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.

City Mouse

Posted on by Thor

The numbers of deaths from COVID-19 in 2021 has already surpassed the number of deaths in 2020. Urban Americas are dying half as often from COVID-19 infections compared to their  rural American counterparts.

Vaccinations are the most effective way to prevent Covid-19 infections from turning deadly. Roughly 41 percent of rural America was vaccinated as of September 23, 2021, compared with about 53 percent of urban America, according to an analysis by The Daily Yonder, a newsroom covering rural America. Limited supplies and low access made shots hard to get in the far-flung regions at first, but officials and academics now blame vaccine hesitancy, misinformation and politics for the low vaccination rates.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for some people who completed their two-dose series of the Pfizer vaccine at least six months ago. Getting fully vaccinated — including your boosters if you qualify — is the right thing to do because it protects others from getting COVID-19.

Boosters are suggested for:

  • People 65 or older
  • People who have a medical condition that puts them at high risk
  • People who work in a setting where they could be exposed to the virus like teachers and store clerks.

Only 57% of the Americans population has been fully vaccinated. Many elite city dwellers got their vaccine booster shots early by taking advantage of the nation’s vaccine surplus and loose tracking of those who have been fully vaccinated. As of August 11, 2021, 1.1 Million Americans had already gotten the booster shot. An NBC News analysis of CDC data shows that the number of people receiving booster shots is outpacing those getting their first or second doses of the initial vaccination.

On October 14, 2021 the FDA’s advisory committee will meet to discuss and potentially recommend approval of booster shots for people who received Moderna’s vaccine.

October 15, 2021  that committee will meet to potentially recommend approval of boosters for those who received Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Also, that day, the committee will discuss potentially mixing and matching vaccine boosters — that is, getting a booster that’s different from your original vaccine.

Then, about a week and a half later, on October 26, 2021 the FDA has scheduled a meeting to approve the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

Freedom From Fear

Posted on by Thor

With the full FDA approve of the Pfizer vaccine now called Comirnaty, there is a faint hope that more Americans will step forward to get vaccinated to stop the horrible spread of the virus now ravaging the country. With K-12 students reentering schools this also raised the possibility of soon vaccinating children.

Once a drug or vaccine has been FDA-approved, doctors have the leeway to prescribe it “off label” — that is, for a use for which it wasn’t specifically approved. After rigorous clinical trials, the FDA authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use in people 16 and up in December 2020 and in adolescents ages 12 to 15 in May 2021. Significant data does not yet exist for children under the age of 12 yet.

Trials in children between the ages of 5 and 11 should be completed in September 2021, Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla told NBC News anchor Lester Holt. Trial data for even younger children should be landing soon after that. That however leaves children unvaccinated as the Delta variant spreads through the school systems.

The American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledged that August 23rd’s regulatory action “means it is legally permissible for physicians to administer the vaccine off-label for children aged 11 and younger, who currently have no available vaccine.” But the organization said in a statement that it “strongly discourages that practice.” FDA officials were also quick to discourage prescribing of the vaccine for younger children.

This is a deeply stressful time for parents of younger children, given that COVID-19 has largely now become a scourge of the unvaccinated. And it’s nerve-wracking to send those unvaccinated children out into school where they’ll be exposed to other people indoors for long periods of time. The best advice for parents is to wait for the FDA give a definite green light.

Vaccine Inequality

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How many people in the world could be vaccinated? Enough vaccine doses have been purchased to cover more than 80% of the adult population of the world, high-income countries own enough doses to vaccinate more than twice their populations while low and middle income countries can only cover one-third of their population.

In the United States about half of the country has not been vaccinated. Vaccines are free and readily available but they are being turned down by skeptics and anti-vaxers.

A month ago, a joint statement by the CDC and FDA had said that fully vaccinated Americans did not need a booster dose. Vaccine efficacy against symptomatic infections wanes over time, but the protection they offer against hospitalizations continues to remain high.

On August 18, 2021, President Joe Biden announced that a third booster dose of the vaccine will be available to people 8 months after their last dose. That means I will be eligible for a third dose this coming December 2021.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that third doses of the vaccines should not be administered. The WHO called on countries with high vaccination rates to donate surplus vaccines to poorer countries rather than administering third doses. The reasoning is that the pandemic will not end until the entire world is vaccinated. For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) had called a moratorium on booster doses at least till the end of September 2021. “We’re planning to hand out extra life jackets to people who already have life jackets, while we’re leaving other people to drown without a single life jacket,” WHO’s emergency director Mike Ryan told reporters on Aug. 18, 2021. A COVID infection anywhere is a COVID infection everywhere.

Johnson & Johnson Blood Clots

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended there be a “pause” for the Johnson & Johnson  vaccine after 6 women developed rare brain blood clots after getting the vaccine. One woman died.

The CDC‘s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will convene April 14, 2021 for an emergency session, with a vote scheduled on “updated recommendations for use” before the group adjourns at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden‘s chief medical adviser, told CBS Evening News, that it appeared that the adverse effect occurred within six to 13 days, and “so if you’ve had it a month or two ago, I think you really don’t need to worry about anything.” He went on to emphasis that the chance of these adverse side effects is “less than 1 in a million,” but he said to be alert to the symptoms such as severe headache, some difficulty in movement — such as in a neurological type of a situation — or some chest discomfort and difficulty breathing.

The cases the FDA and CDC are investigating occurred involved a blood clot called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, which was seen alongside low levels of blood platelets, according to their statement. All of the six women were between the ages of 18 and 48. “Treatment of this specific type of blood clot is different from the treatment that might typically be administered. Usually, an anticoagulant drug called heparin is used to treat blood clots. In this setting, administration of heparin may be dangerous, and alternative treatments need to be given,” they said.

