Pandemic Report
The latest stats from WaPo:
The latest vaccine stats from CDC:
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There is no way to sugar-coat a surge over the last few weeks from about 30K cases a day to nearly 57K. And the uptick in hospitalizations is concerning, but we are not seeing the contagion stage and growth like the massive initial omicron wave. There may be a reason for that: CDC now thinks maybe over half the American population has been infected by some form of coronavirus. This is based on sampling for anti-nucleocapsid (anti-N) antibodies, which are peculiar for infected vs. vaccinated Americans. No major developments since my last journal post, other than the high profile infection of VP Harris, and Moderna has jointed Pfizer in applying for emergency authorization for young kids (6 months on up), currently not eligible for vaccines. I don't think this is a "new' item but I hadn't discussed it; the NEJM posted a large randomized study from Brazil showing no significant advantage in the use of ivermectin in protecting against COVID19 hospitalization. (I tweeted a related joke, at least Joe Rogan doesn't have heartworm.)
I have a more nuanced view on face masks and the related kabuki theater. Let's be clear: while cloth masks can help mitigate against virus-laden respiratory splatter, they don't do much of anything against related bioaerosols. I think there is a moral hazard issue, i.e., people in kabuki theater may have a false sense of security in their and/or others wearing ineffective cloth masks, by far those in use. I will wear my N95 masks in riskier settings like hospitals or crowds, but it is more difficult to breath with them, e.g., in walking in an airport terminal. I don't know if the district judge's ruling striking down the federal public transit mask will be upheld in the court of appeals but it won't survive SCOTUS review. SCOTUS could simply rule it a moot point, but I don't think it survives the public review exception, never mind a usurpation of Congressional authority or the 10th Amendment carve-out for state/local health security authority.
Other Notes
Well, there's little doubt, less than 7 hours from the end of the Blogger month statistics, I'm headed for an annual, if not multi-annual monthly low. As I write, there have been fewer than 1600 page views, which is probably 20+% below the long-term trend, never mind only about 200 over the past week. There could be a number of reasons: no essay posts over the past week, maybe Google has changed its analytics or even shadow-banned me, or maybe my latest posts are turning off visitors. I think almost any writer wants a larger audience, but I don't publish for page views.
I finally finished what host Nate Thurston calls "the [GML} 700 episode challenge". It took a while because episodes can be up to an hour or longer. For those less familiar, Nate and his childhood friend/partner Chuck Thomson also run healthcare IT services company (Nate in a couple of episodes has mentioned recently learning SQL (structured query language, IBM's lingua franca for relational databases); I was teaching SQL in the late 80's and wrote a training manual for it(unpublished) in that time frame.), run a stock trading tutorial portal. I think Chuck technically is the lead of their partnerships, including the podcast. I think Nate probably does about 70% of the talking. And I didn't keep a strict count but probably up to 20% of the episodes are solo.
I have probably written somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-12 posts disagreeing the "Good Morning Liberty" hosts who, among other things, defended Trump against both impeachments. I will say that I am particularly annoyed by Thurston's repetitious ranting against immigration, particularly on the alleged lure of the social welfare net. Now, citing Milton Friedman:
Friedman clearly stated that:
Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It’s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It’s a good thing for the United States. It’s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it’s only good so long as it’s illegal.
Friedman argued AGAINST legal immigration, which Thurston pays lip service to; Thurston, like most "conservatives", gets Friedman exactly backwards. We have had a quota system on immigration over the past century; a crime against the free market. I, like most REAL libertarians, argue for open immigration. My Franco-American ancestors emigrated from Quebec province in the post-Civil War era, with no public welfare net. If they had any support, it came from close-knit French communities centered around the Catholic Church.
So what's next in my backlog? Over 3000 Cato Institute episodes (most of these are in the 4-7 minute versus hour or so GML episodes. And I also have backlogs in Brion McClanahan, Tom Woods (before I quit following him a second time, following his personally dissing me; oh, I get flamed all the time, mostly progressives, but his channeling his inner egomaniac asshole at someone promoting his content was particularly annoying and counterproductive), Econtalk, etc.
