Vegas Scream

Where do the unvaccinated go to gamble? You guessed right, that would be Las Vegas. COVID-19 emergency declarations for Nevada ended on May 20, 2022 as the public health agency for metro Las Vegas noted that the pandemic isn’t over.

While most of the state’s pandemic measures, including business restrictions and mask mandates, have already been lifted, the Southern Nevada Health District said it was important to remind the public that the virus that causes COVID-19 continued to circulate.

“Cases are currently increasing, and new variants are emerging,” said Dr. Fermin Leguen, chief medical officer for the district. “It is as important as ever to protect yourself and others by getting fully vaccinated and boosted if you are eligible.”

CES a tech convention was held in Las Vegas marking a return to in person conventions. The show reported attendance of over 40,000 people, with 30% of those attendees traveling from outside the U.S. Immediately afterward, about 70 show goers from Korea who attended  tested positive for COVID-19. “Many people who attended the CES international electronic product fair in Las Vegas, last week are testing positive for COVID-19,” said Son Young-rae, a South Korean senior health official. It is, of course, impossible to say exactly whether the people were infected on the show floor or in some other part of Las Vegas, such as casinos, where mask wearing is much less common.

Nevada has had over 10,909 deaths attributed to COVID-19 and over 744,000 reported infections. It is a great place to get infected and then return to your home state and infect friends and family.

Korean Military Fight Omicron

North Korea is battling an explosive COVID-19 outbreak. Experts are raising concerns that the virus could devastate a country where few have been vaccinated against the disease, medical supplies are limited and the health system in a dilapidated state.

Dictator Kim Jong Un, ordered the army to get to work “on immediately stabilizing the supply of medicines in Pyongyang”, where officials said the Omicron BA.2 variant was confirmed in at least one death last week.

As of 6pm on May 16, 2022, five days after announcing the outbreak, North Korea had reported a total of 1.48 million cases of ‘fever’, It also announced a further six deaths. It is almost guaranteed that those numbers are but a fraction of the actual totals since the dictator can in his own mind do no wrong.

The North Korean dictator had been offered assistance from South Korea, China, and the World Health Organization (WHO) but all help has been refused. Kim, who considers himself a god like figure, thinks that he is the only one who can help his people. Rather than accept vaccines from abroad, he thinks his nation will find the best cure for COVID.

Kim has said the outbreak is causing “great turmoil” in the country and on Sunday visited pharmacies neat the capital’s Taedong river, state media KCNA reported.

Despite the public health crisis, new satellite imagery indicates North Korea has resumed construction at a long-dormant nuclear reactor and officials in Washington and Seoul have warned that Kim is preparing to conduct another nuclear test.

Analysts have warned Kim could speed up nuclear testing plans to distract the population from the outbreak.

A huge military parade in North Korea on April 25, 2022 was likely a superspreader event that quickly spread the virus through the county. Send in the tanks.

Over 60 Infected at the Olympics So Far

Over 60 people working at the Olympics in Japan have tested positive for COVID Since July 1, 2021. Athletes or others who may have arrived early for training camp but are not yet under the “jurisdiction” of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are not included in the count, an official told the Associated Press.

Table Tennis player Ryu Seung-min of South Korea was the first IOC member to test positive. Two South African soccer players who were the first athletes inside the Olympic Village also tested positive.

Team South Africa confirmed the coach of its rugby sevens team also tested positive at a pre-Olympics training camp in the southern Japanese city of Kagoshima. He is in isolation there and will miss the entire rugby competition, the team said. The British Olympic Association said six athletes and two staff in the track and field squad are isolating at the team’s pre-Olympic base in Yokohama after being deemed close contacts of a person who tested positive following their flight to Japan. U.S. tennis player Coco Gauff didn’t travel to Japan after testing positive for the coronavirus.

The planned arrival of over 11,000 people is stoking fear that the Games will be a major superspreader event. Tokyo reported 1,008 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the 29th straight day that cases were higher than seven days previously. It was also the fifth straight day with more than 1,000 cases. The Olympics will open under a state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures.