Pandemic Report
The latest stats from CDC:
The latest daily from Worldometer:
We continue to see virus spread as we head down the final week of autumn. "U.S. is seeing a significant uptick in COVID-related hospitalizations and with 15 states reporting high or very high levels of respiratory illness, which takes in COVID-19, the flu, RSV, and other respiratory diseases/" (second point below). I silently praise God as I go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and see an elderly person sitting post-vaccine. Some recent notes:
- JN.1, a close relative to BA.2.86, is the fastest groing variant, accounting for up to 20% of new infections.
- A comparative study shows COVID-1 to be a more serious health risk than the seasonal flu: "COVID-19’s general contagiousness compared to flu viruses, but also its ability to cause clotting problems in the veins and arteries, result in loss of smell and/or taste, and even lead to a rare multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children....COVID-19 patients experienced significantly higher rates of death, healthcare utilization, and adverse health outcomes in most organ systems than did patients with the flu".
- An intranasal vaccine is showing significant promise in alleviating severe related respiratory tract issues.
- DeSantis (R-FL) recently debated CA Gov. Newsom, citing a scientific studt, arguing a lower standarized death rate in his state, citing a more liberalized COVID public policy, including quicker school reopenings and deemphasis of restrictive policies like " stay-at-home orders, masking, limited vaccine mandates and social distancing". The study authors dispute DeSantis' inference, pointing out that DeSantis started the pandenic with a more proactive stance, including vaccine protection of the state's elderly, and some of the cited practices continued voluntarily despite liberalized policy.
- There are ongoing prosecutions against federal COVID relief fraud, including but not restricted to a Florida woman who falsely applied for forgiveable PPP loans to small businesses.
- "The CDC issued an "urgent" alert about the low vaccination ratesopens in a new tab or window for flu, COVID, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and called on healthcare providers to administer shots now to protect patients."
Other Notes
The blog readership seeme to have stabilized to a more normal weekly pace. We'll probaby break 500 posts by next weekend. Twitter/X is at a normal pace alhough my followers recently broke 30 for the first time since the old account. Newer accounts tend to be fickle so I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them disappear over the coming week. One of them basically demanded a return follow, but her content wasn't my taste. I've noticed lately that I'm being trolled by more Trumpkins. I don't get many replies and I'm usually curious. X will sometimes notify me, but often you have to click through warnings of offensive content and quite often I've probably been blocked by the troll. I encountered a handful from one troll who started referencing Jill Biden incoherently with references to Hunter Biden.
My horrors with the lease of a medical health appliance described in recent posts thankfully came to an end yesterday. I know seniors who are tethered to oxygen tanks so in a sense I can understand what they might be going through. I had to go through 2 different problems a couple of days back. I went to pick up a prescription and some groceries; the device is portable but I never see people walking around with it, and I worried what someone might infer, like I might be a suicide bomber or something. So anyway I started getting an unfamiliar wound leak alert (luckily on my way back to my car). I didn't see any obvious leaks but tried overlaying bandages to no avail. A vendor rep was supposed to be monitoring alerts but no call. I called her directly twice, leaving unaknowledged voice mails. I called the backup, an 800 support line. It was an abnormally long phone queue and I agreed to have the voice mail system save my place in line for callback. There was no phone ring but I heard my voicemail notification. I didn't have any alternative but to call back and wait off the queue. It's not clear why but the technician had me replace the collector cylinder {second time for the day) basically to rule out device issues and for some reason the leak messages went away.
Some time later I started experiencing a differing issue: the charging mechanism started blinking on and off. Familiar readers may recall my past discussion of a failed power cord they refused to replace. This time I was told the rechargeable battery was probably failing and they could replace the unit. There was a good chance I would be taken off the unit the next day, so I was reluctant to do that unless necessary. (Don't ask me how or why, but the device seemed to work out the issue on its own, eventually flipping to charged status.)
In the interim, afraid of the issues wih a failed dressing, I tried futilely to see if I could could accelerate a bandage change with the surgeon's clinic (no dice; their poviders were doing surgery) and with hospital wound care, which I knew didn't support device dressings and didn't have a scheduled appintment. So, as far as I could tell, if the charge problem didn't resolve itself, I might have to go to the emergency room. There was nothing in writing to say I could go off the device a day early. One of the tech support people said, "That's the reason why you have a visiting nurse." I'm like, don' t open that Pandora's box again. Two parties tried and failed to arrange for a visiting nurse back in August/September.
Nothing much on the holiday movie front. AMC will occasionally present "Miracle on 34th St" and "White Christmas" in the same cluster but not on high rotation. The latter is a favorite not only because I love classic musicals but there's a special connection with my folks.
