February 4, 2022

A slight disagreement – COVID continues to decline – Complaints of a grammar Nazi – Evening statistics

The worm has turned! – maybe.  Trump recently made a speech in which he asserted, with regard to Mike Pence, “Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”  Some time later, that is to say, four or five days later, Pence has ventured to disagree, saying that “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election.  And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”  This statement is the closest that Pence has come within the past year towards any sign of straightforward resentment towards the man who advocated his murder by the mob that besieged the Capitol in January, 2021; but it will have to suffice for the present. 

The number of COVID hospitalizations has decreased by 15% since mid-January.  It now stands about 124,000, which is still high, but a good deal better than it was a month ago.  Deaths are still running high at more than 2,400 per day on average, reflecting the lag between when victims become infected and when they succumb.  At this point COVID remains the third-highest cause of death in the country, lagging behind only heart disease and cancer. 

An article in Health Digest is entitled “The First Thing You Should Do When You Feel Nauseous.”  The first step I would recommend for anyone in such a state is – go and check your dictionary.  There is a certain class of words whose meanings are being obliterated thanks to their continual misuse, which our language can ill afford to spare:  “reticent” (reserved, taciturn) for “reluctant,” “disinterested” (unbiased, impartial) for “uninterested,” “infer” (deduce or conclude) for “imply” (suggest or say indirectly) and, yes, “nauseous” (causing nausea, offensive to the taste or smell) for “nauseated” (being afflicted with nausea). 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:391,258,624; # of deaths worldwide: 5,743,005; # of cases U.S.: 77,490,947; # of deaths; U.S.: 924,465.