Shutdown Diary
The latest stats from WaPo:
The latest vaccine stats from CDC:
These stats are of interest:
The omicron wave continues to decline with the 3-day weekend declining to 5-figures (counts are usually lighter) but the average is still in roughly 120K range. A downtrend in lagging indicator death counts seems confirmed although the drop-off hasn't been as dramatic as for cases and hospitalizations.
Probably the biggest buzz lately is the more contagious, more difficult to diagnose omicron subvariant BA.2. There can be little doubt that the unvaccinated (without prior COVID-19 exposure) pose a risk in the sense that correlated longer illnesses make mutations more likely to emerge.
It's still a dangerous world out there (e.g., Queen Elizabeth's infection even as Prime Minister Johnson announces the end of COVID-19 policy restrictions), and I recommend prudent behavior like quality masks in indoor/crowded areas and distancing, especially around those exhibiting respiratory symptoms. If you are having symptoms, consider isolating yourself and/or getting tested. At least one disturbing point is that only a minority of fully vaccinated people have gotten boosted--and I personally know of breakthrough cases during the omicron wave. Obviously if you haven't gotten vaccinated, get vaccinated; if vaccinated and not boosted, get boosted.
Various Notes
Mixed readership numbers. I hit a rough patch over the past week over the blog, although I published a string of one-off posts in addition to my daily miscellany post. (I should easily make my informal 40 post monthly goal), I was narrowly on the path to 2K pageviews but barring an unlikely reader burst I'll likely end up a few hundred shy, near or below my low over the past year. I'm not publishing for views but it is disappointing. I'm still muddling through my Twitter slump although a sarcastic one I made after the recent Durham filing suggesting the next Trumpkin conspiracy theory would be the Clinton campaign hiring s Trump impersonator asking Russia for Clinton's emails. actually attracted around 2300 impressions, probably the biggest tweet in months.
ISP madness. I had a cluster of Internet issues over the holiday weekend. The ISP's tech support voice system always instructs us to power cycle the modem/router. That often restores connection at least temporarily. I have a Google hub which is my canary in a WIFI coal mine. I'll see the screensaver morph into Internet connection issue messages. Sometimes I run into issues running Youtube videos even though my tray icon shows connections; other times I'm using a cable app like Prime Video or Peacock stops working. Occasionally it affects remote work. For example I'm working on a server when all of a sudden I can't type--and my VPN session crashes. Or I'm joining a web conference and the call disconnects.
So what started the weekend cycle was rebooting the modem wasn't working--requiring a technician visit, which can take hours or days to arrange. I wasn't sure what to tell my boss: would I have to ask for paid time off/vacation days? So the first guy replaced my 5-year-old modem, worked on my outside connections, etc. That seemed to resolve the issues over the next several hours. On Saturday, I was watching a WWE PPV Saturday afternoon when my Internet connections dropped at least 4 or 5 times, on a couple of occasions in under 5 minutes. Tech support insisted no maintenance being done (I found out later wrong). Two visits Saturday, a couple more Sunday. The last one Sunday they also swapped my cable box (I ended up having to pair one of my remotes today when replacing batteries didn't work), tightened some connections, including inside the wall, and replaced a couple of cables. This time the lead technician left me a business card and followed up today. Some minor but annoying interference on my TV (that led me to believe the inexpensive TV I bought in Arizona (the cable service supported only HDMI connections, not coaxial connection to my old portable color TV) was failing seemed to be cleared up by tightened connections and a replaced HDMI cable
It seems that Monday was the first day in a while with no Internet issues. But I never did see the end of the Brock Lesnar match on the Saturday PPV (I'm confused by Peacock programming but I don't think they had a rebroadcast option). And there were a couple of movies over the weekend I tried to watch on demand, one on HBO, but I ended up having to look up the end of the movies on Wikipedia.
I'm sure other readers have had similar or worse support issues.
