Pandemic Report
The latest from CDC weekly stats:
The latest dailies from Worldometer:
The overall decrease of the fall/winter surge continues with a slight leveling off on hospitalizations which may be a temporary blip. JN.1 continues as the dominant variant, responsible for over 9 of 10 cases; it continues to be worrisome for its heightened transmissibility and ability to evade immune responses.
News items of interest include but are not resstricted to:
- Arguably the biggest news item of the week is word CDC is weighing lowering current 5-day isolation guidance for the infected to as little as 1 fever-free day.
- It may sound sound counterintuitive for a libertarian to be sympathetic to vaccine mandates; I would be opposed if it was a paternalist policy solely about one person's health. But you can also spread a contagion to others with more compromised immune systems. One can make exceptions for those allergic to vaccine ingredients, but for most people there are minimal costs to vaccinate and a moral obligation to participate in the goal of herd immunity. In this context, Rutgers' vaccine mandate for students has survived a court challenge.
- " Fewer nursing facility residents and staff are getting COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new KFF analysis of federal data. Only 38% of residents and 15% of staff have received the latest vaccine. In comparison, 50% of residents and 22% of staff received updated vaccines in 2022 and 87% of residents and 88% of staff completed the initial vaccination series."
- Prosecution of COVID relief fraud continues, including Boston gang members using pandemic enployment relief funds to purchase guns.
- The battle against anti-vaxxer rubbish continues. Social media accounts falsely suggest trassmissibility from vaccinated individuals was an explicit criterion for FDA emergency authorization.
Other Notes
Blog and Twitter/X readership remained at near-normal sluggish rates. For those interested in the kind of things I do at work, I worked a couple of examples into Friday's essay.I think what happened involving the retutn of the Rock (Dwayne Johnson) to WWE really sheds light on how pro scripted wrestling sometimes has to go with the flow. Dwayne shares Samoan family roots with current WWE Unified "heel/bad guy" champion Roman Retgns, who holds a modern record multi-year tenure. Reigns' faction, the (Samoan) Bloodline, initially led by the tag team champ Uso twins/brothers, also relatives, prominently figures into helping Reign's successful title defenses with dirty tactics. Dwayne, of course, is a well-established lead actor and doesn't need to wrestle; ;he is expanding his business empire, with a key role in the recent USFL/XFL "spring football" merger. He also has a board seat in TKO, the company that recently acquired WWE. WWE for sometimes has wanted to book a babyface Rock confronting Reigns. (I don't think WWE expected to book Rock over Reigns given his schedule constraints in defending the title.) It hadn't happened earlier because of scheduling issues and Rock also felt he had to fit in enough ring training to have a credible match at the year's signature event, Wrestlemania.
So part of the problem is babyface Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble last year, earning a Wtestlemania shot against Reigns to winning the one title his iconic dad, the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, had been denied, thus finishing Cody's "story". Cody, of couse, was denied by dirty tactics. It seemed like WWE was going to deny Rhodes' rematch until next Wrestlemania. In the meanwhile WWE signed another AEW talent, CM Punk, himself a former WWE champ, and it looked like WWE was aiming for Punk to challenge new "World" champ Seth Rollins for his belt--which left the possibility of Cody "finishing his story". In fact, the recent Royal Rumble ended up between Rhodes and Punk, with Rhodes winning a rare repeat. Punk apparently got injured at some point, and it's not clear if Cody's win was an audible.
Rollins had shown a distaste to Punk's return to WWE, but Punk's injury made that that match impossible. In the meanwhile, Cody made it clear he wanted to finish his story after the victory. And note that Cody had already swept Rollins in a program of matches when Cody earlier came back to WWE after AEW.
The Rock, on the other hand, had earlier implied in his Jan. 1 appearance he had come back to sit at the "head of the table", a tagline closely associated with Reigns' rank in the bloodline.
So when Rollins made a pitch for Rhodes to choose his belt to challenge for, and Rhodes cleared the way for Rock to challenge Reigns, Rock got nuclear heat--not good for a babyface facing a heel.
So did WWE work the fans all along anticipating an anti-Rock backlash, turn Rock heel and have him team with Reigns against Rhodes/Rollins the first night of Wrestlemania and have Reigns and Rollins defend their titles the next night against Rhodes and (likely) McIntyre? That's not official yet. The Rollins opponent will be crowned at next weekend's Perth PLE.
I just never bought into Rock's challenge to Reigns. There was no storyline behind it--like maybe Reigns' dissing Rock, or say, Rock costing Reigns his belt the second night. So whether intentional or an audible on the Rock's heat, I think they'll use the circumstance to motivate Rock v Reigns although I don't know if we're going to have to wait another year to see it. There are already some theories online about Rock's hinting a betrayal of Reigns during a recent joint appearance.
