Pandemic Report
The latest stats from WaPo:
We are up to 39K cases and 329 deaths.daily. Variant BA.5 continues to decline in infection share while offshoots BQ.1/.1.1 continue to increase. "Globally, the confirmed case tally rose above 631.3 million on Thursday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins, while the death toll is above 6.59 million with the U.S. leading the world with 97.6 million cases and 1,071,578 deaths."
We continue to see post-audits of coronavirus public policy including gain-of-function research or PPP forgivable loans (to help small businesses finance payroll) fraud. One reason I mention the latter is one of the alleged suspects is a USAF enlisted man out of Shaw AFB, SC. My own Dad was an NCO stationed at Shaw (it's where my baby sister was born), and I was enrolled at the local junior high. My first civilian (government employee) supervisor (I was a DBA contractor at the EPA labs in Chicago) was from nearby Sumter, probably best known as the home of Bobby Richardson, NY Yankee second baseman around the early 60's.
If you haven't been recently vaccinated or boosted (with the latest bivalent booster). please do so. It could save your life. I just read of a man who was recently cured in Britain after suffering from COVID-19 for over 400 days.The bivalent booster can be taken 2 months or longer after your last primary vaccine shot or booster
Other Notes
Readership is steady although still below my long-term average. There are some weird things like some troll has been fixated with an ordinary Halloween post from 2 years back. True, I like pageviews but legitimate ones. I make sure my own pageviews aren't counted. Last month was an improvement over September.
I'm watching WWE Crown Jewel premium event as I write this. I'm somewhat annoyed because my cable provider's app dropped my connection twice although one of them was during the preshow: a weekly alert test. I'm also annoyed if I tell my voice control to request Crown Jewel, it wouldn't take me to the day's coverage of the live event, but the series of prior events.
I was intrigued by how they booked Braun Strowman vs. Omos. I have to admit I'm not a fan of Strowman's "bowling for wrestlers" gimmick around the ring, and I silently cheered when Omos flattened him for once. Now I know they they hyped Omos' 7-inch height advantage and nearly 100 lb weight advantage, but Strowman is like freakish strongman. They made him look like Hulk Hogan struggling to bodyslam Andre the Giant. But this is a dude who rips off car doors and tips over trucks. Omoa. an inexperienced wrestler who can only barely execute wrestling moves, relies almost exclusively on his size advantage, dominated the whole match until the end when Strowman pulls out the win. I figure they had to book Omos strong enough to merit a rematch, but it almost came at the expense of Strowman's character.
I thought for sure that Bray Wyatt was going to exercise payback for Alexa Bliss' betrayal in his match against Orton. (Alexa, along with Asuka, won the women's championship against Damage Control this past week.) In fact. they teased a Wyatt buzz during a prematch interview. Damage Control did recapture the titles, but Wyatt didn't play a role. It was a crazed Nikki Cross, once a Bliss tag partner. Of course it's possible Nikki is a Wyatt family member.
Wyatt did make an appearance but it was more to flesh out his weird family storyline. I'm still not sure how they'll book him into a feud yet.
I'm disappointed they had Karrion Kross job to McIntyre, but a second loss would probably hurt McIntyre's character.
I thought for sure AJ Styles' faction (OC) would recruit a female wrestler to offset Judgment Day's Rhea Ripley. No surprise Judgment Day won, as did the Usos, Bianca Belair, and Roman Reigns.
No new surprise return, but I think they teased the return of Charlotte Flair in the preshow. And they also teased an alliance of Rousey and Baszler. I could easily see them joining up to take the tag titles and then feuding over Rousey's title.Or maybe Baszler feuds with Belair and then a title unification bout.
Not sure where they go next with Reigns. Maybe they go with Rollins or Gunther.. Or the winner of the Smackdown "World Cup".
