All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Another Jamaican COVID-19 “blitz” to get second doses done

Petchary's Blog

The Ministry of Health and Wellness did incredibly well with a so-called “blitz” of vaccinationsback in April, when they managed to get 75,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines into Jamaican arms within a few days, just before their expiry date.

Now, the Ministry is at it again – for “second dose” people. My husband and I just got our second… So our lives can, hopefully, become easier and so we can become fully protected in two weeks’ time (however, we still plan to observe COVID protocols, masks, social distancing etc). I wish the “vaccine-hesitant” ones would get on board.

Health & Wellness Ministry to host Blitz for Second Dose

KINGSTON, Jamaica. Thursday, June 3, 2021: The Ministry of Health and Wellness will host a special Blitz at the National Arena on Saturday, June 5, 2021 from 10:00 am to 4:00pm. This Blitz is intended to provide the second dose of…

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Illegal drone scares terns, which abandon 3,000 eggs on Bolsa Chica nesting island – San Gabriel Valley Tribune (Me: Humans/boys with toys – the curse on nature!)

Some 3,000 elegant tern eggs were recently abandoned on a nesting island at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach after a drone, prohibited in the area, crashed and scared off the would be parents. (Photo courtesy of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.)
Drone activity has increased with the popularity of the remote-controlled flying cameras, but it’s only part of the illegal activity disturbing the usually abundant bird life at the reserve, according to both Loebl and Molsberry. With the pandemic driving more and more people to outdoor spaces, last year saw about 100,000 visitors to the Bolsa Chica reserve – up from about 60,000 the previous year, Loebl said. That’s contributed not only to increased drone activity, but also to more dogs and bicycles on the trails – all of which are illegal. Another problem is the Brightwater development of multimillion-dollar homes on the hillside at the north end of the reserve overlooking the wetlands. While most residents respect the sensitive nature of the estuary, there are a few troublesome scofflaws that allow their dogs into the area. “It’s residents that sometimes feel entitled, that feel they should be able to use the land as they like,” Molsberry said. As with the drones, dogs mean fewer birds at the de factor avian sanctuary. At nearly 1,500 acres, the reserve is the largest saltwater marsh between Monterey Bay and the Tijuana River Estuary. Some 800 species of plants and animals l

Source: Illegal drone scares terns, which abandon 3,000 eggs on Bolsa Chica nesting island – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Bahrain offers Pfizer booster for some who got Chinese shots – The Washington Post

Bahrain has begun offering a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for some people, six months after they received two shots of China’s Sinopharm vaccine.

The mixing of vaccines comes as the Mideast island nation struggles through its worst wave of the virus despite being one of the top countries in the world in per-capita inoculations.

The government’s BeAware mobile phone app allows those living in Bahrain to register for booster shots of either the Pfizer or the Sinopharm jabs. However, the government now recommends that people over 50, the obese and people with weakened immune systems receive the Pfizer shot regardless of whether they first received Sinopharm.

Source: Bahrain offers Pfizer booster for some who got Chinese shots – The Washington Post

Download 1,000+ Beautiful Woodblock Prints by Hiroshige, the Last Great Master of the Woodblock Print Tradition | Open Culture

For 200 years, beginning in the 1630s, Japan closed itself off from the world. In its capital of Edo the country boasted the largest city in existence, and among its population of more than a million not a single one was foreign-born. “Practically the only Europeans to have visited it were a handful of Dutchmen,” writes professor of Japanese history Jordan Sand in a new London Review of Books piece, “and so it would remain until the mid-19th century. No foreigners were permitted to live or trade on Japanese soil except the Dutch and Chinese, who were confined to enclaves in the port of Nagasaki, 750 miles from Edo. No Japanese were permitted to leave: those who disobeyed did so on pain of death.”

Source: Download 1,000+ Beautiful Woodblock Prints by Hiroshige, the Last Great Master of the Woodblock Print Tradition | Open Culture

When a Surgeon Became a Covid-19 Patient: ‘I Had Never Faced the Reality of Death’ – The New York Times

At 56, Dr. Kato was healthy and exceptionally fit. He had run the New York City Marathon seven times, and he specialized in operations that were also marathons, lasting 12 or 16 or 20 hours. He was renowned for surgical innovations, deft hands and sheer stamina. At NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where he was the surgical director of adult and pediatric liver and intestinal transplantation, his boss has called him “our Michael Jordan.”

Dr. Kato became ill with Covid-19 in March 2020.

“I was in a denial situation,” he said. “I thought I was going to be fine.”

But he soon became one of the sickest patients in his own hospital, dependent on a ventilator and other machines to pump oxygen into his bloodstream and do the work of his failing kidneys. He came close to death “many, many times,” according to Dr. Marcus R. Pereira, who oversaw Dr. Kato’s care and is the medical director of the center’s infectious disease program for transplant recipients.

Colleagues feared at first that he would not survive and then, when the worst had passed, that he might never be able to perform surgery again. But after two months in the hospital, Dr. Kato emerged with a determination to get back to work and a new sense of urgency about the need to teach other surgeons the innovative operations he had developed. His own illness also enabled him to connect with patients in ways that had not been possible before.

“I really never understood well enough how patients feel,” he said. “Even though I’m convincing patients to take a feeding tube, and encouraging them, saying, ‘Even though it looks like hell now, it will get better and you’ll get through it,’ I really never understood what that hell means.”