Monday, May 18, 2020

Self-isolation Day 62.


Last night I went to bed at 11pm, fell asleep quickly, got up twice during the night, finally waking at 7:15 and getting up at 7:30.


Moderna, the Massachusetts biotechnology company behind a leading effort to create a coronavirus vaccine, announced promising early results from its first human safety tests. The company plans to launch a large clinical trial in July aimed at showing whether the vaccine works.



One of my readers informed me that I could buy Marigold flower extract pills at Natural Earth Supplements. I checked their website and didn’t see a search function so I scanned through all their products but didn’t find it. I googled “Marigold Natural Earth Supplements” and it brought me to a Colombian store which was, of course, all in Spanish and it wasn’t intuitively obvious how to navigate it.

Today and tomorrow the World Health Organization is holding its 73rd annual World Health Assembly. Usually, it's held in Geneva and representatives from the WHO's 194 member countries discuss a wide range of issues. But with the coronavirus pandemic, this year's meeting will look a little different. Not only will it be held virtually for the first time, but other health topics may be put on the back-burner as officials zero in on the disease that's killed over 300,000 people and infected more than 4.5 million others.

Who won’t be invited? Taiwan. Health experts have applauded the island for how it's tackled the coronavirus. Taiwan has more than 23 million residents but fewer than 500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and only seven deaths. All of that without a major lockdown. Experts say they kept numbers low by doing things like early screenings of incoming passengers from Wuhan, setting up testing centers, contact tracing, and ramping up face mask production. It's also been donating millions of masks to other countries, including the US.

But China (a WHO member) considers self-governed Taiwan as its territory and has pressured other countries against having any kind of diplomatic ties with the island.

The coronavirus pandemic stands to be the biggest challenge the WHO's ever faced. As is, it's struggled to get countries to follow through on resolutions because it lacks the power to enforce them.



Per Medelling Guru, Colombia is starting to lift the quarantine in coronavirus-free areas starting with 90 different municipalities.



President Donald Trump said today that he is taking a malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, and a zinc supplement daily, to protect against the new coronavirus, despite warnings from his own government that it should only be administered for COVID-19 in a hospital or research setting due to potentially fatal side effects.



Esquire: “Nearly 90,000 Americans have died and 36 million are out of work as the coronavirus pandemic's toll continues to rise. Much of this pain was unavoidable. At nearly every level, elected leaders from both parties have failed to respond adequately to the virus and the severe economic fallout. But it's the federal response, led by President Trump, that is the most inept.”



PRESIDENT XI JINPING of China in a video appearance before the World Health Assembly, the annual meeting of the 194-member World Health Organization, under pressure for an international probe into the Chinese origin of the coronavirus pandemic agreed to a more global review led by the WHO, one that is less likely to cast blame on China alone. Mr. Xi sweetened the pot with a pledge of $2 billion to combat the virus around the world.



On the evening news I understood:

·      71% of the ICUs are occupied in Cali.

·      The government won’t be collecting IVA (sales) tax thru the end of July. (Not sure if that benefits customers, business owners or both.)

According to the Office of the Mayor of Bogota, there are 5,521 cases of COVID-19 in Bogota as of May 18, 2020. The mayor's office recently raised the state of alert from yellow to orange in areas of the city with higher COVID-19 concern. 



Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday that it's "not a good idea" for President Trump to be taking hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for coronavirus. "I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group, what is morbidly obese, they say," Pelosi said during an appearance on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360."



Last week, Biden said that he was "really resisting" giving the president a moniker but it appears Biden, who is known to Trump as "Sleepy Joe", in an attempt to question whether he is fit for office, had finally reached his limit.  

"Trump is out there tweeting again this morning. I call him President Tweety!" Biden said in a video message posted online on Monday.

In Biden's video message on Monday, the former vice-president argued that Trump had been acting far too slow when it came to getting federal relief aid out to workers and businesses being hurt by the drastic and sudden shutdown of the economy due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"How are we supposed to do that if you're sitting on the money small businesses need in order to stay alive? Stop tweeting about it. Get the money out to Main Street now. It's there. It's been passed," Biden said as he addressed the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Victory Fund's progressive summit.    



We lost our internet connection intermittently today.



One vaccine in the coronavirus race has shown promising results. Moderna reported that its vaccine triggered blood levels of virus-fighting antibodies that were similar to or greater than those found in patients who recovered.



I finished watching The Last Dance on Netflix.



Transit workers are paying a heavy price during this pandemic. By one bus driver's count, 129 New York City transit workers have died of covid-19.



A $500 billion fund allocated by the Cares Act to help stabilize the economy has lent barely any money at all, according to the Congressional Oversight Commission.



I finished reading The Great Influenza by John M. Barry. I recommend this read for everyone – especially these days. And don’t skip the Afterward at the end.



And a Trump replay from January 30^th: “We think we have it very well under control.  We have very little problem in this country at the moment – five – and those people are all recuperating successfully.  But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a good ending for us…that I can assure you.”

The US has 1,474,321  ð 1,484,482 ð 1,512,153 coronavirus cases with 88,658 ð 89,123 ð 90,139 deaths. Thankfully, it looks like the growth rate is slowing although the virus might just be moving from the more populated cities to the less populated towns.


Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 14,939 ð 15,574 ð 16,295 cases with 592 deaths.  Medellin has 329 ð 342 ð 350 cases, an increase of 8 from May 16^th to 17^th.



Joke of the day

A woman joins a country club and one day hears the guys talking about their golf round.

She says, "I played on my college's golf team. I was pretty good. Mind if I join you next week?"

No one wants to say 'yes', but they're on the spot.

Finally, one man says, "Okay, but we start at 6:30 am."

He figures the early tee-time will discourage her.

The woman says this may be a problem and asks if she can be up to 15 minutes late.

They roll their eyes, but say, "Okay."

She's there at 6:30 am sharp and beats all of them with an eye-opening 2-under par round.

She's fun and pleasant and the guys are impressed.

They congratulate her and invite her back the next week.

She smiles, and says, "I'll be there at 6:30, or 6:45."

The next week she again shows up at 6:30 sharp.

Only this time, she plays left-handed.

The three guys are incredulous as she still beats them with an even par round, despite playing with her off-hand.

They're totally amazed. They can't figure her out. She's very pleasant and a gracious winner. They invite her back again, but each man harbors a burning desire to beat her.

The third week, she's 15 minutes late, which irritates the guys. This week she plays right-handed and narrowly beats all three of them. The men grumble that her late arrival is petty gamesmanship on her part.

However, she's so charming and complimentary of their strong play, they can't hold a grudge. This woman is a riddle no one can figure out.

After the game they decide to have a couple of beers in the clubhouse.

Finally, one of the men asks her, "How do you decide if you're going to golf right-handed or left-handed?" The lady blushes, and grins. "Well I'm ambidextrous," she replies. "I like to switch back and forth. When I got married after college, I discovered my husband always sleeps in the nude. Right before I leave in the morning for golf practice, I pull the covers off him. If his willy points to the right, I golf right-handed; if it points to the left, I golf left-handed."  The guys think this is hysterical and burst into laughter. 

Astonished at this bizarre information, one of the them asks, "What if it's pointing straight up?"

"Then I'm fifteen minutes late."