Pandemic Report
The latest stats from WaPo: 
The overall stats see modest improvement, down to 42,5K cases daily with XBB.1.5 still the dominant Omicron variant. The variant's statistics were a reason the Biden Administration extended the emergency foe 2 more months last month. The CDC also last month announced its surveillance data a possible link to stroke with Pfizer's bivalent booster among the elderly; it should be noted that federal systems like CMS and veterans' hospitals haven't corroborated it within a 3-week side effects window. The government continues to urge Americans, especially the elderly ones, to get their bivalent boosters. There is considerable concern about the mRNA vaccine makers quadrupling prices charged to developed nations for jabs to over $110. Finally, there are worrisome signs of the pandemic transitioning into one of the elderly disproportionately represented in hospitalization and death statistics. Of course, illnesses and deaths tend to correlate with age, but diminishing protection from antibodies over time from most recent jobs and slow percentage of bivalent booster adoption are worrisome.
Other Notes
Blog readership is still slow; hard to extrapolate from 5 days in the month, but it appears to be a slight uptick from January, still way below lifetime trend.
Still battling weird tech problems. For some reason, my desktop external speakers weren't working this morning; I ended up connecting them to another outlet. And then my Chromecast wasn't working, and I didn't see the virtual remote icon in the Google TV app. The device was powered and the app was connecting to me. I ended up reseeding the USB connection to the power adapter, and I once again could see the home screen and the virtual remote icon in the Google TV app. I'm still wondering if I have a power problem with the cheap flat TV's 3 HDMI ports in use.
I'm finally catching up on America's Got Talent (All Star Edition). I've generally been a sporadic viewer over the seasons. I was saddened to hear my all-time favorite Terry Fator didn't make it; I thought his Elton John duet using puppets was inspired and hard to pull off. It toes look like he's inspired a new generation of ventriloquists like the girl who played Dorothy and her puppet Toto. I don't understand these gimmicks of the judge "golden tickets" and the Superfans. How can you award a golden ticket without seeing all the show's acts first? Could you imagine being the next act knowing no matter what you do, you won't get a golden ticket? As for the Superfans, how do you really represent Maine if you have to be in southern California for the duration of filming the series? During the Internet age?
Egg prices are crazy. They finally reached $5/dozen at my local Lidl; you could have bought nearly 2 pounds of grass-fed ground beef for that this weekend. It's not just that I remember paying 50 cents a dozen a couple of years back. But I remember over the past year it had gone up to maybe $2.60 a dozen , then down below $2, which I hoped was the beginning of a new trend. To see it quickly double and more is crazy. It's not just that; as a low carber, if I do buy bread, it's usually 100% whole wheat. Their value brand price a few months back was about $1/loaf. Yesterday in passing I noticed it had crept past $1.80--still not bad versus name-brands.
Are holiday seasons starting earlier? It's not just Lidl has been selling Valentine's Day sweets and heart-shaped pizzas for weeks now, but I noticed a display of marshmallow peeps yesterday. Dude, it's still a couple of weeks from Mardi Gras and Lent, never mind Easter.
Weird winter so far in Maryland. I haven't had to clear snow off my car once so far. We've had some freezing days and nights; if you work remotely some days, you don't drive as often, but still..
