Pandemic Report
The latest weekly stats from CDC:
The
latest daily from Worldometer;
There's definitely an upswing in COVID-19 following Thanksgiving and some evidence of vaccination pickup in higher-case communities. CDC is also seeing an uptick in other respiratory illnesses like the pneumonia and RSV. [I personally have been vaccinated against COVID-19, RSV, flu, and pneumonia over the last few months.]. One thing that particularly disturbs me having an elderly relative in an assisted living facility is that in over half of the states nursing home staff have low vaccination rates from 5% or lower. Vaccination of children can reduce related ER visits or hospitalization by up to 40%. Ironically, lower childhood vaccinations is making it harder for parents to find available supply, We are seeing an effort to get troops released for lack of vaccine comliance eligible for reinstatement. Studies confirm learning losses in reading and math scores during pandemic school shutdowns. The war against anti-vaxxer misinformation continues, including a claim that 20% of vaccinated New Zeakanders died.
Other Notes
The blog had one cloudburst of pageviews likely corrupting this month's statistics, but on the bright side probably over half of blog posts are reaching double digits. We're still on track for 500 posts this year , but will fall short of last year's numbers by 2-3 dozen posts. The Twitter/X impressions continue at roughly 250 daily; my pinned autobiographical tweet just passed 1K views.
I tried implenenting the CLEAR app for phone access to my vaccine records For some reason it couldn't seem to parse my Walmart digital record of 3 COVID-19 boosters.
I've been looking at reaction videos on YouTube. Most of them involved the Beatles' recent "final single" "Now and Then". More recently TouTube in my feed started featuring foreigners trying American fast food, snacks, etc. So, e.g., a Russian girl trying pumpkin or pecan pies for the first time, Brits tasting Texas BBQ, New England clam boils or Cajun gumbo and crawfish. But some of them can be exasperating. I just watched of a New Zealand family going to Whataburger, a Texas staple, and my favorite high school mustardy burger. The first sandwiches they tried were chicken sandwiches; yes I know burger chains have been selling chicen sandwiches forever, and the family did try a couple of specialty burgers, but it's like going to Burger King and having an Impossible Burger, a chicken sandwich, or a wrap, anything but the original Whopper. You have a right to order anything you like on the menu, but how do you not try the signature entree? It's other choices as well, like American soda pop and snacks. I think of things like A&W root beer and Cracker Jack. How in the world do you pick out Pringles?
I haven't discussed WWE for a while in these posts (I write occasional tweets). I have mixed emotions over the return of CM Punk and Randy Orton. Unlike most fans, I disagree with the former. I thought he's been too high maintenance with WWE and AEW. I'm not happy that Roman Reigns rarely defends one or both titles he holds. The Bloodline storyline has run its course. WWEhas been teasing splits in Damage Control and Judgment Day for some time now but never pulling the trigger.
