Pandemic Report
The latest stats from CDC:
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that COVID-19 vaccines will not prevent any deaths among teenagers and lead to 100,000 to 200,000 severe side effects.The AP fact check notes that less than 1% of COVID deaths involve minors, but the shots are effective against serious illness. The "serious" side effects don't include myocarditis but a number of well-known temporary ones.
Other Notes
The quixotic Singapore pageviews of the blog continue at roughly a 3K+ clip making stats all but unusable. These really haven't affected individual post stats which have seen a modest uptick on daily posts hitting double digits. We have now topped 370 posts for the year, which we have achieved since 2012. We are on a pace to top 500 posts for the fourth straight year.
I'm into the second year of The Twilight Zone binging. Some episodes are so predictable I'm not sure if I saw them decades go or if the context is that obvious. For example, one woman's head is heavily bandaged in a hospital setting. She is there to repair her "hideous" face. But throughout the episode the heads of the doctor, nurses, etc., are obfuscated, and I'm obviously anticipating the ultimate swerve--that normal is ugly to us, and the patient is beautiful. Second, it's interesting to note some of the co-stars. I was sure in this one episode I was seeing a young William Shatner, not just in looks but mannerisms. In this episode, a young married couple's car has broken down in a town on a trip. They go into this diner, and Shatner's character becomes obsessed with this penny-fed fortune telling gnome (paper responses) in their booth that has him questioning whether they can leave the town.
I'm still getting co-pay bills from weeks back, apparently long snagged in adjudication with my insurer. So, I got this bill from a provider linked to my personal physician. The clinic has my credit card on file and will normally notify me they will charge me for my responsibility. In this case, I got a snail mail invoice. To save a stamp, I went to the patient portal to pay my bill. They had a weird interface where the link didn't populate invoice fields like account and amount or to the credit card on file. When I got an email receipt for the transaction, it didn't identify the provider or the account number. I logged back into the portal--which still showed me owing the original amount. (In contrast, my local hospital portal adjusts the balance in real time.) So, I ended up calling customer service, worried my payment had been intercepted. I had to wait in the queue for 20 minutes. Yeah, she confirmed the payment and told me I still showed an unpaid invoice recently added but not showing up yet in my portal page. As a former MIS professor who has researched usability, all of this just drives me nuts.
Speaking of snail mail, next month's health insurance premium is still undelivered after over a week in the mail from MD to TX. (The vendor will not allow autopay.) I called up USPS; I was told 2–3-day delivery is not reliable: it can take 7-10 business days, assuming their machinery doesn't eat it.
Autumn is finally here; I love the cooler air and not having my A/C cut on constantly even at higher settings. Lidl has its pumpkin spice and maple ground coffee on sale. Is it me or are the holidays coming sooner? Lidl has had its Halloween candy out the last few weeks. Hallmark is prompting the Countdown to Christmas starting 4 weeks from yesterday.
