COVID Dystopia: Yea, I should Go

Posted on by Thor

This was probably the most complex scene to animate in COVID Dystopia. I learned so much about rubber hose animation and overlapping action by doing this shot.

I am sure most people have blocked the fact that on New Year’s Eve in 2021, Times Square had no live spectators. They filled the square with Wacky Wavy Balloon Arm Men so the shots on TV would appear less deserted and more active. This was American ingenuity at work.

Right now the COVID hospitalization have dropped down to a rather high base line. England is seeing a rise in cases and as always I am sure America will follow. Now is a good time to get those medical appointments set up since this is as low as it will go before another spike in cases. We are coming off of the JN1 spike and new variants are jockeying for dominance for the next spike. The Omicron spike was huge,  so each new wave seems small in comparison. People cave been conditioned to accept mass infection.

I have stopped drinking milk because bird flu (h5N1) has infected so many dairy cow herds in America. 33 herds have tested positive so far. The cows were likely infected from chickens. Cow feed is actually laced with chicken droppings.

One in five samples of commercially available milk in stores has been found to test positive for h5N1. The hope is that pasteurization will kill the active virus, but pasteurization temperatures are not standardized. Until there is more testing, and no active virus is found in any samples, I remain cautious.

This morning I tried Almond milk on my cereal and it was actually really good. I am also thinking about making breakfast smoothies in the morning, again with almond milk and fruit like blueberries and bananas. I have made some eggs over the last week but I am making sure I cook them extra well so that they are not runny. I have one small packet of vegan cheese left over and I am thinking of switching over to vegan cheese to see how that tastes.

The primary concern should probably not be the consumption of the virus. I am sure it is airborne and that will be the primary way it spreads. Early reports are that human to human transmission has not yet happened. Then again that is what was being reported in China at the start of the COVID outbreak. Only two proteins are keeping human to human transmission from happening. I have learned to respect viruses. They are tenacious and will find a way to spread. Humans are the best mammalian host to spread the virus world wide. Since h5N1 has a 52% mortality rate, this would be a horrible outbreak if it happens.

COVID Dystopia: Till the Internet Went Down

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Animation in this shot form COVID Dystopia is limited to a depth map and camera move. You would think that this man would be out of the news by now but he still gets endless coverage due to his criminal trials and the fact that he is running for office again.

Now he sends out tweets during his trail claiming that thousands of his followers might invade the courthouse and he claims the judge isn’t qualified. It is just the usual rantings of a mad man. I should have put him in a straight jacked in this shot, but then he could not hold his precious phone.

Yesterday I finished the last two shot that I had correction notes for. I will go over the notes I wrote her over the past several weeks but I am feeling the film is complete.

No I face the challenge of what to do next. I can start designing the book, but I wold prefer to have a publisher rather than self publish. I would hate to print a whole lot of books that then say in boxes unsold.

H5N1 is also on the horizon with American cow herds being infected far more than previously suspected. One dairy farmer in Texas was infected from direct contact. Human to human transmission has not yet happened. At the start of the COVID outbreak in China all officials claimed the virus could not spread between humans as well. THey wanted to pacify the populace rather than warn them.If that does happen the h5N1 pandemic would be far worse than the COVID pandemic with a possible 56% mortality rate. The virus has been detected in commercially available milk but it is believed that those are viral fragments that can not cause infection. If this virus does spread we have the tools to stay safe but people have bee too well trained in denial and dark ages ignorance. People can not take precautions against something they can not see.

COVID Dystopia: Flesh Dropped Like a Waterfall

Posted on by Thor


This shot from COVID Dystopia pans down from the boat on the surface to a large COVID mine chained to the characters ankle. He sinks fast.

I am waving on the idea of having removed all the snap zoom transitions in the film. Maybe I should add back snap zooms between the different stanzas of the lyrics. In my mind the lyrics are arranges with an introduction which this scene is a part of, then year 1, year2 and year 3 of the pandemic. Of course the pandemic is still ongoing but that is the point of the lyrics at the end… “I can’t wait for the game to end so we can start it again.” In other words the game hasn’t ended. Or if you have a darker outlook, the game of life is not yet over.

