Pandemic Report
The latest stats from WaPo:
The latest vaccine data from CDC:
There's no way to explain away a 20+% surge to 36.5K cases per day. After witnessing the ongoing Shanghai BA.2 wave, one is nervous in predicting the nature and extent of this wave, but what I've heard from most experts, this is expected to be a minor one. A new COVID variant, XE, has been identified, a "recombinant" variant, a combination of the original omicron (BA.1) and the current BA.2 subvariant. Earlier recombinant variants (AB,...AD) did not emerge as a serious threat. The Biden Administration has extended the public transit/airport masking requirement through early May. Pfizer has provided strong evidence favoring its 3 dose COVID-19 vaccine for the 5-11 child range. On a more personal note, my local Walmart was running low on Pfizer doses for scheduling my second booster, so I'll have to wait at least until next week; at least one of my siblings has had her second. As usual, I strongly recommend that readers complete their base two-shot vaccine; boosters are recommended within 4-6 months of your last shot. You can mix/match base shots and boosters. For example, my RN sister had a J&J (once and done) base and a Moderna booster.
Other Notes
Well, I thought the tax day deadline was today (4/15 as I write) but it's been extended until Monday. I got it done earlier in the week. I ended up going to Walmart to pick up some envelopes (I've got some in moving boxes from last fall). No, I till haven't tried e-filing yet. Then I went to my local post office to drop off my federal and state returns and found myself confronted with an unusual mailbox, which I think is discussed here, but not in my MD region. There is no open mouth, but something like a slender slot embedded in the mouth, allegedly to foil "mail fishing" by thieves looking for checks to hijack.It was just very weird; I wanted some audible feedback of the mail dropping. Some elderly woman passed by me, saying she wasn't sure they collected from the outside box I was using. In fact I looked for a slot inside, but the only thing I saw what like a slot for overnight delivery. I watched her and that's what she used. I just don't like how annoying they made something something complicated like a simple mail drop-off. My prior post office from a few months back had labeled inside slots for local and out-of-town mail and typical open-mouth mailboxes.
I'm not paranoid about mail collection from the box in front of the post office. I routinely scan my completed returns. I've been anal-retentive about checking my scans since California stole from me hundreds of dollars. I had 4 W-2's that year; California then and probably still has a mandatory state-run disability insurance program; I had run up the maximum payment with my first employer; my subsequent employers, including a Los Gatos consultancy that folded soon after I was laid off, deducted disability payments de novo. The state was supposed to reimburse me or apply the overage as tax payments. Long story short, after I had moved back to Illinois, with my paper copies in storage somewhere, California denied refunding the excess contribution. Somehow the thieving incompetents lost their copies of my W-2's. Oh, the greedy bastards accepted the income figures from my missing W-2's but not the disability overage. Nope, they couldn't get it from employer data. I supposedly had the burden of proof from my own W-2's. I had scanned my W-2's--but my scanned copy was corrupted and unusable. I had no point of contact with my out-of-business employer. So California disallowed refunding my over-payment. (They also stole over $1000 of a Roth IRA conversion I had made earlier in Illinois. It was not income earned in California. The feds allowed us to spread the amount over 4 years. Illinois did not tax that money--but California did. The thieving bastards reasoned because they didn't chase after former California residents who converted their IRA's, they were entitled to go after my money. I never had any intention of moving to California. Regular readers have known about my job offer by extortion. I was a subcontractor (with a standard no-compete clause). I had been flying in weekly from Chicago. I was about to leave for SFO one Friday when my client boss said if I didn't accept a perm job offer (without notice , not to fly back Monday, i.e., I would be unemployed, I mentioned I couldn't even if I wanted. He told me he had leverage over my agency (they didn't invoice for my services correctly) I never wanted to move to California in the first place. The state government stealing from me made it worse. So I've been anal-retentive about scanning and reviewing my returns and W-2's since then.
I did get a bit of sticker shock while I was in Walmart for my envelopes. I did check a lot of prices. I think I mentioned hos I saw prices on canned pasta jump like from like 59 cents to 95 cents. Well, at Walmart, they had jumped to like 98 cents. It depends on the item, of course, but it seemed every thing from formerly $2-4 was up almost a buck or more. A container of potato salad, normally about $2.46 a container, a deli shop $5 pizza, a frozen pizza. These items are not on my regular shopping list, but they had been stable for at least a year or longer. Even Hormel Compleats went up from around $1.89 to $2.12. (I used to buy these for a quick meal after an eye surgery some time back.) I didn't see bags of (non-breakfast) burritos, but I would be willing to believe the $4.60+ price at Lidl is probably competitive.
I had completely forgotten that Lifetime had planned to reboot Michael Landon's "Highway to Heaven" fantasy series, about an angel sent to intervene in people's lives (I don't know if Landon got inspired watching "It's a Wonderful Life"). The reboot is in the format of a TV movie (vs. weekly) series. As far as I can tell, there's been one movie so far (I haven't seen discussion of a second movie, but that may be an artifact of my search), which apparently debuted last November. So I saw the movie in Lifetime's Friday afternoon's schedule and watched. In this reboot, the protagonist is a female of color. I guess I've watched too many "Touched By an Angel"'s gimmick of angels glowing in revealing themselves. I have to say, I loved the movie. Angela (her given name, of course) plays a replacement junior high school guidance counselor. Her assignment: an eighth grade boy whose academic record has crashed since his mother's death a few years earlier; the widower has his own issues coping with her death, not to mention the late mom's younger sister. I can be highly critical of cable movies, but I was entertained and the plot wasn't too predictable. I was puzzled by the revelation that the boy discovered letters from his mom to her extended family, but his own turned out blank (which exacerbates his downward spiral). Still, I recommend it and look forward to the next in the series.
Finally, I meant to mention woke Disney in my last post. Disney management is unhappy with the culture wars being played our in the Florida government (e.g., the misleadingly termed "don't say gay" law). I am nor a fan of leftist topics getting embedded in storylines, political rants at entertainment events, or entertainment businesses intervening in political disputes, potentially alienating up to half their audience. It has alienated me in the sense I had been considering subscribing to one of their streaming services, but that's done. I was curious about my oldest nephew's Disney-obsessed family. My impression was my niece-in-law was a Trumpkin and was curious if woke Disney alienated them. To paraphrase her: hell no! We don't let politics mess with family fun. I think she has participated in eome Disney World running events, and they've probably visited (from Texas) Disney World at least a half dozen times I'm aware. Their daughters are now in their teens, but still... I'm not saying my nephew's family is representative, but I guess if they don't like the politics, Disney is still providing an entertainment niche they enjoy.
