Pandemic Report
The latest weekly stats from CDC:
Well, numbers continue to drop to some of the lowest levels in 2 years. Among other things, this month hospitals are not required to report relevant COVID-19 hospitalization numbers. CDC hopes that hospitals will continue to report numbers voluntarily but the change of measurement may obscure ongoing trends We continue to see things revert to normalcy like Vermont opem meetings.
Salient news items include but are not restricted to:
- In the first half of 2023 nearly 43K Americans died of COVID than the flu (2 to 1), but nearly half of Amrticans got a flu shot and only half as many got a COVID booster.
- mRNA vaccine maker Moderna's revenue dropped nearly 90% last year
- DC politicos have scapegoated NIH funding of coronavirus research at Wuhan Institute. Scientists rightly note that the US benefits from virus knowledge in countries with natural sources of zoonological diseases like China, since diseases spread across borders.
- More COVID public spending fraud is being prosecuted including
- whistleblower complaints on a COVID contact tracing contract with Pennsylvania state led to a multi-million dollar settlement
- a Florisa school district employee fraudulently applied for and received another party's unemployment benefits
- a former ATF Michigan employee has neen charged with multiple counts of pamdemic loan fraud
- A Minnesota university study found diabetes oral medication metformin is associated with lower COVID-19 virus loads
- SCOTUS refused to hear military chaplain complaints regarding vaccine mandates
- The Chinese scientist who, without approval. released rhe early COVID genome, found himself locked out of his lab and recently got reinstated, at least temporarily
- The Gray Lady did a comprehensive overview of COVID vaccinr side effects. Keep in mind even thousands of alleged injuies are statistically insignicant in the context of hundreds of millions of doses administered.
- "Results of this study, published in the journal Nature Communications, categorically show a reduction in indicators of disease severity in those who had received the vaccine, demonstrating that the harmful inflammatory reaction to COVID-19 is less severe in those who have been vaccinated, when compared with those who haven't"
- An Ohio doctor, an anti-vaxxer who spread misinformation and had her license suspended, has been reinstated.
- More information on the highly contagious FLiRT omicron subvariants increasing market share. There is speculation on whether they could ignite a summer surge.
Other Notes
The latest blog readership statistcs continue to be bloated with some signs it may be tapering down this weekend.. Twitter/X statistics continue to slump at near all-time lows, largely because of low posting (I often commute to work up to hours daily).
Well, this weekend was the WWE PLE Backlash France. To be honest, I was less than favorably impressed. Although the matches were decent (only one title change: for the women's tag titles), there was no obvious link to Wrestlemania, nor any good storylines building to the men's championships.