While people are busy ignoring COVID, a new threat is spreading across America in the form of H5N1 or the Bird Flu. This virus has been around for decades but mostly effected birds.

Since January 1, 2003 to February 2024 there had been a total of 254 cases of human infection. Of those cases 141 were fatal. That is a fatality rate of 56%.

In the last week America dairy cow herds in distant states are becoming infected with the H5N1 virus. Herds have been infected in Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Idaho and New Mexico. Cats have also been infected. This is a very new development. Now a man has been infected in Texas. This is a very sudden timeline for the spread of the virus. The virus found in the Texas man was found to have a unique mutation associated with adaptation to mammalian hosts. In other words the mutation developed in the man and is not from a bird or cow. It is unclear if human to human transmission is possible. Some believe the man may have been infected through his eyes but influenza is traditionally an airborne virus. If the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s response to this virus is similar to their response to COVID we can expect things to continue to escalate. If the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s response to this virus is similar to their response to COVID we can expect things to continue to escalate.

An advisory has been issued to NOT drink raw milk and be sure eggs are fully cooked.

H5Ni symptoms:

  • Fever (100+ fever and chills)
  • Cough
  • Sore Throat
  • Runny or stuffy nose
  • Headaches
  • Fatigue
  • Eye Redness (conjunctivitis)
  • Difficulty breathing
  • Diarrhea
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Seizures

 

 

Bird Flu

Posted on by Thor

A research team published a study in One Health that analyzed over 70,000 records related to bird flu (H5N1) from 1970 to 2016. The researchers concluded that bird flu might be the source of a new pandemic strain. Bird flu could become zoonotic, that is, transfer from animal to human.

The virus has made the  jump from birds to mammals. Professor Michael Ward from the Sydney School of Veterinary Science, said, “It’s just a numbers game. Viruses jumping species is not a rare event, so it’s likely a virus will eventually make that final jump to humans.”

H5N1 has infected almost 900 people since 2003 with a death rate just shy of 52.5 percent, according to the World Health Organization. Since January 2022 in the United States, outbreaks of a branch of H5N1 known as 2.3.4.4b have affected more than 58 million fowl, resulting in the deaths or culling of most. Farms that raise poultry are reluctant to report cases since it would result in devastating financial losses.

The Philadelphia Enquirer reported that Bird Flu is hitting Pennsylvania harder than any other state. In the last 30 days, more than 215,000 birds in Pennsylvania have been affected by avian flu, meaning they are raised on farms or in backyards where the disease has been confirmed.

In the U.S., it has recently been detected in wild birds in every state, as well as in commercial poultry operations or backyard flocks in 47 states. Since the beginning of last year, tens of millions of chickens have died of the virus or been killed to stop outbreaks from spreading. The death rate among birds affected is over 50%. The bird flu has resulted is rising egg prices.

Bird Flu had made the jump to mammals. In June and July 2023, more than 150 dead or ailing seals washed ashore in Maine with the deadly virus. It is likely that wild birds introduced the virus to seals. Bird flu has also spread to minks and the virus seems to be spreading from mammal to mammal. In Vancouver, Canada skunks are being found infected with bird flu.

Globally, nearly 870 human infections and 457 deaths have been reported to the World Health Organization in 20 countries. But the pace has slowed and there have been about 170 infections and 50 deaths in the last seven years. In the vast majority of cases, the infected people got it directly from infected birds. Human to human transmission of the virus has not yet been confirmed.

Should an outbreak happen it is clear that the human race is not prepared. COVID-19 has a mortality rate of just 1% which resulted in over 6 million of deaths worldwide. Imagine an outbreak where the mortality rate jumps from 1% to over 50%. Those numbers are hard to imagine.

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.