It’s been a long old day, full of lights. Occasional high ones and some rather low ones.
Thankfully, we ended on a positive note (quite literally?) with an amazing school concert performance by Little Miss 6000. In Italian, nogal.
But other than that, I think this day really needs putting to bed now.
And me with it.
Not every result last night was great. But this one was.
Those 98th minute scenes at Ashton Gate last night…
Hang it in the Louvre. (But maybe do a bit of cropping and editing first).
I do get it. Sometimes you just need to get the image out there and let someone else worry about the details later. And don’t panic, anonymous press photographer: I’m here to help.
There we go. Now hang it in the Louvre.
And Covid appears to have had the same effect on the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage.
Yep. By masking up and keeping our distance, we not only limited the spread of Covid, but also the spread of Influenza viruses. And while three of the four main strains did make a bit of a comeback after the Covid lockdown, it was all too much for the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage, and it appears to have died out completely.
This surprised many who study influenza, as it would be the first documented instance of a virus going extinct due to changes in human behaviour.
Actually amazing.
And this means that – because there have been no cases on B/Yamagata in the US since Spring 2020 – they are leaving it out of the upcoming seasonal influenza vaccine. Not only is this more cost effective, it also means that more vaccines can be made and distributed in the same time period.
I had a look at our South Africa Influenza data, because given the amount of global travel, there’s limited use in removing any strain from the US vaccine if it’s still prevalent elsewhere.
Influenza single infections where a subtype/lineage could be determined were dominated by A(H1N1)pdm09 (67.4%, 580/860) followed by B/Victoria (30.6%, 263/860). Low numbers of influenza A(H3N2) (1.9%, 17/860) were detected. Influenza B/Yamagata was not detected.
Emphasis by me, but only to save you some reading time, and it still counts.
If you want to read to whole NICD report into the 2024 Influenza season in South Africa, here it is.
Once again, SA was well protected by the Influenza vaccine on offer, the powers that be having nailed the likely suspects very early on and included them all in the local vaccine. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: Get Your Flu Jab as early as you possibly can. Infections in 2024 started in Week 1 of the year!
And influenza isn’t nice:
For the first two days you think you’re going to die. For the next five, you wish you had.
The flu jab WORKS! This is a virus we understand well, which is predictable, and with which we have been dealing with for many, many years. If you have the jab and then you end up getting sick, it’s almost certainly NOT FLU! Covid? Maybe – we’re completely unprotected against that here in SA. A nasty cold? Yep – those can happen and they’re horrible, but they’re nowhere near as bad as Influenza.
Although it seems likely that you won’t be vaccinated against B/Yamagata next time around, simply because you won’t have to be.
Because we killed it.
Ask any political commentator and they’ll tell you that the only states that matter in the United States right now are the swing states. And look for any Presidential candidate right now, and they’ll be in one of those swing states, trying to swing it their way.
North Carolina is one of those swing states, and yesterday, Republican candidate [checks notes] “Donald Trump” was there trying to swing it his way.
It’s worth remembering that this is a tough ask. The candidates for the two main parties are pretty much neck and neck, and of course they would be, since they are the best two people that America could find to choose between for the biggest job in the country and one of the biggest jobs on the planet.
And because these candidates are the best, because the job is so big, and because the race is so tight, literally every word counts. Everything will be analysed, broken down, fact checked and reported.
The voters think that they’ve heard it all before, and so it’s going to take something exceptional to put either one of the big guns into the all important driving seat.
With all that in mind, please enjoy Donald Trump’s closing remarks in Gastonia, NC this weekend:
“When I say insane asylums, and then I say, Doctor Hannibal Lecter, does anybody know? They go crazy they say, oh, he brings up these names out of – well, that’s genius, right, Doctor Hannibal Lecter.
There’s nobody worse than him. Silence of the Lambs. Who the hell else would even remember that? I have a great memory but they always hit me. I don’t bring it up too much because they have to take such a – he brought up Hannibal Lecter. What does that have to do with this? What is it? It has everything to do with it, right? He was – that’s who we are allowing into our country and we can’t allow it in our country.
So I’ve done something for you for you that I haven’t done in 20 speeches, I brought up Doctor Hannibal Lecter and we’re allowing him, you watch, you watch these fake people will say again, he brought up Hannibal Lecter has absolutely nothing to do. You know I do the weave, right, the weave it’s genius. You bring up Hannibal Lecter, you mention insane asylum. Hannibal Lecter. You go out, now there’ll be a time in life where the weave won’t finish properly at the bottom and then we can talk.
But right now it’s pure genius hey, I have an uncle, my uncle, Uncle John, my father’s brother, 41 years at MIT longest serving professor has so many degrees he didn’t know what the hell to do with them all in the most complicated, I understand a lot of this stuff, you know, I believe in that. Like, I mean, Jack Nicklaus is not gonna produce a bad golfer. Right you know, that’s the way it works it’s just one of those things and it’s in the family and it’s whatever.”
I know, right?
For me, it’s obviously right up there with MLK Jr.’s I Have A Dream or Churchill’s We Shall Fight On The Beaches. And thus, it will surely take its rightful place as the most inspired – and most inspiring – political monologue of the 21st Century. And I suppose that I could add “so far” on the end of that sentence, but really, who amongst us honestly believes that this will be outdone in the next 76 years?
Literally all of America has been crying out for something… anything: some sign or indication as to who should lead their country for the next 4 years. And if you read those words above and the answer isn’t clear to you… well… then I don’t know what needs to be done.
Of course, the real issue here is that North Carolina needed swinging, and so Trump came out with this absolute shitshow of rambling, nonsensical drivel in front of his supporters at the event – and all across America – and they will still choose to vote for him.
“Doomed” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Really nothing too strenuous. My Garmin watch wasn’t even sure I had been out and about. But 4.5km along the front of Table Mountain was a lovely way to start the day today.
It still always amazes me that we popped out for a wander along somewhere just up the road that millions of people travel thousands of miles to visit. Quite a few of them were there as well, blindly walking across the road at the Cableway Station, and foolishly tackling India Venster.
The weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold (all you need is a light jacket) (IYKYK), with the sun occasionally revealing itself from behind the dramatic orthographic clouds swirling around Devils Peak:
And the odd glimpse down into the City Bowl:
We finished so soon that we were only able to do a morning coffee, rather than a morning beer (the irritating licensing laws having comprehensively failed to force us into church anyway) and we were home before lunchtime and ready to enjoy the rest of our day.
Nap, football and braai being the order of events.
Obviously.
