Post #5411 J

Shutdown Diary

The latest stats from WaPo:

In the past week in the U.S. ...

New daily reported cases fell 3.8% 

New daily reported deaths fell 8.4% 

Covid-related hospitalizations fell 6.2% Read more

Among reported tests, the positivity rate was 5%.

The number of tests reported fell 21.1% 

In the last week, an average of 1.01 million doses per day were administered, a 31% increase  over the week before.

According to CDC:

The Delta wave continues to decline with cases down to nearly 72K a day rolling average.  Keep in mind this is still a six-fold increase from where we were in June and early July and is still only a modest decline over the past week (about 2%). And in fact we've seen significant increases in multiple states including in California and some mountain/SW/midwestern states. So obviously we haven't achieved herd immunity and the unvaccinated remain a big reason. Nearly all of the least vaccinated states are red ones, with a cluster of Northeastern states nearing or over the 70% fully vaccinated ones. I used to grab a separate breakout of new vaccinations off my second WaPo link, off a second chart; maybe they've reorganized things but I haven't seen it reported recently. A million doses sounds impressive until you realize it's about a third of a percent nationally over the week. I don't see a breakout, but it wouldn't surprise me if the spike is due to recent FDA/CDC liberalized distribution of booster shots. In a recent journal post I was puzzled by a breakout showing higher boosters among 50+ vs seniors. This was an anomaly because seniors are automatically eligible while other age groups are primarily the health complications and "essential worker" groups. So this post's chart is more like what I would have expected.

I'm getting more and more annoyed by the anti-vaxxer libertarian thread. (I also recently published a rant on my encounter with an anti-vaxxer troll on Twitter.) I refuse to republish most of this stuff in my daily blog, Just the title on a recent Ron Paul clip implied Pfizer vaccines for kids and others  was all a crony capitalistic corrupt scheme at the expense of the American taxpayer. Let's be clear: there is a global shortage of vaccine. The US government controls vaccine approval and has approved 2 other vaccines. I and/or my insurer would have gladly paid for a vaccine without government approval or single-payer control of distribution. I'm also tired of the incessant talking point by Woods and others that kids generally have low mortality/hospitalization risk and hence vaccines are unnecessary. Tom Woods is grossly incompetent in science. Viruses can and do infect children and can be propagated to others, including at risk kids. The flu is a top 10 killer of children, and there're data suggesting COVID-19 has killed more kids over the past year. As I write, the Pfizer vaccine for 5-11 yo has been approved by the FDA, meaning just CDC approval needed, which is expected next week.

Two younger siblings and their spouses have joined me in getting mRNA boosters. I don't know about the health circumstances of the 4 youngest.

Getting back to my rant on Woods, I'm rather tired of his tendency to cherry-pick scholars from "prestigious" colleges that agree with him (appeals to authority don't impress me much). Then there's these tiresome rants against mask policy (most recently on a Deist-Woods clip on my daily blog). Now I have my own criticisms, including the fact most facemasks do a poor job of protecting against bioaerosols, not to mention I'm not sure police can judge if they're worn correctly or within social distancing guidelines. But Wood focuses on these simplistic comparisons where the operational factor is a state facemask mandate. There are a number of assumptions here, involving a number of factors: population density, parity in infection rate, temperature/humidity, other preventive factors, etc. Just to give a simple example: Woods continues to hype Florida Gov. DeSantis (his alleged command of knowledge of relevant research) and his general unfavorable disposition to state COVID-19 policy. But let's point out that the state has a large senior population that's heavily vaccinated has a nearly 60% fully vaccinated base, slightly higher than average. Now you can argue that vaccination was a voluntary activity, but arguing laissez faire policies led to improved outcomes is disputable. In fact, some of Florida's statistics have been poor during part of the Delta wave.

I always forget to note an amusing Alaska visit promotion where the governor tongue-in-cheek notes you can even get a COVID-19 vaccination if you want to. Oh, yeah, thar's the ticket. It reminds me of my job-offer-by-extortion in Santa Clara where my boss specifically used vending machines with quarter cans of Coke. Of course, a spartan small apartment started at over $1300/month rent. I don't think I ever bought a Coke as long as I worked there.

