Pandemic Report
The latest stats from CDC:
The latest daily from Worldometer:
Yes, we continue to see the continuation of a a fairly shallow summer wave off a lower consolidated base. Make no mistake: real people are getting hospitalized and dying. Three Cincinnati Reds pitchers have been added to the team's COVID injured list. If you haven't, get boosted; if you are in the at-risk group, ne more prudent in social situations; know the symptoms, get tested and treated ASAP,
The war against misinformation continues. The latest false myth is the CDC suggested that the vaccinated are more at risk from new COVID-19 variants. Let me try to explain this false myth as simply as possible. Your body has a natural immunity system to protect against infection. One of the issues of the COVID-19 variants is their novel nature, meaning native protection is unlikely to fight off infection. Antibodies and other infection fighters can be generated by vaccines and/or direct infection. Now the problem is that the longer the pandemic persists, the more likely a new variant is better able to resist acquired or natural protection. Now 2 points: in some at-risk people, anti-infection agents can wane over time especially for at risk groups and the same agents will be less effective. Now effectiveness can be measured in terms of scope: moderate illness, hospitalization and death. Generally, most vaccinated or naturally protected people will be able to ward off serious disease Here's the key point: the waning effect affects both natural and vaccinated protection. It is not, as the anti-vaxxers exacerbated for the vaccinated.
Other Notes
Well, it looks like perhaps my well-meaning Singapore fans have blown up my blog stats over the past week up yo 1K or more hits daily over the past week, few trickling down to individual posts. I thought I had a shot at maybe 1K for August. In a week I'm looking at almost 8K hits for the month. I'm scrupulously honest and won't take credit for manipulated statistics for unknown reasons. It's difficult to rely on stats where I might have 70 US hits but nearly 8K Chinese hits for a week. I hope it stops soon. I don't lie about my height, age or weight, and I won't do it with blog stats, however it might feed my ego.
I think in part because I'm an MIS academic, one with a research interest in usability. I've found my recent health insurance and circumstances intriguing. I won't go into specifics but I had 3 related outpatient procedures over the summer. Most of it hit my deductible with at least 3 different billing providers. Never mind the adjudication process. I've had to hit my savings to avoid carrying a balance. There's often a lag between adjudication and my being billed through the portal and/or snail mail invoices.
So, in last week's discharge paperwork, there was a line item I had to pay $2.8K to my doctor/surgeon. This was not cross-referenced and none of my patient portals showed a balance. So, I ended up going to my insurer portal and trying to cross check recently adjudicated claims amounting to what I owed the doctor.
What complicates this further is the insurer interfaces with a third-party payer who will forward the payment to the provider. It turns out 1 of my providers accepts deposits, the others rely on snail mail. So I found out 2 relevant checks had been mailed to Boston a week ago. No action. Maybe they are buried in someone's inbox. I then remembered years back this payer mailed the payment to the wrong city and had then cancel/refund the checks. In this case, the payer says "Let us know if it's not cashed over the coming month." Seriously, dude?
My provider now shows online I owe the amount for the 2 missing checks. Still no cross-reference I have to wait like 30 minutes in a phone queue for the physician billing group. The dude cannot function without an involve number. I don't have one. Wait for USPS to deliver it to you. He eventually hangs up on me.
Long story short, I canceled the Boston checks and paid the provider out of checking. So, I'm floating the balance until the third party refunds me. And I am fantasizing how creatively I would flunk the moron who designed this system.
