The Infected

Posted on by Thor

New York City rats carry COVID-19 and could be a risk to humans. A study published March 9, 2023 in the American Society for Microbiology “mBio,” determined that the rats could be infected with the Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants.

The rat samples were collected in the fall of 2021. The team set up two trappings near locations surrounding wastewater systems and captured 79 rats from three sites in and around city parks in Brooklyn in the fall of 2021, when Delta was dominant. 13 rats tested positive for the virus. The researchers also determined which specific variants could infected the vermin. the study “highlights the need for further monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in rat populations to determine if the virus is circulating in the animals and evolving into new strains that could pose a risk to humans,” Dr. Henry Wan, the study’s principal investigator warned. “Overall, our work in this space shows that animals can play a role in pandemics that impact humans, and it’s important that we continue to increase our understanding so we can protect both human and animal health,” he said.

By giving wild rats samples of different variants through the nose, the researchers also found that Alpha, Delta, and Omicron were able to infect the rats.

The National Library of Medicine published an article that concluded that Omicron could have evolved in another mammalian host like mice or rats. Omicron contains a large number of mutations that are rare in other known human variants. Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences now report that they have found a pattern of mutations in Omicron that is typical of a virus that has infected mice. They believe SARS-CoV-2 jumped from a human to a mouse in mid-2020, then back into a human in late 2021.

Mayor Eric Adams declared a war on NYC rats as the vermin sightings soared into the thousands.

I didn’t go anywhere hot and I still caught on fire!

Posted on by Thor

Are superspreader events a thing of the past or do we simply accept illness from public gatherings now? The media is simply no longer reporting about large clusters of infections like they did at the start of the pandemic. The United States defunded and scaled back its testing and contact tracing programs in early 2022, and in doing so,it became less clear just how widespread COVID-19 is. What we don’t see or hear about doesn’t exist in the public coincidence.

Superspreading events after large gatherings like concerts, weddings and conferences are still very much a thing.Being vaccinated or having a previous infection does not stop you from re-infection with the new variants like XBB.1.5 which now dominates the country.

A superspreader is also a name of an infectious person who is asymptomatic but very contagious. Some people Some people shed a bit of virus for a couple days, whereas others shed a lot of virus for longer periods of time and run the risk of infecting a ton of people. Typhoid Mary didn’t realize she was infecting others. in the early 1900s she infected over 55 people. She spread disease by not properly washing her hands, but today COVID is airborne so a superspreader simply had to exhale in a room to infect others.

Today we don’t really know how common superspreader events are because there’s so little testing. The worst thing President Biden did was supply a few at home tests to each American household and then declare that the pandemic is over when it clearly is not. His gaslighting, has resulted in over 700,000 deaths and is an act of mass murder. People want to believe life has returned to normal and they will believe any lie to attend superspreader events just as they did before the start of the pandemic.

 

Toasy Studio

Posted on by Thor

One assignment I have with my virtual Urban Sketching students is to sketch the studio they happen to be working from.I always sketch and paint along with them and explain in this case, one point perspective and how to block in a scene. In this case the foreground has all warm colors while the mid–ground is more neutral and greyed down. I emphasized how things in the foreground will have fewer horizontal lines while object further away might be home horizontal.

You can see how disorganized I am with rags and folders stored in egg carts. Larger sketches are rolled up on the table and stacks of sketchbooks wait to be filled with sketches. Entry to the studio is blocked with a short stack of plastic containers. That is so the dog doesn’t come in and make even more of a mess. When the dogs have to go outside, they sit at the entrance to the studio and stare at me until I stop painting and let them outside. They are a bit spoiled since they can go out at any time since I am always painting.

Another goal of the painting was to make sure anything outside the windows was painted lighter than anything inside. If I had more time I would erase lines and focus on hard and soft edges of objects.

On July 1, 2022 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers that updated booster shots for the fall season will need to have added protections against the latest omicron sub-variants. By this time people were becoming keenly aware that breakthrough infections would shift from a statistical anomaly to a regular occurrence.

There is nothing you can do to stop a wildfire!

Posted on by admin

The Joe Biden administration has decided to let COVID-19 rip with no mitigation other than advising people on occasion to get vaccinated. He said, that there is “nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months” — which is the exact opposite of what presidential candidate Joe Biden promised voters during the 2020 campaign. Back during the election, he said “the trajectory of COVID-19 in America is headed in the wrong direction,” and only he could fix it. In a Oct. 23, 2020 speech, Biden pledged to “immediately put in place a national strategy that will position our country to finally get ahead of this virus and get back our lives.” He never delivered.

