Pandemic Report
The latest weekly stats from CDC:
The latest daily stats from Worldometer:
The winter surge continues to taper down with long-term dominant variant JN.1 losing market share to one of its own subvariants. One of the signs that most people think the pandemic is over: while I was walking into Walmart today, I came across a discarded black disposable facemask. I personally haven't worn a facemask in weeks; other than hospital nurses during my recent weekly visits (patients weren't required to wear them and none I saw did but we would get asked every time we checked in if we experienced symptoms or had traveled outside the country), I would come across the rare fellow customer who was masked--but it was more the exception than the rule.
Interestingly, Biden seems to be running for reelection on his pandemic public policy record. I think the political momentum is with the critics, e;g., targeting vaccine makers and mandates, student perfornance issuess during remote learning. Perhaps it's a tactic aimed at rallying his base.
Other news of interest include but are not restricted to:
- There's been an increase of long COVID cases from about 15% to 18% of those infected since 2022
- Prosecution of COVID relief fraud continues including
- a Connecticut man engaging in PPP loan fraud
- The FDA has emergency-use authorized Pemgarda, a monoclonal antibody infusion , for those acutely immunocompromised
- Yale researchers have reported evidence in support of "getting an annual COVID vaccine with a second dose for adults over 50 and children under 2 was linked to fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths, and less healthcare spending each year".
- Red (GOP dominated) states are more likely to report on vaccine side effects
- Moderna reported positive results from Phase 3 trials of its new generation, improved mRNA vaccine which may also include flu protection in an annual shot
- Anti-vaxxer misinformation is behind a Louisiana legislator's attempt to remove vaccine mandates for public school admission
Other Notes
Rlog beadership statistics are being bloated by nefarious forces. The long-term readership pattern has been roughly 2000+ plus pageviews, about half of that recently. So this month is showing about 12K this month and counting. Twitter/X statistics remain near a multi-month low, in part due to time constraints in posting and to be honest the hot trends lately haven't been inspiring my interest.
OMG, I'm back in medical billing hell. Of course there are cases a lot worse than mine: medical bankruptcy is a real thing. But more than once I've gotten an unexpected bill. I won't get into details, but suffice it to say I had a change of insurer at the beginning of the month. I know I went over that before a doctor visit earlier this month (not what I briefly described above. In one sense, it's related because the doctor is affiliated to the same hospital.) I had a bad feeling when she gave me a script for a blood test after my visit and it showed the former insurer in the paperwork. I did the blood test and made sure the correct insurance information was provided again. What's also insane about this is earlier the same day I saw said physician I had also gone over insurance at the main hospital. Now I'm sure others face the same general set up: the hospital and physicians are billed separately. So I end up getting an email notification I've got a bill from said doctor in the patient portal. Essentially the gist is I'm getting billed directly over $400 (for about a 5-minute visit) for my insurance being declimed. (It's more complicated than you may think. In essence my COBRA coverage became secondary. So the company immediately rejected new claims until they had been processed through my primary insurer since the beginning of the year. So I contacted the hospital billing department, and they were pissed: we know all about your coverage. But you're contacting the wrong party. We don't deal with physician billing. Do you think the dumbass physician's office can deal with this? Nope. I got another phone to call and got put into another queue. I was told they would call me back but never did. So I finally got the snail mail bill over the weekend. At least I have an invoice to reference. I'll probably call again and wait however long it takes to get customer support and if that doesn't work, I'll contact my primary insurer. I hate this with a passion because I know I reported my primary insurer when I checked in, and the boneheads didn't even contact me when their claim was rejected.
Well, My UH Cougars (MBA, PhD) got bounced from the Sweet 16 of March Madness basketball tournament. To be honest, UH got off to a strong 8-0 start and looked like they were going to blow Duke out of the water. But a cold streak of over 5 minutes without a point, poor foul shooting, some bad shot selections and a bad ankle injury to a key player probably doomed them in a relatively close contest. Of course, UH barely got by Texas A&M in an overtime contest where UH's double-digit lead evaporated in the closing minute plus of regulation. It reminded me how UH blew the national championship to NC State while I was a student. Of course, I had a bad feeling when UH got blown out in the Big 12 Championship finale
