By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I am finishing up a post where I show that RSV and the Flu are, like Covid — and I know this will surprise you — airborne aerosols. However, since Monday is Biobot Day, here are their new results:
Real accomplishment by the Biden Administration, exceeding all the previous infection peaks of the Trump Administration. Only a Democrats could have done it!
That said, as a totally “gut feel” tapewatcher, I would expect this peak to meet or exceed the two previous Biden peaks; after all, we haven’t really begun the next bout of holiday travel, or the next rounds of superspreading events celebrations. Plus students haven’t come from from school, and then returned. So a higher peak seems pretty much “baked in.” And that’s before we get to new variants, like JN.1. The real thing to watch is the slope of the curve. If it starts to go vertical, and if it keeps on doing so, then hold onto your hats. (Next week’s reading, however, is Christmas Day; there may well be a data-driven drop.) Stay safe out there!
Oh, and talk amongst yourselves. This is an open thread.
Bird Song of the Day
Gray Partridge, Baaigemkouter, Munte, Oost-Vlaanderen, Vlaamse Gewest, Belgium. “A second bird calling distantly.”
Partridges are ground birds. So why the “pear tree”? From the Guardian:
The image of the largely terrestrial partridge perched in a pear tree has always struck me as odd; and it seems that I was right. The ‘pear tree’ is actually a corruption of the French word for the species – perdrix, pronounced with a silent x, as pair-dree.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From CC:
CC writes: “Walking a property line a couple weeks ago, the border of which in one spot is just a little brook in a ditch. It appears that it may have undermined the tree over the years depending on the amount of water flowing. An old tree too.I find it so interesting how nature just finds a way, keeps growing along, always finding a way to survive. The roots of other trees reaching down too to get some moisture… Be well and may you and yours have a vey lovely holiday if you celebrate it.”
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