All posts by nedhamson

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

A Sweet Story

Saania's diary - reflections, learnings, sparkles

Happy Friday! Here’s a poem I wrote for my relatives for their 50th marriage anniversary. Being together (and happy) for fifty years is truly incredible, and their love story immensely amazes me! I hope you enjoy it, let me know in the comments below.

We fall in love
Hoping to share a life together
With someone special
Who will be there forever

An emotional bond
Where the hearts get paired
Where the bliss is shared
As well as each despair

Enduring life
The thicks and thins
The joys and sorrows
The losses and wins

To stick together
Through uphill climbs
And sharing laughter
In happy times

Love brings you sunshine
When all you see is rain
Love makes you smile
When all you feel is pain

Fifty years of togetherness
Bring out a meaning today
You both have truly shown us
That love can find a way

⁃ SaaniaSparkle 🧚🏻‍♀️

View original post

Race to vaccinate millions in US off to slow, messy start – San Gabriel Valley Tribune (what happens when there is no coordinated Federal leadership from White House on down?)

Overworked, underfunded state public health departments are scrambling to patch together plans for administering vaccines. Counties and hospitals have taken different approaches, leading to long li…

Source: Race to vaccinate millions in US off to slow, messy start – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Pakistan arrests 24 people over demolishing of Hindu temple – The Washington Post (in India, a state yesterday outlawed Muslim religious schools)

Pakistani police arrested 24 people in overnight raids after a Hindu temple was set on fire and demolished by a mob led by supporters of a radical Islamist party, officials said Thursday.

Meanwhile, dozens of Hindus rallied in the southern port city of Karachi to demand the rebuilding of their place of worship.

The temple’s destruction Wednesday in the northwestern town of Karak also drew condemnation from human rights activists and leaders of Pakistan’s minority Hindu community.

Source: Pakistan arrests 24 people over demolishing of Hindu temple – The Washington Post

Tokyo overshoots daily record by 40% with 1,337 COVID-19 cases | The Japan Times

Tokyo’s daily COVID-19 cases surged to a record 1,337 Thursday, the metropolitan government said, as the nationwide tally eclipsed 4,000 for the first time.

The nationwide figure was at 4,515 as of 7 p.m. Thursday, public broadcaster NHK reported, with single-day records set in Fukuoka, Saitama and Chiba prefectures.

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike has warned that holiday shopping is apparently leading to bigger crowds, and repeated her plea for residents to stay home during the holidays.

“I want to emphasis again that there is no New Year holidays for the coronavirus,” Koike said Thursday. “I urge people to spend quiet holidays staying at home with families.”

The number of infections in Tokyo in December has now exceeded 19,200, nearly double the cases confirmed in November and reflecting the rapid pace of resurgence in the city.

“We are in a very severe and crucial phase,” Koike said at a news conference on a day earlier. “It is no surprise that an explosion of infections could occur at any time.”

Source: Tokyo overshoots daily record by 40% with 1,337 COVID-19 cases | The Japan Times

The COVID-19 Vaccine Market — By the Numbers | UNICEF USA

UNICEF has launched a new interactive tool for tracking the rapidly evolving COVID-19 vaccine market — an online, dynamic dashboard presenting all the latest data about vaccines in the pipeline, manufacturers’ production capacities, supply agreements between companies and countries and much, much more. Offering a dizzying array of charts, graphs and tables, the COVID-19 Vaccine Market Dashboard covers detailed information that is already publicly available, drawing from numerous sources that UNICEF deems reliable. The dashboard is not intended to guide country decision-making, or imply endorsement of a particular product.

In its next iteration, the dashboard will track progress towards the goal of securing 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of 2021, as established by the COVAX Facility, and to communicate the status of procurement and deliveries by UNICEF and other national and institutional buyers. UNICEF is leading global procurement and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries — while also supporting procurement in 97 high-income ones — on behalf of the Facility, which was formed to ensure timely, equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries.

Source: The COVID-19 Vaccine Market — By the Numbers | UNICEF USA

State updates COVID-19 vaccine rollout | Updates | taosnews.com

Since Pfizer-BioNTech began shipping vaccines Dec. 13, New Mexico has received 49,625 doses, and distributed 41,075 of those to frontline workers. According to Collins, the state is still in the middle of Phase 1A of the vaccine rollout. While there is not a solid timeline on exactly when New Mexico will move to Phase 2, or even Phase 1B, the goal is to begin moving to later phases by late January. Source: State updates COVID-19 vaccine rollout | Updates | taosnews.com