Pandemic Report
The latest CDC weekly stats:
The latest daily stats from Worldometer:
The summer mini-wave continues to taper down and stabilize. This isn't to say the virus doesn't have hot spots across the country: people are still getting hospitalized and dying daily from infections. I have routine visits for an unrelated health problem, and check-ins always start with questions about related symptoms or recent travel. I gather the vaccines are better distributed; even my Sam's Club emails are promoting availability.
I didn't find a lot of new COVID news items over the past week:
- Texas Governor Abbott signed a state ban on employer vaccine mandates into law. As a libertarian, I oppose governments intervening against employer efforts to promote a healthy safe work environment.
- Red (GOP-dominated) states have enacted more vaccine-skeptical public policies or hired more skeptical high-profile public health leadership (e.g., Florida). Relevant measures include Texas' muzzling local public health officials and even standalone COVID vaccine promotions, Tennessee's omission of COVID from its state health homepage, and Florida's counter-advocacy against COVID vaccines. We are seeing slower vaccine rates and excess rates of COVID hospitalizations and deaths in red states.
- A recent study shows that the loss of taste or smell, a signature COVID-19 symptom, is generally restored within 3 years.
- We continue to see prosecution of COVID relief fraud, including but not restricted to:
- a Virginian sentenced over related unemployment fraud
- COVID relief fraud used to buy even cars and an island, among other things.
Other Notes
Blog readership continues at a more regular pace with slightly more daily posts reaching double-digit readership. Twitter/X readership is dragging at under 200 impressions a day; I haven't had a 1K+ tweet in a while. I do get curious about posted replies to my tweets. Few, if any, are substantive; usually X masks them as offensive content, and I have to click "do you really want to see this?" and you'll see something like "this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen".
On the pet peeve front, I mentioned a few posts back rhat I've been getting a Google weather notification for the Charleston, SC area where I last lived in 2016. I have looked at Google profile and apps settings and I have no idea where this was coming from. I thought this may have been resolved with the download of a well-known weather app (a tip I had found on the web); in fact, the trailing weather notification coincidentally seemed to reset locally. But then it reverted over the past week to South Carolina again for God knows what reason. Then over the past day or so, it seemed to correct itself on it own. It's more of a nuisance than a functional issue. My Android home page has correctly and persistently shown the correct local weather, my Echo devices work flawlessly, as do web connections and the 2-3 weather apps on the phone.
Hallmark Countdown to Christmas is well under way; I tend to focus on HMM than HC. HC tends to introduce new theme cable movies on F/Sa/Su nights primetime and HMM on Thursdays. I have 4-6 favorites which for some reason seem to have rotated out of their schedule. I have licensed copies of "Christmas Magic" and "Angels and Ornaments". There are a couple of older Debbie Macomber movies featuring Doris Roberts, "Help for the Holidays", "Farewell Mr. Kringle", etc., on the list. I caught "A Christmas Visitor" (which focuses on a deceased firstborn military Gulf War medic vet) which played at 4AM on one occasion. But here are some of my favorites which are in rotation:
- "One December Night": This movie focuses on a once-popular pop duo: Steve Bedford and Mike Sullivan, who split up years back. The network wants a reunion Christmas concert, featuring Mike's signature song about falling in love with his late wife. A key stumbling block is Steve's cover of the track. The story involves each partner's only child and an undisclosed medical condition of Steve. HMM
- "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year". An older favorite is still on rotation. Jennifer is a divorced workaholic business consultant whose son wants the hot new bike on the market. Her close widower Uncle Ralph, a recently retired cop who lives states away, dreads to fly for a holiday visit and crosses paths with Morgan, who is flying through Chicago on the way to Denver where he hopes to open a new restaurant as chef. Morgan finds his flight to Denver cancelled for weather, and Jennifer is unhappy when Ralph invites Morgan to stay with them since her serious boyfriend is bringing his parents to visit during the holidays. HC
- "Christmas With Holly". [I haven't seen this in the HMM countdown yet/] Holly is a 6-year-old whose single mom has died, making her youngest brother Mark, a coffeeshop owner, legal guardian. Holly was traumatized by her mom's death and won't speak. Mark and Holly meet Maggie, a new toystore owner, recently left at the altar on her wedding day, on the ferry back to a Washington island.
- "The Christmas Card". Cody, an Army sergeant in a warzone, has just lost his best buddy. He was comforted by a handwritten Christmas card from Faith, a West Coast bookkeeper for her parents' lumber mill. When he's ordered to take leave stateside, he makes his way to California and meets Faith by accident in a diner. He saves Luke, Faith's dad, from an auto accident and ends up boarding at Luke's house in exchange for helping at the mill over the holidays. Paul, Faith's jealous wine broker boyfriend, sees Cody as a threat to their relationship. HMM
- "The Christmas Secret".Christine, a struggling single mom of 2, loses a locket while saving an older woman's life in an auto accident. Her ex-husband tries to use the fact she got fired from reporting to work late to gain custody of the kids. Jason Wilson is visiting his grandfather who owns the local department store with his wife, the same person Christine saved. Jason is trying to find Christine at the request of his grandfather, and they keep running into each other but Christine thinks her ex has hired him to get dirt on her. HMM
