Pandemic Report
The most recent weekly CDC stats:
We continue to see key indicators level off nationally although people continue to be hospitalized and/or die. It's a different story in SE Asia where infections have been rising. In the US we continue to see a right-wing. anti COVID policy/populist backlash with high-profile skeptics being appointed in the Trump Administration, lawsuits, dubious quack drug legalizations. mandate repeals, etc.
[Against the lab leak hypothesis] “At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a concern that the distance between Wuhan and the bat virus reservoir was too extreme for a zoonotic origin,” Wertheim said. “This paper shows that it isn't unusual and is, in fact, extremely similar to the emergence of SARS-CoV-1 in 2002.” The ancestor of the virus that causes COVID-19 left its point of origin in Western China or Northern Laos just several years before the disease first emerged in humans up to 2,700 kilometers away in Central China, according to a new study by University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers and their colleagues. That’s not enough time for the evolving virus to have been carried there via the natural dispersal of its primary host, the horseshoe bat. This has led the researchers to conclude that it instead hitched a ride there with other animals via the wildlife trade, consistent with what happened during the SARS outbreak in 2002. The study was published in Cell on May 7, 2025. Horseshoe bats are the main hosts of sarbecoviruses. These viruses don’t harm the bats, but are thought to have made the leap to humans through “zoonotic spillover” events. Sarbecoviruses gave rise to severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-1, the strain that caused the SARS pandemic of 2002-2004, and SARS-CoV-2, the strain that resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic. How they got to the places where these events occurred and whether animals besides bats were involved has been a matter of ongoing debate, however. The researchers calculated that given the distances that SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 would have had to cover so quickly, it is highly improbable that they could have been carried there via bat dispersal. Much more likely: they were transported there accidentally by wild animal traders via intermediate hosts. In fact, previous studies have suggested that SARS-CoV-1 was likely carried from Yunnan Province in Western China to Guangdong Province by infected palm civets or raccoon dogs — animals commonly traded for their fur and meat. However, the current study provides the strongest evidence to date that SARS-CoV-2 made it to humans in a similar manner.“The viruses most closely related to the original SARS coronavirus were found in palm civets and raccoon dogs in southern China, hundreds of miles from the bat populations that were their original source,” said co-senior author Michael Worobey, Ph.D., professor and head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at The University of Arizona. For more than two decades the scientific community has concluded that the live-wildlife trade was how those hundreds of miles were covered. We’re seeing exactly the same pattern with SARS-CoV-2.”
- "New research links long COVID to worse health-related quality of life"
- "Discovery may explain why more men are affected by severe COVID-19"
- "New AI tool predicts viral mutations to help future-proof COVID vaccines"
- "Scientists link specific gene variants to post-vaccine myocarditis and pericarditis"
- "COVID before or during pregnancy may confer 2 to 3 times the risk of miscarriage"
- "Study shows COVID-19 vaccines are not linked to miscarriage"
- "Clinical trial finds faster recovery from COVID-19 through targeted use of high-dose vitamin B3 in the gut"
- "Study suggest [Moderna] dual COVID-19/flu shot is more effective than individual vaccines"
- Prosecution of COVID relief fraud or other crimes continues:
- "KC woman pleads guilty to COVID-19 fraud, treasury check theft totaling millions"
- "Raleigh County Man Admits to Stealing Over $2.1M in COVID-19 Relief Funds"
- "Zebulon woman sentenced 8 eight years for multi-million COVID-19 fraud scheme"
- "COVID-19 $1.5M fraud scheme leads to prison time for 2 North Carolina women: DOJ"
- Legal or political developments relevant to COVID continue:
- "University of Pittsburgh reaches multi-million-dollar settlement in Covid-era class action lawsuit"
- "Why a major hydroxychloroquine study was retracted over statistical misuse"
- "COVID-19 probe requested by Florida Gov. DeSantis finds no evidence of criminal activity"
- "Vinay Prasad, a critic of drug industry and COVID-19 measures, to lead FDA vaccine program"
- "Appeals court sides with Celebrity Cruises in COVID-19 ‘false imprisonment' case"
- "Vaccine Mandate Lawsuit. Judges revive lawsuit against L.A. Unified"
- "NC House votes to make it easier to get ivermectin, reigniting COVID controversy"
Other Notes
The blog is still attracting a dubiously high number of pageviews, although it doesn't show up in the short run for daily posts, struggling to reach double digits. My typing is slower and I haven't published at my pre-interlude clip; I used to publish my media digest and journal posts every weekend. I may return to that pace soon. On X, no high-impression tweets lately but I did reach 100 followers for the the first time. I promptly lost 4, only to regain replacements. I am annoyed at my feed being flooded with Trumpkin posts.
A personal pet peeve: the excommunication of sports heroes who have allegedly engaged in unconscionable behavior. Probably the most obvious example is late WWE wrestler Chris Benoit. who killed his family in a murder/suicide. WWE over the last 18 years has basically censored references to Benoit in programming. I'm not excusing Benoit's crimes, but those are separate from his work as an entertainer. I don't believe a definitive explanation has explained his crimes: steroids? Brain injuries? Some details lead me to suspect mental illness. It's not the only example. Icon Hulk Hogan is highly unpopular in the aftermath of alleged racist behavior.
What brings this to mind is the posthumous reinstatement of Shoeless Joe Jackson, implicated in the 1919 Black Sox betting scandal, and Pete Rose, suspended for betting on games as a manager. There is no evidence that the betting scandal ever affected the play on the diamond. Hopefully they'll finally be voted into the Hall of Fame.
