Shanghai Disneyland COVID Lockdown

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On October 31, 2022 all guests at Shanghai Disneyland were locked down due to a single case of COVID-19. Reuters quoted city authorities as saying the resort shut its gates after authorities became aware of a 31-year-old woman who had visited the park in recent days testing positive for the coronavirus. Some rides kept running as guests were trapped in the happiest place on earth. No one could leave until they showed a negative COVID test. The city health bureau announced that all guests in the park tested negative and all guests could leave by 8:30pm.

There were 10 reported cases in Shanghai on October 29, 2022.  Shanghai then decided they must screen 400,000 people. President Xi Jinping‘s government has remained committed to a “Zero COVID” policy while the rest of the world had dropped most COVID safety precautions.

The city government appealed to anyone who had visited the Shanghai Disney Resort since October 27, 2022 to undergo three days of nucleic acid testing and avoid gathering in groups.

The snap closure of Shanghai Disney came just two days after the park began operating at a reduced capacity to comply with Covid measures.

 

Pandora’s Box

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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.

Candle Oracle

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Testing sites for COVID-19 have closed across the United States.Congress slashed funding to keep track of cases across the country. At home tests are being used but those results are seldom reported to health agencies. That means that any case counts are just the tip of the iceberg.

This gave birth to the Yankee Candle theory of tracking COVID cases. It was discovered that whenever there was an influx of negative reviews citing no smell, there was usually a spike in COVID cases to go along with it. Losing your sense of smell is one of the many symptoms of an infection.

Nick Beauchamp an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University, decided to do a more detailed study to test the finding. He created a model to test the results. To his surprise, the relationship was clear; COVID cases followed a very similar pattern to the frequency of the reviews. By mid-January 2022, he had written a paper and submitted it to a journal, and by June 2022  it had been published.

Tthe results from the paper showed that COVID when there was a recorded surge in COVID cases, there would likely be an increase in the negative reviews. A negative reviews might actually be an earlier warning sign than the official COVID data. The reviews offer  “digital breadcrumbs,” of the rising cases to come.

COVID’s 3rd Act

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Plays and movies have three acts. The first act sets the scene and shows what life was life before an inciting incident happens like the spread of a deadly virus around the world. The second act is an active attempt to return life to normal but that act seems to have been botched by most politicians and public health experts. We are still in the second act of this pandemic play. The virus continues to kill 400 to 500 people every day in America however the actors on the stage seem content to accept this level of death as they dream of returning to life as normal. They wander the stage and breath in each others mask less faces satisfied that they have not died from the virus and therefor who cares about anyone else.

So how does the third act play out? Is a peaceful transition where everyone ignores that the pandemic even happened and the virus magically disappears? The fact is that the virus is here to stay and there will be more waves as variants change and adapt to infect more clueless actors. Even the COVID deniers are surprised when friends and loved ones become infected. America does a magnificent job of quietly disposing of the dead while the living remain happily ignorant.

Some day scientists should be able to bring the devastating nature of this virus more under control. But for now, no one knows what lies ahead. Europe is once again seeing a spike in cases of COVID-19. 9 countries are seeing their hospitalizations increase. In France case numbers have doubled in the last couple of weeks. The levels are still rather low compared to the huge spikes earlier in the pandemic. In the past, Europe has offered the United States and early look at what is coming.

The bottom line is that Americans are done with the virus. The virus however is not done with Americans. Personally I went in to get my 5th shot of COVID vaccine which is intended to combat the latest Omicron variants. Only 2% of Americans have chosen to get this extra jab. To me it is a no brainer, but for so many, denial is the considered the better option.

Closing the Curtain on COVID?

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400 to 500 people continue to die every day due to COVID-19. Every week the number of people who die from COVID is about to the number of people ho died on September 11, 2001 when the twin Towers were attacked. That is our new normal. It is better that the several thousand who were dying every day back in January 2022.

Despite the ongoing death toll, President Joe Biden declared on 60 Minutes that the “the pandemic was over.” Biden himself had COVID twice just recently but with the beast healthcare options available, he and his wife pulled through. If you remember, a year ago for July 4, 2020,  Biden also declared we would be independent of the virus. Like any politician he want to downplay the virus as elections roll around.

So who actually gets to decide when the pandemic ends? No single person can flip a switch and declare a pandemic over. COVID remains a public health emergency in the United States, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, and it’s still a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, according to US Department of Health and Human Services (WHO).

The World Health Organization did a horrible job on deciding when the pandemic should begin. Had they acted sooner and closed off flights out of China back in 2020, the virus could have been contained and eradicated. Last week, Tedros said the end of the pandemic “is in sight,” but he added that “we are not there yet.” So where is “there”?

Back in 1918, the Spanish Flue pandemic swept across America, starting in a WWI training base in Kansas where my great Grandfather was stationed.  The virus was ignored by press and the president because the country was at war. After a devastating wave of death in the fall of 1918, bodies lay in the streets and mass graves had to be dug. By the beginning of 1919 most mask orders, closures and social distancing orders were lifted. Waves of disease continued through 1920 the year my father was born.

