Most people were eager to see the backside of 2020 which, has been called many “names”, including “The year of the plague”. Expectedly, New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world were largely subdued and events cancelled in many major cities …
with Dubai being a notable exception. The New York City Times Square celebration, is always a great event and a major tourist destination. This year the ball was still dropped but the event was closed to the public; rightfully, a lucky few frontline workers had special invitations to attend the event. To demonstrate the magnitude of the New York City, Times Square New Years Eve celebration, packages are already being advertised for New Years Eve 2022!
In our part of the world (Melbourne, Australia), New Years Eve celebrations were also very quiet even though we had managed to virtually eliminate the virus for 60 consecutive days; over the past week, it appears that the virus is taking hold again, and we are on course for the third wave. Numerous events planned for January and February, 2021 have now been postponed or cancelled. Hopefully we get one of the approved vaccines in time, and if not, hopefully we can stock up on neutralizing antibodies – if there is any availability. In the context of vaccines, along with the Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, the Sinopharm vaccine has received some regulatory approvals. Despite concerns in Australia, relatively, we are still at very low level of infection with daily numbers in single digits in most states; nevertheless, a safe and effective vaccine cannot come soon enough.
Unfortunately, distribution of vaccine remains an issue – particularly with the mRNA-based vaccines, which require super-cold storage to maintain effectiveness; this was highlighted by the delayed Moderna shipments to Texas. On top of the unavoidable distribution issues, some fool decided it was a good idea to spoil ~500 doses by intentionally removing vials from cold storage; hopefully, 1) this individual is punished accordingly, and 2) there not too many of those types around. Another notable complication is the administration of the regeneron antibody cocktail to 42 people in Boone County, West Virginia, instead of the COVID-19 vaccine; human error and not expected to have dangerous consequences for the recipients; the plan is to now give the recipients priority access to the vaccine – will be interesting to see if the antibodies would neutralise the spike protein product encoded by the vaccine?
As we enter 2021, the SARS-Cov-2 virus is raging around the world. Reported COVID-19 cases are over 84 million globally and have now surpassed 20 million and 10 million in India, respectively; the UK and much of Europe are struggling to keep cases and under control and Japan is seeing a major spike. The more highly transmissible variant strains particularly lineage B117 from the UK, which has now been detected in numerous countries, including Colorado and California in the US, is not helping the situation.
Apart from the combat arts, I enjoy pretty much all codes of football including, Gridiron, and a major game I look forward to each year is the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately, the game was very different this year with 1) a streamed pre-recorded version of the Rose parade which was difficult to access, 2) the game being played at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas (first time the game was not played in California since WWII), and 3) with a tiny crowd in the 80, 000 capacity stadium. The actual match itself was also not that intriguing with Alabama being too strong for Notre Dame throughout. Hopefully in 2022 we can have a Rose Bowl with huge crowds, a befitting parade, and perhaps a good game.
Until next time … Tranquilo Polymaths.