Friday, September 8, 2017

There We Go—8.1 Magnitude Earthquake and Tsunami Off Mexico (and a new superbug emerges in China)

It was 36 hours ago that yours truly was giving thanks for small blessings:
...A quick glance at the U.S. Geological Survey site - blogroll, right - shows no earthquakes above magnitude 5.1 so far today, so there is that. 
That was in "As Hurricane José Forms In Irma's Wake The Sun Fires Off Another Solar Flare, the Largest in Ten Years" .
Well, now that quakes have been checked off the list, and we've got the upcoming asteroid visit, I should probably note there is another Irma-like tropical-storm wave about to come off Africa.

Oh, and according to The Lancet the superbug is hypervirulent AND antibiotic-resistant:
...Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae strains often cause life-threatening community-acquired infections in young and healthy hosts, but are usually sensitive to antibiotics. In this study, we investigated a fatal outbreak of ventilator-associated pneumonia caused by a new emerging hypervirulent K pneumoniae strain....
-A fatal outbreak of ST11 carbapenem-resistant hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae in a Chinese hospital: a molecular epidemiological study
Did I mention that unlike regular pneumonia this version is contagious?
No word from Swiss Re on whether the new strain would be considered a trigger for the first ever pandemic bonds launched all of 10 weeks ago:
28 June 2017, Zurich 

World Bank launches first-ever bonds to combat pandemic outbreaks – Swiss Re Capital Markets joint structurer and sole book-runner for transaction
Here's the U.S. Geological Survey page on the quake:
M 8.1 - 87km SW of Pijijiapan, Mexico
It doesn't really matter but we only added the USGS to the blogroll last week.

We'll be back with more, I hope.