Pandemic Report
The latest stats from CDC:
The latest daily stats from Worldometer:
Obviously the double-digit percentage increases heading into the Christmas-New Year travel break are worrisome as are scattered reports of hospitalizations at months-old highs and some hospitals/counties resuming masking guidance. Sen. Bernie Sanders is one of the latest celebrities infected. Although JN.1 remains the predominant variant responsible for about half the newly infected, I think CDC will update the figures next week.
- "It's not just proximity (e.g.,the 6-foot distance heuristic) of infection but duration." This Oxford study reinforced a point I blogged about months back: it's more like when the body's defenses get overwhelmed by cumulative viral load. This tipping point may differ individually by past infections, vaccines, other health complications, age, etc.
- Although many remain skeptical of infection among the very young, say 6 months through toddlers, the vast majority of hundreds or more children hospitalized were unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated.
- The lack of proactive vaccines/update policies at nursing homes and assisted living facilities constitutes a growing health risk in that many residents share dining and other facilities. Many times relatives have to persistently lobby facilities, if not personally arrange for pharmacy or doctor visits.
- Various COVID-19 funding crimes continue to be prosecuted, including but not restricted to:
- an Indianpolis man was convicted of stealing over $800K in related unemployment benefits, using identity theft in the process
- a COVID testing company illegally billed Medicare for unrequested tests for Maryland residents; some $1M of $43M was recovered
- a former NH GOP state senator fraudulently applied for an $800K+ SBA COVID relief loan used to purchase luxury cars
- Chicago is tapping into millions of federal COVID reluef funds to support migrant shelters
Other Notes
The blog continues to draw a puzzling pattern of pageviews, including a smaller Friday burst. Most posts are drawing double-digits or at least high single-digits. A strange end of a week on Twitter/X where I've had an unusual long string of less than a handful of impression tweets,leading me to wonder if I'm being shadow-banned for some unknown reason. I lost a couple of newer(?) followers, but that's not unusual. I write a number of non-political tweets, and my unusual pattern of tweets (e.g., I am critical of both Trump and Biden) may turn off some followers. It's not like they notify me. I currently don't follow anyone. I myself used to follow one of my favorite free market economists but found my feed flooded with arcane tweets. Massie, one of the few renaining libertarians in Congress, has a way of annoying me with differences of opinions e.g., vaccine effectiveness. I have a similar issue with Rand Paul. Both guys took a lot of science in college.
It's the blogger's birthday. I share the day with celebrities like Tiger Woods, LeBron James, and the late Albert Einstein. Ironically, my high school world history teacher nicknamed me "Einstein", in part because I was a straight-A student but also because I've had naturally curly light brown hair that didn't remain combed under the hot south Texas sun. The nickname stuck among my fellow students; I didn't mind--I thought it was rather cool, in part because I was a science geek, (The title of the video may change daily. I swear it read Dec. 30 when I first watched it.)
Well, Hallmark is winding down its annual Coutdown to Christmas, and I've checked off my remaining ones on my Prime watchlist. I had hoped Hallmark would issue new titles in their Mrs. Miracle, Godwink and Five More Minutes series. There are at least a half dozen favorites that I don't think made even a cameo appearance and are hard to find for licensed copies. I didn't watch most of the 4 new titles every weekend, at least on first run. The ones I remember most from this season were the blind professor who falls in love with his guide dog trainer, the brothers adopted into different homes, and the busload of stranded travelers seeking to reach Denver by Christmas.