Right before July 4th 2021, Biden again claimed the pandemic was over, and we should all celebrate by gathering in large groups to watch fire works. I was in Saint Augustine and the maskless crowds were insane. It is as if a word from the president acted as a mass hypnosis, convincing all to unmask and breath in each other’s faces. We were some of the very few who wore masks. At the time Delta was ripping across the country. In July of 2021 1,208 Americans died due to COVID-19.

On January 20, 2020 when Biden was inaugurated, there were 396,837 confirmed COVID deaths. As of February 5, 2023 there have been 1,073,693 deaths due to COVID. That is most contently an under counting. That means Biden’s bungled pandemic response is so far responsible for 676,856 COVID deaths as opposed to Trumps inept response which resulted in 396,837 COVID deaths. The media is strangely silent on Biden’s horrible handling of the pandemic.

Biden remarked about the pandemic saying, “I mean, look what’s happened, and I think we, I sometimes underestimate it because, I STOPPED THINKING ABOUT IT, but I’m sure you don’t: we lost 1 – over 1 million people in several years to COVID.” Biden warned that, “there’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic.”

Biden informed Congress on January 30, 2023 that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, 2023. Sure 500 people are dying every day, but that is the new normal. The United States public health emergency was first declared on Jan. 31, 2020, under the Trump administration. Lawmakers have refused for months to fulfill the Biden administration’s request for billions more dollars to extend free COVID vaccines and testing. The administration has surrendered and they have left you to try and survive as they gaslight you to make you think the pandemic is over. News flash, the pandemic is not over.

I’m done with wildfires!

Posted on by Thor

Groundhog Day, derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrows on this day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early. This year, Canadian Groundhog, Fred la Marmotte, did not exit his borrow. That is because Fred died while in hibernation.

A dead groundhog is the harbinger of only one this, that the pandemic is not over. It also indicated that the pandemic will continue for much more than 6 weeks. The groundhog day master of ceremonies, Roberto Blondin said, “In life, the only thing that’s certain is that nothing is certain, Well, this year it’s true. It’s sadly true. I announce to you that Fred is dead.”

H5N1  or Avian Flu has killed 58,200,536 birds in the United States since January 2022. 47 states have been affected. Last fall in Spain, an outbreak of bird flu at a mink farm resulted in the death or culling of the entire group of 50,000 minks. This may be the first case of mammal to mammal transmission of the virus. Humans are mammals.

COVID-19 has a mortality rate of about 1%. Bird flu has a mortality rate of over 50%. If the virus begins to spread among humans, there is little chance that a targeted response to stop the outbreak would happen. Bird flu would indeed make the COVID pandemic seem like it was a minor inconvenience.

On the Caspian Sea there was a mass mortality event of Bird Flu that killed 700 seals. This is again evidence that mammals are passing the virus to each other. The virus is found the the droppings and saliva of birds. If a mammal consumes a dead bird, or is exposed to droppings, that is one way to contract the virus.

Human infections with bird flu viruses can happen when virus gets into a person’s eyes, nose or mouth, or is inhaled. The first case of an avian influenza A (H5N1) virus in a person in the U.S. was reported on April 28, 2022. Researchers at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology report that H5N1 Bird Flu closely  resembles the 1918 Spanish Flu virus.  The 1918 virus was an avian strain that managed to adapt to humans without first acquiring any genes from existing human flu viruses. Further, the researchers found that several of the same mutations found in the H5N1 virus are found in the 1918 Spanish Flu virus.

57 seals were found dead in Maine having also died from H5N1. In Montana, three grizzly bears wandered, disoriented and blinded and were found to be infected by H5N1. All three bears died.

Since 2003, there have been 868 cases of human infection with H5N1 reported, of which 457 were fatal—a 53 percent case fatality rate. Ecuador reported its first case on January 9, 2023, in a 9-year-old girl who had contact with backyard poultry. So far, human to human transmission has not been reported. The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic started when a bird infected a pig who then gave the virus to a farmer who then spread the virus at Camp Funston in Kansas as troops trained for WW I. Infected troops then spread the virus throughout Europe.

Also infected have been foxes, polecats, badgers and foxes. So did the groundhog die of a virus? No cause of death has been noted.

This wildfire series is inspired by @1goodtern on Twitter. Since the media has gone silent on pandemic coverage, I have turned to Twitter to stay informed.

Wildfires only burn vulnerable trees.

Posted on by Thor

COVID -19 has become the eighth most common cause of death among children in the United States. Covid-19 has been the third leading cause of death in the broader population. Since Covid is the most severe in the elderly and immunocompromised, parents have decided it is a good idea to have their children get infected multiple times in poorly ventilated classrooms. They have been told multiple times that children do not get infected and do not die from COVID.

