Pandemic Report
The latest CDC statistics;
The regular reader may notice the usual stats on test rate positivity, ER visits, hospitalization, and death rates are missing. CDC showed no updates over the past week; no posted explanation. As far as I can tell all 3 respiratory diseases {COVID, RSV, flu), are still high if not rising nationally (maybe RSV has peaked), but it varies. I think they are particularly rising in the Midwest, Northeast and South. I've particularly noticed relevant posts from Michigan and Florida.
There are a number of key stories over the past week. First, the CIA has come down on the side of the lab leak hypothesis of COVID origins. Second, there's been a transition of Presidents. Biden notably gave Dr. Fauci a preemptive pardon. Trump, on the other hand, has stripped Fauci of national security protections. Trump has also withdrawn the US from the WHO, which may have adverse effects on poorer nations. He has also removed the vaccine requirements for legal immigrants. And his attempt to eliminate FEMA may affect funding in some states. Trump also wants to reinstate veterans who refused COVID vaccines with backpay. The acting NIH director is a skeptic of vaccine mandates. And this week is the fifth year anniversary of the first US COVID diagnosis
Other news items of interest include;
- "Experts say COVID-19 pandemic had lasting impact on mental health of health care workers"
- "Four Japanese speed skaters to miss opening event of World Cup season after testing positive for COVID-19 "
- "Four Years After Covid-19 Success, mRNA Vaccines Aren’t Ready for Bird Flu"
- "The nanoparticle-based vaccine shows promise against many variants of SARS-CoV-2, as well as related sarbecoviruses that could jump to humans"
- "Study shows for most, long-COVID symptoms persist into second year"
- '/Covid-19 linked to chronic fatigue syndrome"
- "Analysis shows significant financial burden of long COVID in US"
- "Missouri suing China for its role in COVID-19"
- "Moderna Awarded Tender for the Supply of Its mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine in the European Union"
- "Ky lawmaker behind bill limiting blood donations from COVID-vaccinated people says it was an error"
- "Researchers found that [cancer] patients had a higher risk of death if they were unvaccinated or had been vaccinated more than 6 months before a COVID-19 diagnosis"
- "Repeat COVID-19 jabs offer protection for the immunocompromised"
- "Long COVID Impairs Exercise Capacity and Cognition for Years'
- Prosecutors continue to prosecute COVID relief fraud and other crimes:
- "Kapolei woman indicted for $36K unemployment fraud scheme during Covid'
- "San Diego businessman sentenced 18 months for taking almost $3M in COVID funds"
- "Federal grand jury indicts 7 in $600M COVID-19 benefits scheme"
- The war against vaccine misinformation continues:
- COVID-19 vaccines contain bits of the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV is debunked.
- Anti-vaxxer COVID misinformation is spreading to hesitancy in childhood immunizations
- "There is an “explosion” of cancer among people aged 14 to 44 in the U.S., UK and Japan associated with vaccination, “particularly the boosters” for the COVID-19 vaccine" is debunked
- Legal or political aspects involving COVID continue:
- " An appeals court approves a class action for a lawsuit over fees during USF’s COVID-19 shutdown"
Other Notes
The suspicious high pageviews continued through the week although it seemed to slow to a more normal rate on Saturday. I made progress on my first op-ed post which should be published this coming week. On Inauguration Day I posted my most popular tweet ever; about 61.7K views (a warning against Trumpkins launching malicious Congressional investigations ahead of midterms when the Dems are likely to retake the House). on the downside, I seemed to lose 5 of an account high of 75 followers, roughly my peak for the old account.
My latest toy is a DIY external hard drive fot my PCs (I have a backup desktop and a couple of mini-PCs). I have other hard drives--but as a DBA, I believe in redundancy . Just a personal observation; I've had .best luck with a couple of well-known drive vendors (Seagate and Western Digital); I have no financial interest with these vendors; I'm just commenting on my past experience. Note you can also purchase more expensive solid state drives. My other external drives were USB-port ready. Since my budget is tight, I looked at higher capacity renewed drives Amazon carries in limited quantities. As I write, Amazon has some 3..5" internal WD HDD SATA 12 TB drives for about $150, and they also sell some compatible HDD docking stations for about $25-30. You can probably get a comparable new OEM plug ready drives for $230-300. I initially had problems trying to initialize the disk, but perhaps the drive wasn't seeded properly and a second attempt succeeded and I was able to format the drive. As I write, I'm backing up a few TB from one of my other drives .
I recently noticed after applying Windows 10 security patches. Windows notes they will no longer support (security patch) Win 10 devices past September. tThis is worse than prior upgrades (in this context Windows 11), because Microsoft requires more current pC hardware. I have a few Win 10 PC's which can't upgrade. I do have newer Win 11 Pro devices that I'll transition to for Internet work along with my Chromebook. I keep the newer PC's patched. it's just I need some time to migrate applications and workfiles,
WWE had NBC's Saturday Night's Main Event tonight, a week before its annual Royal Rumble. The main prize for each gender there is an automatic championship title shot. So the Main Event had a Rumble "contract signing " for Rhodes WWE title defense against Kevin Owens. There were multiple championship bouts tonight, no title changes. I think for me the big surprising bout was Jacob Fatu's laying out Braun Strowman, a much bigger man. I think they are trying to build Fatu as a monster heel and to continue the program with Strowman. Not sure what they're planning for Wrestlemania. Is the Rock going to be available? Are they doing to do a championship match with Cena? They have Gunther with the World title but who? Rollins? CM Punk? Another thing I earlier tweeted about: they pre-announced Charlotte Flair's :return at the Rumble. I can't figure out why they did that. They usually save surprise entries at the Rumble
