Sincerely,

Dennis & Ruth

I hope all is well your way….just concerned at May 6th was the last TGIF I have received….hope that means your on holiday having a great time…I/we just returned from 4 weeks in Kona, so we are tan, rested & relaxed, regretfully, already getting back into the hectic pace of SoCal….Good thoughts your way….Cheers

I hope you are doing well. Are you still sending out Friday TGIF? I have not received any emails the past two weeks. Please let me know.

Thank you,

Don

Anne

Excerpt from New York Times (to read more go to the source):

How Australia Saved Thousands of Lives While Covid Killed a Million Americans
Damien Cave, NEW YORK TIMES, May 16, 2022

MELBOURNE, Australia — If the United States had the same Covid death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved. The Texas grandmother who made the perfect pumpkin pie might still be baking. The Red Sox-loving husband who ran marathons before Covid might still be cheering at Fenway Park.

© Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times The Southbank promenade in Melbourne, Australia, in March.
For many Americans, imagining what might have been will be painful. But especially now, at the milestone of one million deaths in the United States, the nations that did a better job of keeping people alive show what Americans could have done differently and what might still need to change.

Many places provide insight. Japan. Kenya. Norway. But Australia offers perhaps the sharpest comparisons with the American experience. Both countries are English-speaking democracies with similar demographic profiles. In Australia and in the United States, the median age is 38. Roughly 86 percent of Australians live in urban areas, compared with 83 percent of Americans

Yet Australia’s Covid death rate sits at one-tenth of America’s, putting the nation of 25 million people (with around 7,500 deaths) near the top of global rankings in the protection of life.

Australia’s location in the distant Pacific is often cited as the cause for its relative Covid success. That, however, does not fully explain the difference in outcomes between the two countries, since Australia has long been, like the United States, highly connected to the world through trade, tourism and immigration. In 2019, 9.5 million international tourists came to Australia. Sydney and Melbourne could just as easily have become as overrun with Covid as New York or any other American city.

Are you OK? You home…or the hospital with something?

Your friend, –Jeff (from Arcadia! ha!)