Researchers’ analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that there were 821 Covid-19 deaths in children between the ages of 0 to 19, during a 12-month period from August 2021 to July 2022. That death rate – about 1 for every 100,000 children – ranks eighth compared with the 2019 data. It ranks fifth among adolescents ages 15 to 19. Children are less vaccinated against Covid-19 than any other age group in the US. Less than 10% of eligible children have gotten their updated booster shot, and more than 90% of children under 5 are completely unvaccinated.

A CDC survey of blood samples suggest that more than 90% of children have already had Covid-19 at least once.

COVID-19 deaths in America as of January 4, 2023 are as follows.

0-17                                   1,414 dead

18-29                               6,749 dead

30-39                             19,255 dead

40-49                            45,092 dead

50-64                           197,247 dead

65-74                           246,021 dead

75-84                           282,430 dead

85 years and older,   288,990 dead.

Total American deaths due to COVID as of Jan 4, 2023 … One million eighty seven thousand, one hundred ninety eight.

On February 2, 2023 that number rose to 1,134,259.

World wide there have been well over 6 million deaths.

This wildfire series is inspired by @1goodtern on Twitter. Since the media has gone silent on pandemic coverage, I have turned to Twitter to stay informed.

I slept with COVID

Posted on by Thor

I slept with COVID-19. On the morning of January 25, 2023 I woke up and as I got dressed, I was surprised that Pam was sleeping in. She usually gets up before me. I got my day started by working on a painting. Later in the morning I got a call from Pam letting me know that she had tested positive for COVID-19. Before our call was over I already had my N-95 mask on. I don’t wear a mask to bed however, so I had to have been exposed.

My plan is to self isolate for 10 days. Unfortunately that means staying isolated from Pam as well. Since the bedroom was already exposed to the virus she would stay in that room. I would make each meal and leave hers in a bathroom where she would pick it up. She ordered some easy to make foods which I have been preparing for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The first evening after the positive test I had to decide where to sleep. There was a guest bedroom right across from where Pam was sleeping but I had read an article about a quarantine hotel where the person across the hall had managed to become exposed just from the opening and closing of doors as food was delivered. I decided instead to sleep on a couch which is down a long hallway.

Pam and I had just recently ordered N-95 masks and a HEPA air filter. I moved the HEPA filter to my studio while I painted and kept my N-95 on all day. The N-95 is amazingly breathable, I honestly often forget I have it on. When I went to bed I moved the HEPA filter next to the couch. The dogs curled up next to me.

The first night was horrible for Pam, she had a fever, body aches, soar throat, chills, hot sweats, fatigue, headache, congestion and a runny nose. She said it was the sickest she has ever been. I could hear her cough from down the hall. She has had every vaccine shot and the booster. Several times she considered the idea of having me bring her to the hospital but I only found this out later. At one point she sent me a zombie emoji.

She thinks she probably got infected at one of the Weddings or Bat Mitzvahs that she played hostess at. She was the only person among the several hundred at these events who was masked. She complained about her eye lids feeling like magma the first evening she had symptoms. This leads me to think she may have been infected through her eyes. Since the N–95 is just 95% effective, she may have also breathed in the virus at the event. We will never know for sure. Contact tracing is a thing of the past. Another of her co-workers was also infected.

After several days her symptoms trailed off. She made a rather quick recovery. All the while she kept working from home, doing spreadsheets, grants, and summer camp plans. Right now she is having a zoom meeting on the back porch. She probably got more work done while in isolation since there were no interruptions except for my occasional text to see if she was hungry or needed anything.

On the morning of January 30, 2023 I woke up with a horrible sour throat that made my ears ache. I hadn’t felt that painful of a soar throat since I had my tonsils out when I was 9 years old. Naturally my thought was that I had COVID. I had made one tactical mistake in trying to avoid the airborne virus. I couldn’t sleep with my N-95 mask on. I took it off an hoped the HEPA filter would be enough to remove any virus before I breathed it in. I kept the HEPA as close to my head as I could.

We have several COVID at home tests in the closet. Any time the government makes them available, I let Pam know, and she orders some. I took a test, and the ten minute wait was agonizing. I tested negative. Now I wonder if I pressed the swab up my nose far enough. I tickled my brain enough so that I had to sneeze repeatedly.

We are now on day 6 of our lockdown. Pam seems good as new and my soar throat only lasted the one morning. I have not developed any other symptoms. We have remained separated and communicate through a long thread of texts. We started watching movies by setting up a zoom meeting. I would sit in the living room and she would watch the TV from her bedroom on zoom. I had to put a dining room chair on the coffee table to raise the computer camera high enough for her to see the TV. The jury rigged system worked pretty good. We could talk to each other as the program played.