Vaccines and treatments offer some protection from severe disease and death but they do not stop re-infection. The Biden administration has said it intends to stop buying vaccines, tests and treatments, shifting those things to the commercial market.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said, that in his estimation, cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still too high to say the pandemic is over. We also don’t know what variants of the virus could emerge or how our immunity will hold up against them. “I don’t think people really understand what the implications are for this virus,” Osterholm said. “All of us want the pandemic to be over, but you can’t make it go away by just making a policy decision.

July 4, 2022 Sarasota Florida

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For July 4, Pam, our house guest and I drove to Sarasota Florida. Pam arranged for us to see fireworks from an exclusive waterfront club. It was strange going into a large mask less crowd but we kept our kn95s on for the duration.  By the end of July COVID-19 cases had spiked up to 39,000 before they stared a slow decent in August 2022.

People packed in as tight as their lawn chairs would allow. We found a decent park bench to sit on which offered some social distancing due to the sidewalk in front of us. It had been pouring rain prior to the fireworks display so we weren’t sure they would even go off.

Last year we went to Saint Augustine to see the fireworks, because President Biden had said that we could celebrate the end of the pandemic. A year later he had COVID-19 and we were celebrating the same agonizing end. Everyone wished the pandemic was over but wishful thinking doesn’t end a pandemic.

Anyway, the fireworks were spectacular. Everyone stood as the grand crescendo of explosions climaxed. Americans love a good bang.

COVID Super Dodgers

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Have you not been infected by COVID-19 yet? How is that even possible? You are a member of a very exclusive and ever shrinking club. BA-5 invaded our home when a house guest caught COVID from a summer camper. Somehow by taking simple precautions of masking hand washing and social distancing, we manged to dodge that very close bullet. At some point, we all will get infected. There are no winners in a pandemic.

Over 80% of all school children have already been infected and they brought the virus home for the parents and grand parents. As of September 13, 2020 COVID-19 has infected over 600 million people. The CDC estimated that at least 60% of all Americans have already been infected at least once. Re- infections are now the new normal.

Some of us want to keep dodging the virus. Even being fully vaccinated, there is a risk of long COVID which could drag on for months or even years. Americans are acting like the pandemic has ended. I however am still ducking and dodging for as long as is humanly possible. In grade school I enjoyed playing dodge ball. At some point however, it becomes statistically impossible to keep from getting hit.

Juggling Variants

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The COVID-19 virus continues to create new variants. Some hope that the new variants will be less infectious and less deadly. However this outcome is not guaranteed. When I shared an illustration titled “Vaxed and Relaxed” I got a response from a nurse saying, “Working in the ER now, Covid is very much not “over”. I wish people took health and safety more seriously.”

I sketched at an opening last week and I was one of two people wearing a mask in a crowd of perhaps 300 people pressed into two gallery rooms. For most Americans the pandemic is over as hospitalizations slowly decline. The virus however has plenty of human fuel as we head into the fall season, ignorant and unprepared.

A new variant following on the heals of BA 5 is variant BA 2.75 nicknamed ‘Centaurus’. Studies suggest that this variant is similar to BA 5 which is capable to dodge immunity conferred by infection and vaccination. The variant seems to have a “quite sizeable” transmission advantage over BA.5 according to Tom Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, who has modeled its rise.

The Centaurus variant has arrived in Florida in mid-August. Viral loads are once again rising in the Miami, Orlando and Tampa Bay areas. Coronavirus particles found in wastewater from Orange County, home to Orlando, have nearly doubled in the past two weeks. COVID tests conducted last month in Florida confirmed that the BA.2.75 omicron sub-variant, which fueled a recent wave of infections in India, is circulating among people in the state.

So, have you gotten your fall vaccine booster? If not, you may be juggling chainsaws with little experience.

5 Minute Demo

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With my Crealde students, one class is devoted to just doing five minute sketches of everyone in the class. This is s demo done on the back patio, to show how much can be blocked in on a page in 5 minutes. I am training them to think of the figure as just  fraction of what goes on the page. Most beginning students don’t get much more that the head on the page in 5 minutes, so I give my students all the short cuts I use to get human proportions down fast.

I am also demonstrating how to use every tool in the toolbox to get things don fast. Sometimes a fast watercolor wash will block inn an area faster that a series of lines. This sketch also shows the strange transitional period of the pandemic. Masking requirements were lifted, but I was happy that one of my students remained masked at all times.

For the past 3 months more people have died from COVID-19 in Florida than in any other state. Hospitalizations are going down now so this peak has passed but I still believe in taking every precaution until the pandemic is over. Over 80,000 Floridians have died, many of them needlessly. Over 400 Americans are dying every day due to COVID-19  and that ha become the new norm.