Pandemic Report
The weekly stats from CDC:
Well, we're seeing 2-digit percentage increases on major stats, and that was shy of January. We'll probably see a holiday peak over the next 10 days. JN.1, as you can tell from the last chart, now accounts for over 60% of infections.
The JN.1 variant has similar symptoms to the other omicron variants but with far more diarrhea. JN.1 seems to have more gut effects....On November 29, 2023, researchers from Columbia University released a study showing the XBB.1.5 monovalent COVID-19 booster vaccine has activity in neutralizing the JN.1 variant. This is good news for anyone who has received the most recent COVID-19 monovalent booster vaccine. The bad news is only about 14% of the US adult population has received the booster. The vaccine protects from developing severe COVID-19 as well as hospitalizations.
As for the undeniable evidence in favor of COVOD-19 vaccines:
As for the benefits of the vaccines, researchers based in London have estimated that COVID vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives worldwide in their first year alone — including 1.9 million Americans who would have otherwise died in the pandemic — according to a study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal in 2022.
The current surge is being called the biggest in 2 years:
Note that wastewater virus concentration has become a CDC surrogate measure in place of incomplete individual testing data.#PandemicWasRaging pic.twitter.com/QrmOCyHpsJ
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) January 5, 2024
Remember scientific illiterate Donald Trump pushing the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine early in the pandemc? What did they have to lose? It turns out everything. Recent research suggests nearly 17K lost their lives after being prescribed the medication early in the pandemic.
Finally, the Florida state surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, is fearmongering anti-vaxxer concerns about mRNA vaccines, like Moderna and Pfizer:
Last month, the FDA responded to a letter from Ladapo in which he outlined the same concerns. Federal health officials refuted his claims as "quite implausible" and "misleading."... With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, no safety concerns related to residual DNA have been identified," the FDA said in its letter.
Other Notes
Weird blog readership pattern with a strong week start but failing off to the teen blogviews late in the week. Twitter/X had an even weirder pattern short of my pre-Musk suspensions. About a week ago I was averaging about 325 impressions a day (it's been a while since I've gotten 1K+) when for 4 of 5 days I got no better than 26 impressions a day. Not because I stopped tweeting but a disproportionate number of 2-3 impression tweets; tt seemed like no one besides me (not even my 30-odd followers) was seeing my tweets. Then at the end of this streak 2 bizarre things. I came back to my X window to find it locked with a captcha challenge (like when I try to Google while using my VPN) to unlock. Then I got an X notification saying something like they were labeling my account over authentication issues. Not sure what the hell that was about: connecting to X while on VPN? I complained to Musk with no response. But it looks like my pageviews are back to near-normal.
The football fan in me has come to a crashing halt. UH had an off-year, but UT (alma maters) made the playoff semifinals, only to lose a close game. ESPN is not in my cable bundle, so I didn't get to see it. As I write, the Minnesota Vikings are losing to Detroit for the second time in 3 weeks and extending a losing streak that cost them a near-lock on making the playoffs
I had bought a mini-PC from Amazon several months back running Windows 11. It's like 6" x 6 " x 2"; just add a spare external keyboard, mouse, HDMI monitor, and hard drive (optional), configure your wireless connection, apply any pending Windows patches, and you've got a portable usable backup PC for maybe half the price of a bargain laptop. It worked reasonably well until one day the power button was unresponsive {over a few weeks); ironically Amazon solicited my feedback for a prospective customer; I'm thinking that this was an untimely query; you really don't want my opinion on an unusable machine. I had no idea what happened--a broken power button, a drive failure, fried electronics, whatever--but I was fairly sure the repair cost would pobably cost me more than a replacement unit. And then it sparked back to life over the weekend. It reminds me of when I moved to Arizona nearly 8 years back and had to buy a laptop on my arrival because the 2 laptops I had brought with me wouldn't start up (neither did my desktop shipped separately with my household goods). I think the first laptop had a failing hard drive; my backup laptop went dead while I tried to connect an external hard drive to it to migrate my old workhorse files. So, anyway I was unhappy about the second laptop, whose warranty had just expired, and the desktop was dead. Several months later, I was considering junking them when all of a sudden I saw a spark of life from both machines. So the mini-PC is the third machine I've resurrected.
I've been a Sam's Club member for maybe 20 years; every so often I'll ponder whether it's worth the ever-growing annual membership fee; I may only shop there maybe once every month or two. I'm single and really can't use, say gallon jars of mayonnaise. Oh, there are some no-bainers like cheap gasoline and $5 rotisserie chickens. I do find some good buys in electronics and the supplement/diet food aisles. I like their price-competitive grass-fed meats, like ground beef and lamb and select produce. (You have to know your prices; Sam's Club often carries higher-quality but pricier items. Walmart has better selection and (say) cheaper small appliances; I'll also now find more grass-fed dairy, ground bison, and Ezekiel bread,) But getting to the main point: I recently got an updated member/credit card, and I've become a fan of the Scan 'N Go functionality,tied to payment with the card. Instead of waiting half an hour in a checkout queue, you scan barcodes as you shop and checkout in a few steps from the app. Well, until yesterday. (The familiar reader knows I am obsessed with usability issues.) The checkout failed for the first time ever. Now I know my old credit card was expiring and had reently been replaced. I remember activating the card and I had enough credit available to cover the purchase transaction. What's going on? At some point I got a message of the type: "Look for an error message in red type above." Say what? The only red type I saw was a summary of item discounts; what did that have to do with a failed transaction. Finally, I drilled down into the credit card, and i saw a prompt for a card security code. I didn't even notice the replacement card had a security code. So that turned out to be the problem. It would have been a lot easier to figure out if the popup had appeared in the foreground.
