becoming infected all at once, the hospitals will become overwhelmed. Healthcare workers are already angry. May have resigned preferring not to deal with the stupidity of so much needless death.

Those that are fully vaccinated and boosted are only 40% protected from also being infected. The good thing is that the vaccine still does protect against severe infection and death. The U.S. government counted many shots of vaccine as first doses that were actually second doses or booster shots. Adjusting for these discrepancies. about 61.3% of Americans are now fully vaccinated and only 30% of those have been boosted.That leaves plenty of people wide open to infection.

Healthline reported that, new research suggests that as COVID-19 becomes endemic across the world, it could become as prevalent as the common cold and would affect mostly children who will not have been vaccinated or exposed to the virus yet. While this sounds frightening the researchers clarify that children are far less likely to have severe symptoms related to COVID-19. As a result, the overall effects of the disease will be lessened. The study was published in the journal Science Advances this month.  “It was the conclusion of these researchers that COVID-19 will do what other epidemic respiratory viruses have done in the past, which is to transition to a routine, seasonal infection, and involve young children more than others,” Dr. Michael Grosso said.

Anti-Vax Roulette

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The Omicron virus continues to spread quickly. It doesn’t want the infected to be down for the count. It wants the infected to go to the store or to a crowded bar, concert or rally. That helps in it’s exponential spread. The virus has become twice as transmissible while causing less severe disease. It preys on the uninformed and ignorant.

Do not underestimate the virus. If you are not vaccinated this virus will push through your defenses. People who have been vaccinated and boosted have a high level of T-Cell immunity that makes any breakthrough infection feel  like a common cold. Not so for the unvaccinaed. You have a probability of severe disease, being hospitalized and ending up on a ventilator or dying. You lack the T-Cell protection if you remain unvaccinated.

After the attack on the Capitol, 38 members of the U.S. Capitol Police force and about 150 National Guard members tested positive for COVID-19. Attorney John M. Pierce who is representing 17 of the more than 500 people charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was taken ill with COVID-19, he was on a ventilator and unresponsive for 12 days. He since recovered  and continues to represent the insurrectionists. Florida leads the country of Capitol Riot arrests with about 66 accused.

If you are unvaccinated you are playing Russian Roulette with your health. The coronavirus can harm you in many ways. Not only does it attack your bronchial tubes and lungs, it can attack your brain, your heart, your kidneys, your liver. It attacks all of your body. If it does not kill you, it can render you crippled as a “long hauler” for months, perhaps forever.

Sweet Water Taste: Poster Evolution

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Sweet Water Taste by Gloria Bond Clunie is a very funny play about race and how the actions of our ancestors affect life today. The show runs through January 22, 2022 and I saw online that there is a two for one deal on tickets. Tickets run between $35 and $56.

All hell—and a little bit of heaven break loose when Elijah Beckford, a prominent Southern Black undertaker, approaches his white cousin and demands to be buried in “the family cemetery.” First seen at Orlando Shakes as a PlayFest reading, this irreverent comedy takes a hilarious look at the modern racial divide as two families find the meaning in their shared history.

My first pass at the poster focused on a large live oak tree in front of a plantation. Below the ground roots spread out mingling with ancient signatures. Two oval portraits of  a couple hinted at the past. A well and two very small modern day men hinted at the present day comedic drama that would unfold. This is a lot to unpack in a single image and I wanted as well to perhaps focus on the plantation living room where most of the scenes unfold.

My second pass moved in closer to the entrance of the plantation and I focused on the two men wrestling with an old tombstone with their family name of Beckford.   The one thing I liked the most about this sketch was the title treatment and I keep it moving forward. The action of fighting over a tombstome however felt forced and it was decided that the entrance looked too much like the entrance to the White House. I also wanted to get closer in to the men and their expressions. This sketch focused on their gestures but they just needed to look each other in the eyes. The drama didn’t require an over active pose.

The next sketch focused on a very forced hand shake in the plantation living room. I knew I had hit the mark when Jim Helsinger laughed out loud. I had put the headstone behind the men and it was decided to move it forward into the foreground. The felt short compared to the tall ceiling so I was asked to move them up a bit. In this sketch the painting was rather arbitrary to make the room feel opulent but it made sense to change that and incorporate one of the family portraits I had used in the very first sketch. At this point the changes would be minor as I teeked and refined the image.

In the next pass I considered bringing back the live oak tree since it made sense to have the headstone outside. The cracked headstone in this case seemed a bit too large, so I would have to find a way to make it less pronounced. The title treatment and author type sizes were now working right. I also adjusted the handshake to it read better from a distance. Since I enjoy family history I knew I had to slip more of the past into the final image.

Back in the living room, the men are taller and I added one of the family portraits. It was decided that the female portrait would be better and I decided to add a more interesting shape and texture to the headstone. The final image is the largest one at the top of this article.

I can say that by working digitally I am able to repurpose and reuse various element sand shuffle them easily each time changes are made. Working traditionally these would be six different paintings but it is easy to change things on the fly, focusing on one aspect of the poster at a time. It as fun to play and experiment with the limitless possibilities.

Effective as of November 23, 2021, Orlando Shakes in partnership with UCF will no longer require a negative COVID-19 test to attend performances or special events. Instead, guests 5 years of age and older must now only wear a face mask when inside the building.

Welcome Back

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Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis has vowed that schools will remain open through the Omicron blizzard. Mask mandates for students are a thing of the past since DeathSantis created a law making mask mandates illegal to protect students.

The Governor has been at war with local school districts that wanted to mask mandates to protect students during surges of COVID. The  administration’s policy was to deny school boards, the right to choose whether their children attend school masked or unmasked.

