Pandemic Report
The latest CDC weekly stats:
There's still just a modest pickup to the winter surge with a pickup in test positivity rates and deaths. Vaccination rates remain disappointing; I think Chicago is at just 10%. There are still some high profile infections, including Gov. Scott (R-VT). Just a reminder: with 2 holidays over the coming week and a half, travel and social gatherings are at risk.for infection.
Latest COVID news items include:
- A 2020 paper published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID treatments has been retracted, a big deal in academic research
- Life expectancy which dipped a couple of years during the pandemic has closed to within half a year of prepandemic highs..
- "Molecular and cellular level research shows a sharp sex divide for long COVID—women are more vulnerable"
- "How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic"
- " 6% of US adults have long COVID, and many have reduced quality of life."
- "1 in 5 adults with Long COVID struggle with daily activities"
- "Breastfeeding after COVID-19 vaccination is safe, with minimal changes to milk composition"
- Legal and political issues during the pandemic continue including
- " Eagles fumble COVID-19 coverage case as judge rules for insurer"
- "Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots"
- "Dutch official misquoted in article did not say COVID was a NATO operation"
- "Nancy Pelosi Profited as Luxury Napa Resort Won COVID-19 Bailout"
- "Review of US vaccine injury reimbursement program shows less than 3% of claims eligible for compensation"
- Prosecution of COVID relief fraud and other crimes continue including
- "Former Eagles running back, Delaware native pleads guilty to COVID-19 fraud charges"
- "Tyler doctor admits role in $5.5 million COVID-19 scheme"
- "Former Huntsville family doctor, wife sentenced for health care and COVID-19 relief fraud"
- "Former AHS employee fined for falsifying COVID-19 vaccination records"
Other Notes
The blog readership is back to the recent normal pageviews. I expect to publish a couple of essays off the coming week and should easily surpass the 500 post goal this year. for a number of weeks on X I straggled to get a viral tweet/post (of 1k impressions) I got my second big one, this time for over 10K. Odd. you never can tell what will capture the attention of other X users. In this case, I debunked a claim that Rob Reiner would set himself on fire if Trump won the election. I 've gained a little surge of followers after being stuck under 50 for a while.
Well, after the Texas Longhorn's overtime loss in their first season SEC championship game (in overtime), Texas played Clemson in the home "wildcard" game in this new format of the college football playoff. Texas has one of the strongest, if not the strongest, defenses in college football. but it didn't look like it when Clemson chewed up half the clock on the opening touchdown drive. But Texas answered with a streak of scoring drives, largely on a great running game which went AWOL against Georgia. But after a pick-6 and resurgent Clemson offense in the second half and a sputtering Texas offense, Clemson seemed poised for a comeback in the fourth quarter when Texas stopped Clemson near the goal line and had a breakaway touchdown run.
There are certain tech workarounds I've discovered on my own. for instance I like to use Joplin to webclip things I'll clip posts for sources I use in my blogposts or transaction receipts.) But occasionally the extension fails in Chrome (the button to save does not appear). So, I used an old tech trick in this context: I'll toggle the extension on and off. A similar concept involves a "remove duplicate messages" add-on on freeware Thunderbird. (sometimes Thunderbird will hiccup and download messages again).. Every once in a while the add-on option disappears from the interface. i find that flicking the add-on odd and on plus restart Thunderbird will resolve the issue.
I'm getting increasingly annoyed at paywalls. For example i ran into 2 or 3 in compiling my COVID bullet lists above. I refuse to pay for the promotion of their content. A similar thing on X/Twitter, For instance, the WSJ was trending on a story that staff has been covering up Biden's aging/cognitive issues but when you click on the link you get a teaser lead-in and a hard sell to subscribe. ironically, i was one of the first paying customers (I think it cost about $49/year (not one of those gimmick teaser rates: they just kept raising the rate to a point too high)). WAPO did a similar thing. I always thought they should implement something like a nickel or dime per pageview but the idea I'm going to pay over $100 to see a single story is unrealistic.
Amazon has mostly resolved my Prime membership refunds for memberships they canceled, the first when I didn't recognize the charge. I think they still owe me the sales tax on the first cancellation but that may be in process.
