Pandemic Report
The latest weekly stats from CDC:
There is a modest pickup in early indicators but that's from near record pandemic lows of serious illness and death. More signs of public policy moderation.: Germany has removed the vaccine mandate for military recuits.
The latest relevant news of interest include but are not restricted to:
- "The bad news: COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized within the first 30 days after infection face a 29% higher risk of death in the third year compared with people who have not had the virus. However, the three-year death risk still marks a significant decline compared with such risk at the one- and two-year marks post-infection. The findings also show that even people with mild COVID-19 were still experiencing new health problems related to the infection three years later."
- "In a head-to-head comparison of masks worn by people with active COVID-19, the inexpensive "duckbill" N95 came out on top, stopping 98% of COVID-19 particles in the breath of infected people from escaping into the air. Led by researchers from the University of Maryland School of Public Health (SPH), results showed other masks also performed well, blocking at least 70% of viral particles from escaping from the source – an infected person'sexhaled breath."
- Blacks and Latinos disproportionately suffer from long COVID and are less likely to get timely treatment.
- COVID-19 relief fraud continues to be prosecuted inclufing:
- a Florida deputy sheriff was sentenced
- 4 California men linked to an IRS employee engaged in $3M PPP loan fraud
- a Chinese cybercriminal ringleader was arrested for millions in US relief funds used to purchase sports cars, real estate and watches
- A recent study suuests enforced masking on long flights is effective in limiting transmission
- A Massachusetts state auditor found gaps in oversight over government COVID relief
- I tweeted a response to a fearmongering anti-vaxxer on this story: mRNA technology is being used to develop bird flu vaccines for people and cattle
- "A consortium of scientists at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed), the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Columbia University have developed a promising new human monoclonal antibody that appears a step closer to a universal antibody cocktail that works against all strains of SARS-CoV-2."
Other Notes
Blog readership seems to have stabilized to a recent 1-2K monthly readership pattern. X/Twitter impressions continue to struggle. I do suspect Twitter/X is shadow-banning at least some political tweets For example, Trump, who I loathe, has a signature bit on nicknaming his targets. So I've tongue-in-cheek come up wih a nickname for him: the Angry Orange RINO Criminal. The last time I checked I've never gotten more than 2-3 impressions for any of these. But I can write a tweet on WWE or a voice competition and regularly get 100-800 impressions
I have known at least 2 people with dementia and one thing you realize with short-term memory problems that the person will often bring up the same questions over and over, mere minutes apart. I don't really like to repeat myself. I realize it's not intentional, and I exercise patience and love. But dealing with medical billing errors is maddening.In March I went to a trgular 3-month health check, and I was no longer continuing my COBRA coverage. because I had new coverage. The doctor is affiliated with a local university hospital sysem. I had an earlier nurse's visit at the hospital (different campus) same morning. I know I submitted the new primary and secondary insurance carrier cards on checkin. What many people know is you often face hospital fees and doctor fees handled separately. To date, I've had .only 1 issue with the hospital's billing. I had a deeper concern with the doctor, hoever, when the blood test paperwork I picked up showed my old insurance company I was told not to worry--it takes the system a time to update. WRONG! I checked in the test labs with my new provider info and no issues. But over the past 3 months I've gotten full list $400+ bill (for maybe a routine 10-minute visit) and the gist is they billed my old insurance, got denied, and assumed I was uninsured; I have called billing people at least 3-4 times. I thought for sure they finally got it figured out, but not according to this weekend's repeat billing. The usual threats to turn it over to collection agencies. I have a new visit scheduled Tuesday.
Some personal pet peeves (yes, I'm sure you have worse):
- smoke alarms. Ultra-sensitive. Just to give you an example, during the writeup of this post I microwaved some popcorn and a few kernels were burned, not much but enough to set off the alarm. I rarely use the stove, but for God knows what reason it started like at 3:30 AM, false alarm but it refused to stop. I'm not sure what happened--an electric surge maybe.
- Lidl clearance items. I love the grocery store, but I think clearance items can't be self-checked, my preferred method. I know WalMart will put a clearance item with an overlaying barcode. All Lidl will do is to slap on a sticker saying e.g., 30% off (but no barcode). It's no big deal, but you scan the item and the regular price posts. It's not worth my time to save 20 cents on a yogurt, but I'm not going to buy an older yogurt for regular price.
- Meat plastic bags at Sam's Club. Maybr it;s my fat fingers but 9 times out of 10, I can't get these things to open, at least cleanly. You really need it when buying those $5 chickens.
- Fresh berry trays without some tape fastener. I can't tell you how often the trays have opened on the way to my kitchen.