The State Board of Education docked pay from school boards that issued mask mandates in defiance of the governor’s policy. The Federal Government stepped in to cover School Board salaries. However, it is now illegal to protect the lives of students. The Governor wants students to get infected in the  hope that it will foster herd immunity with what he considers an acceptable amount of death. COVID is not benign in in kids and it is not inconsequential.

So students are returning to classrooms mask free if they like, to spread this highly transmissible virus at will. Governor DeathSantis said, while speaking in Fort Lauderdale, children “do not need to be doing any crazy mitigation” such as testing or wearing masks, unless their parents want them to. He is also making moved to cut back testing just as the demand for more testing has grown in this wave of the pandemic. Tests  will only be for “High Value” individuals, whatever that means. An example given was of an elderly grandmother given more testing consideration over an 8-year-old third grader. Clearly he feels that allowing children to get sick will held his re-election plans

According to The New York Times, “Large city school systems in Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and Newark have joined a growing list of public schools across the country that have postponed reopening after the holiday break, switched to remote instruction, or have taken both steps because of COVID-19 outbreaks and staffing shortages.”

Florida reported 85,000 new COVID-19 cases on January 4th 2022. 61 people died that same day. Hospitalizations have spiked suddenly high above the peak of the Delta wave. It will get worse before it gets better. As of 6Pm on January 3, 2022 over 3,000 schools nationwide had closed for the week, according to Burbio, which tracks school calendars. Many schools are pivoting to virtual learning.  School districts in and around  Detroit, Atlanta, Newark, New Jersey, and Milwaukee, as well as individual schools elsewhere, have reverted to virtual learning for days or weeks, mostly because of staff shortages resulting from illness or quarantine.

Omicron Tsunami

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The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on December 29, 2021 that a “Tsunami” of Omicron cases are coming. This deluge of cases should stretch throughout the winter.

The Financial Times reported that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, said the highly transmissible omicron variant and the fast-spreading delta variant will lead to the surge of cases. “This will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse and again disrupting lives and livelihoods,” Tedros said.

“There is this narrative going on which is ‘it’s milder or less severe,’” Tedros said. “But we’re undermining the other side, at the same time it could be dangerous, because the high transmissibility could increase hospitalizations and deaths.” “Previous strains could often be treated with drugs called monoclonal antibodies. Omicron seems oblivious to most of these, and supplies of those that do affect it, newly developed versions … are limited. This is and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse and again disrupting lives and livelihoods,” Tedros told reporters as the health body marked the two-year anniversary of the emergence of the pandemic.

We can expect to see major disruptions in the work force as more people become infected. The CDC reduced the isolation time for people who have a close contact but are asymptomatic. from ten days of isolation to five. After 5 days of isolation a person is still 35% infections, so it makes no sense that a negative test is not required before a person can return safely to work. If you are unvaccinated the virus will find you. It is so transmissible that it will be impossible to avoid. The hope is that it will boost the immunity for those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. This could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic or it could be just another enormous wave.

The nation broke records at least four times this week for its seven-day average of new daily Covid-19 cases, reporting an all-time high of more than 386,000 new daily infections December 31, 2021, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. The high case count is already causing disruptions in the country. In New York City, which just hosted a Times Square superspreader event on New Years Eve, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is plagued with staffing issues and announced three subway lines — the B, Z and W — which service various parts of the boroughs, have been suspended.

The virus is now “extraordinarily contagious” and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on December 31, 2021. “At the beginning of this pandemic… we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you’re within six feet of somebody and you’re in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window,” Reiner said. “This is a hyper-contagious virus.”

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone’s mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

Crealde

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Teaching Urban Sketching at Crealde School of Art has caused me t speed up my sketching process. I am learning how to focus only on the important details and then let everything else go since I drill this idea into my students each Sunday. Actually verbalizing and then demonstrating these ideas has caused me to get better at my own daily sketching.

The large mass of palm fronds simply became a pointed blob and I never focused on individual leaves, instead focusing on the impression of what it felt like. Sky just became a small splash of blue. Clouds are left vacant and hopefully the viewer fills in the details.

This sketch was also done on ancient tissue thin paper, so I didn’t take it as seriously and I am realizing that this attitude of not giving a damn is very helpful to the act of just throwing an idea down on the page.

The Winter sessions begins January 30, 2021  until March 20, 2021. We work outside and take every possible COVID safety protocol. I am masked at all times until this pandemic is over.

Swift Superspreader

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A Taylor Swift album party became a superspreader event with over 100 attendees testing positive for COVID-19. The event was held December 10, 2021 in Sydney Australia. Sydney is on the epicenter of the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in the country since the start of the pandemic. December 31, 2021 the country saw over 21,000 new cases in a country which had previously done an amazing job of controlling the outbreak.

In a public health alert issued on December 16, 2021, the New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Health said it had been notified of a “venue of concern” in Sydney connected to at least 97 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

The health ministry said that anyone who attended the “On Repeat: Taylor Swift Red Party” at the Metro Theatre from 9 p.m. local time on Friday Dec. 10 is considered a “close contact” of a positive Covid case and “must immediately get tested and isolate for 7 days.The event had more than 600 guests, according to the New South Wales Ministry of Health, but officials have only been able to contact those who checked in on-site using a QR code. The health ministry said it was likely that at least some of the cases identified were the omicron variant. NSW Health said it was also asking all household contacts of those at the event to get tested and self-isolate until a negative result is received by everyone in the household.

NSW Health reminded everyone of the importance of maintaining COVID-safe practices as transmission is occurring at social events during the festive period. “Everyone should remain vigilant when celebrating with family, friends and colleagues and should not attend any social functions if they have any symptoms.”  NSW Health said penalties for non-compliance with isolation, testing and quarantine rules have been increased from $1,000 for individuals to $5,000, with penalties for corporations rising from $5,000 to $10,000.