I will take another test at the end of the isolation period just to be sure, but the only symptom was a short lived soar throat. Amazingly I may have dodged the bullet again.

No Jabby Jabby

Posted on by Thor

A conservative activist from Arlington, Texas, who peddled COVID-19 vaccine misinformation died of complications caused by the virus, just a few weeks after attending a “symposium” against the shots. Her death was caused by “COVID-related pneumonia.”

The anit-Vaxer announced on Facebook in November of 2021 that her employer granted her a religious exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine. “No jabby-jabby for me! Praise GOD!” she wrote at the time. She was an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pandemic-related restrictions. In one of her final Facebook posts, she shared several links to speeches she attended at a “COVID Symposium” in Burleson, Texas devoted to dissuading people from getting the COVID-19 vaccines that are currently available. The event was organized by God Save Our Children, which bills itself as “a conservative group that is fighting against the use of experimental vaccines on our children.”

She developed an acute abdominal issue, was given pain medications and put on the ventilator. She died peacefully after gasping her last breath and is now resting in the arms of her savior Jesus Christ. Her misinformation guaranteed she isn’t going to the lord alone.

Not the Virus you Are Looking For

Posted on by Thor

Why is COVID-19 getting so good at immune evasion? The COVID virus uses  spike proteins to recognize and enter host cells. Recent COVID variants contain changes, or mutations, at a key site on the spike protein called the receptor-binding site (RBS).

Some of these mutations render antibodies that fought earlier virus strains less effective. This allows the variants to partially escape the immune response produced after vaccination or prior infection. It raises concerns that new variants could make existing vaccines less effective and draw out the pandemic.

Antibodies created by COVID-19 vaccines or natural infection by the original pandemic strain are often ineffective against the new variants of concern. COVID hijacks human cell machinery to blunt the immune response, allowing it to establish infection, replicate and cause disease.

The latest COVID variant in the United States is XBB.1.5 which seems to be the most immune evasive variant so far. It is the first recombinant COVID variant expected to become dominant in the United States. It is called “recombinant” because it was created when two  Omicron sub-variants merging inside the same human cell. By doing so, it gained, a mutation for immune evasion as well as an increased ability to bind to and infect human cells. The variant was first noticed in New York State in December 2022 and became dominant in by mid-January, so it’s too early to tell whether it causes more severe illness. The numbers of reported cases keep doubling every 7-10 days.

With so much at home testing it is hard to know just how wide spread it is. Meanwhile excess deaths keep rising as young and old alike die from heart failure and organ failure. COVID attacks the linings of blood vessels, causes blood clots, attacks the nerves, the brain and the heart. People seem confused by all these unexplained deaths. The answer, COVID, is staring everyone in the face.

So many politicians and medical experts however have been gaslighting the public into believing the pandemic is over. It isn’t. “Recovering” from an infection, does not mean the virus is done causing damage. COVID surges have been links to heart attacks in people of all ages but particularly ages 25-44.  Heart attacks rose by almost 30% with each wave of the pandemic. A heart attack is likely a COVID delayed effect. The German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, admitted that COVID causes incurable immune deficiency. “Letting it Rip” just isn’t working.

Off the Cliff

Posted on by Thor

The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to recommend the use of masks by the public in specific situations, and this update recommends their use irrespective of the local epidemiological situation, given the current spread of the COVID-19 globally. Masks are recommended following a recent exposure to COVID-19, when someone has or suspects they have COVID-19, when someone is at high-risk of severe COVID-19, and for anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space.

The drive to “end the pandemic” began almost as soon as the pandemic arrived in the U.S. The 45th president downplayed the severity of the pandemic knowing full well that the virus was airborne. Joe Biden has not done any better, proclaiming that the pandemic was over in one TV interview. The economy is always more important than public health.

COVID is airborne. Airborne transmission is different from droplets, which are large particles containing the virus, expelled when you speak, cough, sneeze, etc. Droplets are heavy enough that they will eventually drop to the ground or nearby surfaces, meaning it’s relatively easy to contain: any physical barrier, like a cloth mask or plexiglass barrier might stop the spread. However an airborne virus can remain airborne for much longer. If someone is smoking in a closed room, you can small the smoke from across the room and even further away. I have always maintained a physical distance of 22 feet from others. If I hear or see someone approaching, my mask is always slipped into place.

A quality N-95 mask is needed to stop the virus if you are around others. The problem is the entire country has been groomed to believe the pandemic is over. The pandemic is not over since over 300 people continue to die every day in America. The horror of what is happening in China may never be fully reported. The tired masses have been groomed  for a mass infection. Their desire to return to normal while abandoning all masking, means the county has already driven the car off the cliff.

This is not the end of the pandemic but the end of the beginning of the pandemic.