Pandemic Report
The latest stats from WaPo:
W
Well, the fall uptick had been predicted for some time, but it's still worrisome. Cases are up to 49K daily. Of particular note are B.Q.1 and B.Q.1.1, which are rapidly gaining share. Perhaps the biggest name to get infected (mild symptoms) is CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, after getting the new bivalent booster in the recent past.
Some important post-audits of our pandemic response are taking place. There is no way of overstating failed Presidential leadership. Recall Trump actually said this at the time our best hopes of containing the disease was knowing through testing who had it at a presser calling COVID-19 a national emergency: “Again, we don’t want everybody taking this test; it’s totally unnecessary,” he said. “And this will pass. This will pass through, and we’re going to be even stronger for it.” And let's not forget 'If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases'. But obviously we should have gotten private industry in the loop earlier like South Korea as I recall did. But there were other issues as well in terms of testing; the duopoly of Quest and LabCorp found most of their regular business dropped off (meaning layoffs) as the pandemic spread and providers limited services, and it seemed many of their facilities were subject to local shutdown policies.
Other Notes
A modest uptick with one day attracting over 100 pageviews; whether I'll set a new multi-year low yet again depends on statistics over the coming week; let's hope not.
Hallmark's Countdown to Christmas is already back (for now, HC and HMM), starting last Friday and promising new cable holiday movies mid-evenings on Friday through Sunday. When I was s kid, it seemed the season really started with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade closing with the appearance of Santa Claus. Somehow it seems rushed starting before Halloween. I haven't browsed looked beyond the schedule
As I write, the Houston Astros with a 3-0 lead in the AL championship series are just 1 win away from the World Series.To this day, the Astros are the only home team I've seen in person, way back in my UH graduate school days, when Nolan Ryan was on the team. I went to the game when he was about 7 strikeouts away from #3000, but he got knocked out of the game early.