Other Notes

Blog readership has clinched the best showing in 3 months with a day remaining; a lot of that was because of the first full week this month which had one of the best streaks in months. However, individual posts have been in a slump with only 1 post over the past week hitting double-digits. Usually a majority or plurality of posts reach double-digits. 

Accuweather, which originally announced it would end its free daily forecast service I've used for years this past spring, says it will end the service this month. I wasn't quite sure of the business model--monetize visits to its portal? It is promoting a pricey snow alerting system. Of course, I have weather alerts configured with Amazon Alexa and several weather sites bookmarked as well as cellphone apps readily available.

We're heading into the holiday season; Halloween candy has been out for weeks. My latest Lidl shopping ad front page is half full of Christmas merchandise. And we're already one week into Hallmark's Countdown to Christmas. I think I listed some of my favorites during their Christmas in July tradition. I've seen some favorites including:

• The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
• Holly and Ivy
• Christmas with Holly.

The latter two deal with girls orphaned by the passing of their single moms. (The first also deals with a single mom.) But a 2012 film I hadn't seen in a while also touches on orphans: Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

This film deals with Emily, aa single woman who's the parade manager, feeling threatened by Henry, a consultant hired by Chicago to evaluate the parade. Emily is quirky, trying to teach herself Spanish, she wears vintage and loves to eat at Jim's, a hole in the wall pizza parlor. (I remember when I was working at the EPA regional lab as a DBA contractor, there was this hole in the wall burger joint across the street which grilled onions for your burgers, hot tasty fries and a can of Coke for some cheap price; I loved it.)

Emily is in love with this commitment-phobe marine biologist Brian, who's an obvious self-absorbed jerk. Most Hallmark movies are very predictable. You immediately sense Emily is going to end up with her new nemesis Henry; the only thing that's not clear is how it's going to happen.

I don't want to give away the plot, but I think the most memorable part of the movie is when Emily finally breaks it off with Brian, whose world  had crumbled when Emily, expecting a proposal and being disappointed, broke up. Emily had accepted Brian's proposal primarily over Henry's objections. Brian is in utter shock. I'm paraphrasing, bur it's hilarious: "How could you pass on all this (pointing to himself)? Sailing around the world with ME, a marine biologist. ARE YOU CRAZY?" He is utterly clueless.

I don't pretend to speak for all men when it comes to women; I do think they can be more fixated and critical of their appearance. I once had a tall girlfriend (who had a model's portfolio but I don't know how successful she was). She complained she needed to lose 15 pounds. I had never said anything critical of her appearance; I'm like "From where?" I do think attraction is a part of the picture, but I think in my case a sense of humor, playfulness, kindness, positive attitude, self-confidence, and interesting conversation play roles. I remember during my graduate school days in Austin, I was walking down the Drag, and a shapely coed approached me from the other direction. Her t-shirt read "If you can read this, you're a pig." I really don't worry about what strangers think of me, but lady, I read the back of cereal boxes; I don't even recall her figure, just the shirt. It seemed paradoxical that a woman self-conscious of attention to her breasts would wear something calling attention to them, and my concept of a good time is not being with an ideologue who would have a meltdown if I held the door open for her out of politeness. I've had spectacularly bad luck in dating the wrong women. The ones I've really liked were already in relationships. 

Of course I have other interests, including renewing a professional certification and sports. As a Houston Astros fan (the only games I've attended in person.), we're in the World Series for the third time in 5 years, but down 1-2, going into tonight's away game. One of my alma maters, UT, has blown three consecutive fourth quarter leads against ranked opponents. My other alma mater, the 6-1 UH Cougars, has an early lead against SMU.

You can't get away from politics. We haven't gotten to the first pitch of the game yet, and I've seen at least 3 spots of Barry Obama pushing McAuliffe for VA governor in Tuesday's election.