The agencies said the “adverse events” seem to be extremely rare, but that the pause is important so that health care providers can be made aware of the reactions and properly recognize and manage the cases, given the unique treatment required. It has not yet been determined if the vaccine was the direct cause of the blood clotting cases. The AstraZeneca vaccine, used in Europe and not yet available in the USA has also been linked to cases of blood clots. Both the AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson vaccines use an inactivated form of a common cold virus, called an adenovirus, to teach the immune system to recognize the spike protein found of the surface of the coronavirus. Experts believe it’s possible that on rare occasions, the adenovirus itself could lead to clotting, due to a reaction involving platelets.

Regardless this will become a rallying point for any anti vaxers.

Eye of the Hurricane

Posted on by Thor

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet for just a moment. As I painted this, hurricane Isaias was downgraded to a tropical storm as it churns off the coast of Florida. The latest projections show it hitting the coast of Central Florida about 8pm tonight with winds of about 75 miles per hour making it a category one hurricane. Orlando is under a tropical storm warning for now.

With hundreds of people dying every day in the Sunshine State from COVID-19, this hurricane just seems like business as usual, a sign of global warming that is another disaster that can be ignored by those in power.

The latest of the COVID-19 front from Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force is that we are in a “new phase” in the battle against the virus. She is urging all Americans to wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines. “What we are seeing today is different than from March and April. It is extraordinarily wide spread in both rural and urban areas.” she said in an interview with CNN. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned that the country could see 300,000 deaths by the end of 2020.

When you try to digest these huge numbers, then a category one hurricane seems just like a blip on the map of a far reaching tragedy. The death tolls will depend on how southern and western states respond to the outbreaks in the coming weeks. Birx pointed out that we need to stop super spreading events where the virus can spread like wildfire.

Testing facilities in Florida are being shit down because of the impending hurricane. Florida’s Division of Emergency Management said Wednesday in a news release that its testing sites simply can’t hold up to the threat of a potential tropical cyclone because they include tents and other free-standing structures. Orange county soon followed suit, saying all health department-run testing sites will also be closed into next week. Orange’s Health Department said sites there would be closed at least through Wednesday. So you can expect the case numbers to drop and politicians will use the lull as an excuse to claim all is back to normal. It is not.

Florida Governor Ron Disaterous signed an order Friday declaring “a state of emergency in every coastal county of Florida’s east coast, from Miami-Dade to Nassau counties,” he said. This is business as usual for him as he seems incapable of even admitting Florida is experiencing a health crisis that could surpass what New York went through in April. Floridians are more likely to die from COVID-19 than a tree limb breaking.

Hydroxidistraction

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President Donald Trump likes to grab headlines with distracting insane baubles for the media to run with. His latest rant is that he has been taking Hydroxychloroquine for the past week. I personally don’t think he has been taking the unapproved drug as a prophylactic against Covid-19. He doesn’t have the balls. He knows the dangerous side effects, and that there is no evidence to support the idea that it helps in any way against the virus. The FDA warned that the drug can cause serious side effects and even death. I will need to see a video of him actually taking the drug and then having a health professional check under his tongue like they do in psychiatric hospitals before I believe he is taking the drug.  This is a lie intended to make him appear macho for his base. They already believe his Hydroxi claims. Science be damned. It is also a distraction to keep reporters from asking about why there is not adequate testing and tracking as the country prepares to open.t of the pandemic Trump has decided to cut funding the the World Health Organization. This is like closing the fire department as your house burns.

Rick Bright, who filed a whistleblower complaint after being removed from his position as head of the agency in charge of pandemic response, testified for just under four hours Thursday May 14, 2020 before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s health subcommittee. Bright said.  “The Trump administration rushed out recommendations about the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus.” Bright’s whistleblower complaint alleged he was removed from his post in retaliation for opposing the broad use of hydroxychloroquine.

More important for us in Central Florida is the fact that Rebekah Jones the architect of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard was fired on May 5, 2020 for failing to manipulate covid-19 data which might possibly contradict the states narrative that it is safe to open up the economy. What we need moving forward is not some magic pill but cold hard facts. Independent researchers are worried that this is government censorship. Since Rebekah was fired, the site has “crashed” and gone offline and data has gone missing without explanation while access to the underlying data sheets has become increasingly difficult. The site was created by a team of Florida Department of Health data scientists and public health officers headed by Rebekah Jones.

She single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the Covid-19 situation was in real time.

“I worked on it alone, sixteen hours a day for two months, most of which I was never paid for, and now that this has happened I’ll probably never get paid for,” she wrote in an email, confirming that she had not just been reassigned on May 5, but fired from her job as Geographic Information Systems manager for the Florida Department of Health.  

In her farewell letter she wrote, “I understand, appreciate, and even share your concern about all the dramatic changes that have occurred and those that are yet to come. As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.” She signed off, “It was great working with you guys. Good luck, and stay safe.” Governor Ron DeSantis implied that Rebekah just needed a vacation and then he abruptly walked out of the press conference to avoid further questioning by reporters.

Restricting the data, is the equivalent of cutting off hurricane forecasts as a storm approaches. When requesting the previously available underlying data, Department of Health officials said that because the data is “provisional” no such requests would be considered until May 2021. Racial and ethnic data and cause of death have been consistently excluded from Florida’s line listing of cases. Such data was reported by medical examiners, but that data table has also been censored by the Department of Health making it virtually useless. 

Asal M. Johnson, an assistant Professor of Public Health at Stetson University, has also been frustrated with decreasing data access.  “They are pretending that public health is what has damaged (the) economy. They are getting it wrong; the economy is damaged because we ignored evidence to protect public health,” she wrote, adding  “They think they can save their own political interest by restricting information.”

Even children learn that by closing your eyes, the problem does not go away. The virus does not care if the numbers are hidden.