Post #7067 J

 Pandemic Report

The latest CDC weekly stats:

All these weekly stats, including a 2 point pop in test positivity rates, are up. My news scan revealed fewer posts than usual, perhaps due to  the holidays. However, CDC says 20 states have high or very high virus activity. for example, in Indiana COVID cases have doubled and flu levels have quadrupled lately. East Texas is reporting a spike of walking pneumonia among the youth.. One welcome sign in the post pandemic are the lowest gas prices since the economic rebound.

The latest news items of interest include:

•  There's some evidence that the FBI which supported the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis was censored from a report presented to President Biden. Personally, I'm in favor of the zoonotic hypothesis, but science requires open presentation of evidence.
• "Therapeutic Doses of Blood Thinners Decrease Mortality for Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients"
• "COVID-19 infection not linked to changes in MS symptom severity"
• "Updated [Pfizer] COVID-19 Vaccine Protects Against Hospitalization in Children Aged 5 to 17"
• Legal/political news over COVID continued:
• "Appeals court gives Ohio State immunity in lawsuit over student fees during COVID-19 shutdown"
• "NYC comptroller asks feds to decide whether Cuomo violated health rules during deadly COVID pandemic"

• "Study retracted after claiming malaria drug could treat COVID"
• False misinformation continues to spread on social media including:
• "Video Shared Online "Predicting" COVID 19's Fourth Wave In 2025 Fake"
• "Wellness influencers on social media more likely to oppose COVID-19 vaccination, study finds"
• Prosecution continues over COVID relief and other crimes:
• "Brentwood man sentenced after receiving $300K in COVID-19 relief funds for fraudulent marijuana business"
• "Long COVID Keeps People Out of Work and Hurts the Economy"

Other Notes

The blog will be closing out the calendar year  this Tuesday, having once again achieved the 500 post goal earlier this week. We'll likely end up slightly less than last year's total, but once again published at least 40 posts all year, even when I was commuting to Annapolis up to 3 hours a day, up to 3 hours on the road, not so much distance but in gridlock through the Baltimore tunnels. Thankfully that job is over' I had to put up with a contemptible SOB civil servant who couldn't handle stress.  He didn't like living in Maryland. (I think he missed living in Germany and I guess he was putting in his time until he earned his pension.) On X/Twitter, no big tweets this week, down to a more normal 1.2K tweets, now nearly 60 followers just about 15 short of my previous high under old twitter.

Well, Hallmark's Countdown to Christmas winds down I think New Year's Eve. Ironically I missed most of their premiers for other choices like wrestling and college football. Most of the ones I see are undistinguished romcoms. The sad thing is they seem to retire older favorites all the time. One in particular I noticed this season is "The Christmas Card", which spins a romance between a church girl writing Christmas cards out to troops overseas. One of them is a sergeant who has just lost his buddy. His commander orders him to get away from the warzone for a while. He takes a side trip to find the girl, who works at a family lumbermill. He falls in love but she has a serious boyfriend. I'm sure the reader can work out the rest of the plot.

I discovered some of the older favorites are available on YouTube (ad-supported). I've built a private playlist of about 3 dozen titles. There are probably a dozen unavailable or i haven't found, probably available on Hallmark+, their newest revamped streaming service.. There are a few others on Lifetime I like on Lifetime I think they've retired or I didn't see on the schedule, like the old Christmas Shoes trilogy,  including "The Christmas Hope", which involves orphaned Emily (well, technically her father has never been in her life) and a married social worker who lost her teenage son in an auto accident. I know I caught "Love Under the Christmas Table" once . You can find them on YouTube , along with "Dear Santa", about a heiress cut off from her parents, who finds a letter from a little girl who wants Santa to find love for her widower father, a snow plower who operates a struggling soup kitchen in honor of his late wife.

Oh, I recommend Netflix's film of "Mary'', Jesus' mother, with a fictional account of Mary's life to her engagement , and the holy family through their escape to Egypt. King Herod and his diabolical enforcer are truly evil.

Finally, a rant about the remainder of the college football playoffs. My cable subscription doesn't include ESPN, and apparently the rest of the playoff which uses the major Jan 1 bowls is on ESPN. My Texas Longhorns take on Arizona State Wednesday.. It's awful after a season mostly played on free TV that ABC doesn't join ESPN coverage.