Pandemic Report
The latest weekend stats from CDC;
Slight uptick in COVID19 infections in terms of related tests and emergency room visits; hospitalization and deaths are still declining but they tend to be lagging indicators. I expect the winter surge to be in its early stages, and if you haven't gotten this year's vaccine update, consider getting it soon, like I did about 3 months back.
Probably the biggest story of the week centered on President-Elect Trump's choice for NIH the Stanford doctor/health economist Jay Bhattacharya, who notably opposed work/school closures during the pandemic. Trump has appointed a number of pandemic policy contrarians/skeptics.
Other news items of interest:
- Legal/political news items:
- "NIH Beats Claim It Withheld Information on Covid-19's Origins"
- "Man tells court he escaped from Ingham County jail to avoid getting COVID"
- "NJ Rehab Center Fails to Escape Covid-19 Gross Negligence Claim"
- "Trump pick for US health agency proposed ‘herd immunity’ during Covid"
- "Penn State agrees to $17M settlement related to COVID-19 online learning"
- "Gov. Murphy signs bill to make COVID-19 outdoor dining rules permanent'
- "West Haven to receive over $1 million insurance reimbursement for stolen COVID-19 relief funds"
- "10th Circuit partially reinstates fired nursing home worker's lawsuit over COVID-19 vaccination"
- "COVID Frontline Workers Deserve Compensation, Says Mt. Laurel Assemblywoman Under Proposal"
- "Analysis of 25 studies shows reduced risk of long COVID after vaccination"
- "Men more likely than women to develop COVID-19 pneumonia, research suggests"
- "Features of chronic urticaria after COVID-19 mRNA vaccine over time"
- "[D]ata from clinical trials and V-safe found that irritability was the most common systemic reaction among children ages 6 months to younger than 2 years, followed by fever and fatigue or sleepiness."
- "Spike Protein Lingers in Brain, Fuels Long COVID"
- "Study links severe COVID-19 to multiple Sclerosis"
- "Air pollution linked to longer duration of long-COVID symptoms"
- "Tiny 4-fingered DNA robot hand grabs COVID virus, shields cells from infection"
- "Wearable electrical nerve stimulation device can reduce pain and fatigue linked to long COVID|
- "Blue Lake and CyanVac Report Positive Phase 2a Data for Intranasal COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate"
- "You May Have Lower Risk of COVID-19 Infection if You Have Food Allergies"
- "Hong Kong research using sewage to detect Covid-19 could track other diseases"
- "Nasal Swab Test Can Predict COVID-19 Severity Through Autoantibody Analysis"
- "CBT and rehabilitation likely to improve long covid symptoms"
- "Tailored text message reminders emphasizing ownership and effectiveness could help increase COVID-19 booster vaccine uptake"
- "Northeastern data scientist used social media and AI to detect PTSD symptoms in COVID-19 survivors"
- Prosecution of COVID relief fraud continues:
- "Duluth man charged with identify theft, COVID-19 relief fraud"
- "CEO of Southern California nonprofit admits stealing $1.5M in COVID-19 benefits"
- "Raleigh basketball scout convicted of stealing nearly $300,000 in COVID-19 relief funds"
- "Buckhannon man sentenced to federal probation after fraudulently obtaining COVID-19 funds and unemployment benefits"
Other Notes
Blog readership was modestly off although a good Saturday. I haven't published an essay in a while although I've started a couple, and next month will also include my annual mock awards. I've already decided the 'winner' of my Jackass of the Year, which is fairly obvious if you've read my past annual posts. We're less than 40 posts from 500 and we've hit or exceeded at least 40 posts each month this year. Twitter/X has trended on the lower side side of normal as I posted less around the holiday. I've noticed there seem to be more Trumpkins than progressives. I generally don't allow replies to my posts; it's not because I don't like mixing it up in a debate. I just find I get a high percentage of personal insults or spam tweets (e.g., cryptocurrency).
My big project over the past week was finally upgrading my cellphone.. I often was quick to get some exposure to new devices; I was the first I know to buy a VCR and I went through more answering machine. I use to constantly change my greetings: it could be anything from a quote to vocal impressions. I swear to God this actually happened while I was a UH doctoral student. one of mt friends called me, and when I answered , he told me to hang up and not to answer because he wanted to hear my latest greeting. on other things, I lagged buying CDs because I had a vast vinyl record collection. Eventually I couldn't buy new records on vinyl. Regarding cellphones, I really didn't see the need over landlines, until I ran into car problems on a long rural stretch of the interstate driving to a gig in Los Angeles. But I didn't buy a smartphone until I could get data and texting in a monthly package maybe $10/month more than just calls. For the last few years I've had a major Android vendor budget model. i never thought I would fill up 32 GB. oh, I added an SD card so I could put a ton of licensed music tracks for VLC media player. And some apps you can migrate to the SD card. But the apps are installed to internal storage so it was a lot of busy work, not to mention I was constantly having to prune applications to patch other apps. So, my cellphone provider had a deeply discounted upgraded budget model which quadruples internal storage. Transitioning is a pain. The vendor has a utility to transfer apps/data; mixed results but it did much of the busy work. I had to manually reinstall like about 10 apps and VLC--including having to recreate playlists (which is not complex but adding hundreds of tracks is tedious). Other minor setups were necessary like pairing my new phone to my car, and I need a larger phone holster for my belt.
I still don't have my replacement credit card (not my decision) And although I specifically told my issuer i wanted the unlabeled Amazon Prime charge to go through, Amazon processed a prime cancellation. I've been assured Amazon should get it next week. And although i thought we went over all recurring charges, they didn't mention my cellphone vendor, which meant my new cellphone service was suspended the next day. it turns out talking to an agent for my credit card issuer, Amazon isn't the only vendor who doesn't warn you about upcoming service charges. She said Microsoft does the same thing. No car title yet. I'm going to have to find out what's going on.
Eggs are still up this week. Walmart lowered its budget eggs to just under $4/dozen
Well, i was using my cellphone to watch my Texas Longhorns beat the Aggies on the road while watching WWE Survivor Series on TV . I was born near Aggieland. The Longhorns never trailed in the first rivalry game since 2011 (they both joined the Big 12 after the SWC folded in the early 90's and the Aggies left to join the SEC). UT joined the SEC this season and will be playing Georgia for the conference championship next weekend.
Survivor Series was somewhat predictable with the only title change being Nakamura in his new dark heel persona beating LA Knight for his US title. the women's war game match was probably interesting because of heel MITB winner Tiffany Stratton. i was puzzled why for once Stratton wasn't carrying her MITB briefcase to the ring. It turned out it was in a prop trash can. The 2 heel champions on Stratton's team were knocked out and Stratton seemed to want to cash in her contract, which didn't make sense because a pin meant the heel team would lose.
The old Bloodline with CM Punk finally beat Bloodline v 2, with each team member doing their finisher on '"tribal chief" Solo Sikoa.
