Pandemic Report
The latest CDC weekly statistics:
The summer surge continues, expanding from prmarily in thw West to some 39 states seeing increases.The latest COVID-19 celebrity infectiom is LA Mayor Karen Bass. We see COVID seemingly transitioning to endemic status; in the winter we see a surge as the cold weather lures people inside and with limited ventilation bioaerosols concentrate; in the summer the virus thrives in the heat and humidity. Still, we see deaths at maybe up to 10% of what we saw this past winter. CDC is already recommending variant KP.2 monovalent COVID vaccines this fall from 6 month babies to the aged; they expect the vaccines to become available from between mid-August to late September.
Other COVID-18 news items of interest include:
- One study confirmed in animal studies shows the promise that vaccination may address the common symptom of brain fog in long COVID; a follow-up study needs to replicate the finding in human subjects.
- The government continues to prosecute VOVID pandemic relief fraud, including
- A NH man was sentenced to CARES Act loan fraud.
- Three GA residents were sentenced over PPP loan fraud
More Notes
The Blogger stats continue to br unreliably bloated. Individual post pageviews seem a little softer this week with a couple of daily posts in single-digits as I write. Twitter/X impressions seem somewhat up, although I seem to have lost 3 followers over the week from a current account high. I really don't aggregate my individual tweet stats
I just noticed that Hallmark not only renamed its drama network family, but seems to have shortened HMM to Mysteries. I watched the latter's week-long prelude to Hallmark's "Christmas in July", now in process. Surprisingly, I didn't see some of the films in the prelude: in particular, "Heaven Down There", apparently loosely based on a country song with that name. This reminds me of a movie "The Encounter" (PositTV) where drivers are stranded in a real popup diner managed by Jesus Christ. In the former movie, they are stranded by a Christmas Eve snowstorm. No Christ here, but some poignant stories. One twist involves a baby photo, which reminds me of a similar plot in A Joyous Christmas.
I must be a dead PC whisperer. I think months back I wrote about a mini-PC which refused to power up, and I decided to try again over the past week, and to my shock it suddenly powered up. This is literally the fourth PC I've coaxed back to life.
Talk about unexpected medical bills. Several weeks back I went to my doctor when I constantly puked over 3 days. My doctor prescribed a $10 medication to settle my stomach. I'm covered by primary and secondary insurers. Over the weekend I got an impossibly convoluted bill for $185 and that's after both insurers made listed payments. I contacted my secondary insurer, and the accounr rep said it's an erroneous bill and if they try to invoice me again to get back in touch with them (insurer).
