Pandemic Report
The latest weekly stats from WaPo:
Well, the stats are continuing to drop to lows last seen weeks back, but I continue to watch BA.7 warily. In part, we don't have numbers on how well the new bivalent boosters cope with them. One of the topics I've seen discussed is the increasing proportion of COVID-19 deaths in the highly fully-vaxxed senior citizen risk group (65yo-up) from about 24% to 60% more recently. We do know antibody protection starts to wane after about 6 months of one's last vaccine/booster shot, and we know that a quarter never got their first booster and an additional quarter didn't get a second. I haven't seen age distributions on the new bivalent booster yet, but we've only seen 3-4% of Americans (including myself) taking it. I know when I got mine at Walmart recently, I was the only one in the vaccine area at the time. KFF claims at least a quarter of COVID-19 deaths were preventable by a recent vaccine and/or booster.. A recent study suggests that without shots, the daily death count could reach over 1000, up to 2/3 preventable. A related concern is whether the USG will continue to fund vaccines given a general perception that the pandemic is over; they are expecting to shift the burden to the private sector early next year.. CDC also says that it will stop processing daily counts starting around Oct. 20, similar to how it handles flu data reporting on a weekly basis. They've already been doing this on vaccine data.
Other Notes
Blog readership has dropped to anemic levels, barely around a baker's dozen or so pageviews over the last few days and occasionally as low as a handful of readers for a daily post. Even my last journal post failed to reach double-digits, which is unusual. It's been a while since I've had a 100+ view day. I don't post for pageviews, but I'm intrigued why readership is so volatile. I expected maybe a slowly growing readership, but it's weird when 2 of my top 4 posts this past week are 10 years old.
The inflation trend is hitting Amazon, with Prime going up again. There are a lot of things to like about Prime. Just yesterday, I took advantage of free same day delivery for the first time. I take advantage of monthly First Reads and Amazon Video. (Speaking of which, I liked Stallone's new "Samaritan" which is an interesting twist on superhero films.) But Amazon needs to be careful about price increases because I'm not sure I'm getting enough value to justify the increasing cost.
I did cut one Amazon service--my digital subscription to the Washington Post. It was originally a good value (I don't think it was a loss leader trial rate; I remember checking the renewal rate). But I don't really read it everyday. I get my news from across the Internet, although I'm now running into paywalls especially after some free quota (like 5 links a month). Mostly I clipped George Will columns and captured graphics from their free coronavirus page for journal posts. So when they just announced my annual renewal would go up $24, I said, "Enough!" Not the first time: I used to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal digital while it cost less than $100/year. I'm getting more and more irritated at running into paywalls off links from Twitter and Drudge Report. I mean, I haven't even monetized my blog for Google ads (although with my readership numbers probably wouldn't earn beyond pocket change). I can't understand why they don't implement a micropayment system like a toll collector for exclusive content. But I'm not going to pay for the privilege of promoting their content.
Sometimes I make purchasing mistakes. I'm not going to identify the vendor here, but I've often purchased their lower-carb frozen entrees and found them tasty. So Lidl a short while back did a weekend special on their newer breakfast sandwiches with non-gluten bread. They had 2 types (bacon and sausage). It's been years since I've had a breakfast sandwich, beyond a fast food one in traveling. I'm partial to thick cut bacon. Nope. I bought about 3+ weeks worth. They're okay, but I'm not a fan of the bread (cauliflower-based) or the sandwiches.
A followup on an earlier discussion where I had made "my responsibility" payments on 3 physician office visits this year (2 were delayed because claims were mailed to the wrong address). The insurance company provided third-party payment providers. Long story short, they mailed payments to the wrong address and claimed they couldn't redirect payments, so they were supposed to reimburse my bank account. (I paid the co-pays from the hospital portal). Resolving reimbursement for the old payments was a major hassle because they seemed only to acknowledge 1 or 2 of the missing payments. But I recently checked my banking account and all 3 refunds were processed.
I finally got a new Chromebook (I checked and Google is supposed to update the OS for another 5 years for my chosen model). I got a good discount via Amazon. A Chromebook (at least the models I'm familiar with are thinner, smaller, lighter than the laptops I've owned); a lot of stuff I do involves Internet usage (including working on this blog) and many files I need to work with can be accessed through the Internet, Google Apps, etc. So the smaller footprint is a lot easier to lug around on travel than my older bulkier laptops (and I often need to carry keyboards and mice in my luggage). I was confused by the newer Smart Lock feature, not well explained I knew the Chromebook wanted to integrate with my Android during initial setup. So there is a power option to lock instead of shutdown the Chromebook. So I tested locking the Chromebook and I saw a message to the effect, "Dude, you need to unlock your phone." When I did, I saw a notification my Chromebook was unlocked. (Of course, you can unlock by conventional means like password or PIN.)
