Pandemic Report
The latest weekly stats from CDC:
The latest daily stats from Worldometer:
We continue to see the winter surge recedes. No doubt the big news (which I've previewed in past posts) is the official CDC isolation quidelines. No doubt this is somewhat based on an estimate last August that nearly 97% of Americans have some form (natural or acquiredvaxxed) of immunity.
Other news of interest include:
- The CDC advisory panel is supporting a second dose of last fall's COVID booster for older people (who are disproportionately at risk for hospitalization or death); keep in mind some studies show waning antibody levels after 6 months.
- A recent study shows last fall's vaccine better than halves the risk of moderate to severe COVID infection among adults, including current dominant variant JN.1
- Recent COVID vaccines seem to reduce the risk of heart attacks and stroles for at least 6 months.
- COVID may have small but durable adverse effects on memory and cognition.
- Virginia Tech researchers are working on rapid air sampling technology for detection of COVID at public places
- Rapid COVID tests seem to work effectively against newer COVID-19 variants
Other Notes
Blog readership seemed to exceed 1K readership, below the long-term 2K monthly trend, but I haven't seen those numbers (without suspicious spikes) for at least a couple of years. Modest boost to my X tweets although I lost another follower or 2.
My new streaming obsession is "Young Sheldon", a tween-age prequel to the infamous character from "Big Bang Theory". I wasn't as prodigious as Sheldon (although I did check out calculus books from the base library and sometimes would read from the encyclopedia for fun) and I was first-born, but I was a socially inept geek who fondly remembers Radio Shack, and I delivered newspapers while in high school. I particularly enjoyed Sheldon trying to fix up his grandma with a favorite professor.
I can't believe I've suffered my fourth hard drive failure over 6 months, this was one of the top 2 brands. I noticed a small red x in the drive icon; I did somre googling and found an ominous suggestion a hard drve failure was imminent. I did a checkdisk repait but on a disk with several terabytes free, I got a message it couldn't find the space to correct corrupted data. Soon Windows failed to recognize the drive at all. On the plus side, the return/RMA process so far has been one of the most painless to date. USPS tracking indicates my return was delivered earlier today. Hopefully they'll process the return early next week.
Not that I gad anything to do with it, but I now have 13 grandnieces in addition to 12 grandnephews. And only about half of my 21 nephews and nieces have married and had kids to date. (And there's at least 1 more on the way.)
Food inflation if anything has continued to incrase overall over the past 4 years. I think the budget eggs cost about $1.12 a dozen at Lidl; several weeks back, they got down to $1.04 after spiking up over $3. Bread has been steathily increasing; I don't eat much on a lower-carb diet, but I remember whole wheat bread selling for about $1.50/loaf for almost forever but it's now about $2--still a lot lower than branded varieties, but a jolt just the same. Oh, they still have a budget white bread loaf for about 60 cents a loaf, but I won't touch white bread.. I've learned to be more patient and take advantage of sales. For example, Lidl next week will sell 3 1-lb bricks of ground beef fot $5 a brick, maybe a 20% savings. But when you factor in shipping and handling their everyday price is still a bargain.
Twitter/X is running some threads on sky-high fast food prices, especially in California with word about minimum wages reachin $20/hour. Gripes of combo burger meals in the $14-20 range. I drive past a Bob Evans weekly, and they feature several entrees under that range.. Don't quote me because I haven't eaten out recently, but I think Wendy's, Dairy Queen, Burger King and Taco Bell offer $5 meal bundles in many areas. You can also grab inexpensive meals at warehouse clubs like Sam's Club or some convenience chains like Wawa.
The WWE is finally starting down the home stretch towards Wrestlemania. By far, the most interesting storyline involves the Rock. It looks like they are aiming at Rock/Reigns v Rhodes/Rollins on night 1 and Rhodes/Reigns, Rollins/McIntyre for night 2 (and i wouldn't be surprised to see Damian Priest cash in his MITB briefcase). Reigns did not like the attention Rock was getting Friday and cut him off mid-promo, demanding Rock's acknowledgment, eventually given. Fans are speculating on how Rock's Bloodline gesture (fot others , a closed fist index finger up) differs, i.e., with an open thumb. So there is speculation Rock will turn on Reigns, perhaps costing his championship, setting up the original intended clash between the two
