Pandemic Report
The latest CDC weekly stats:
We continue to see a minor pickup in stats in about half the states, especially California. A lot of posts are focusing on the newer Stratus variant XFG. Anti-vaxxer HHS Secretary Kennedy overrode expert scientists in cancelling about half a billion in mRNA projects.["WHO says US ending mRNA vaccine contracts a ‘significant blow’"; " FACT FOCUS: RFK Jr.'s Reasons for Cutting MRNA Vaccine Not Supported by Evidence"; "HHS phases out mRNA vaccine trials for COVID-19, bird flu"] "Federal agencies directed to delete employee COVID vaccination records and exemption requests." A man involved in a CDC HQ shooting Friday was motivated by anti-COVID vaxxer views. Pregnant women may have to pay for vaccines out of pocket. Snopes debunks "'Walking Dead' actor Kelley Mack's death fuels COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theory"
- "Vaccinated Patients With COVID-19 and AKI Fare Better"
- "LJI scientists develop new approach to fighting many viruses at once"
- "Larazotide Safe, Effective in Children With COVID-19-Related MIS-C"
- "Remdesivir + Corticosteroids Boost Survival in COVID-19 Patients With COPD"
- "CureVac and GSK settle mRNA patent dispute with Pfizer and BioNTech"
- "Stanford AI Agents’ Lab Finds Promising COVID-19 Drug Leads in Days"
- "Pfizer Covid vaccine for young children may not be renewed by FDA"
- "Korean scientists say they developed oral drug against COVID-19"
- "Most US kids hospitalized for COVID had chronic illnesses; less than 4% were vaccinated"
- Prosecutors are pursuing COVID relief fraud and other crimes:
- "Beverly Hills man indicted for COVID-19 relief loan fraud"
- "3 from metro Atlanta charged in COVID-19 pandemic fraud scheme"
- "Woman pleads guilty to over $130k in COVD-19 Emergency Rental Assistance"
- "Sacramento woman sentenced to over 4 years for $2.5 million COVID-19 unemployment fraud"
- "Hospital clerk steals patients’ ID’s, claims $1 million in COVID-19 stimulus checks"
- "Forsyth County woman faked documents to get COVID-19 relief funds"
Other Notes
The last few posts I've discussed working on extending my Sec+ certification. This is typically a prerequisite for doing federal contracting work, especially with the military on IT projects, typically in a database administrator role. (I haven't found relevant jobs in over a year but my certificate was going to expire in January.) The subject matter of Sec+ goes far beyond my typical roles, but I had to do a lot of security work in my role, e.g., quarterly critical security patching, encrypting database transactions and/or stored application data (especially confidential data (like PII or HIPPA) and backups), auditing logons and database activities, enforcing rotated complex password policies, etc. So I completed my recertification earlier this week and, as you can see below. it now expires in 2029
The blog continues to attract dubious pageviews, especially on weekends. My X/Twitter followers dropped from 150 to 138, not sure why such a sharp contraction, but it's happened before in over a decade on Twitter.
As I''ve mentioned before, Microsoft is desupporting Windows 10 around mid-October, meaning no new security/other patching. It requires some hardware upgrades for any supported upgrade path to Windows 11.So I'm losing 3 old laptops and a desktop. (Microsoft is reportedly going to offer for home users an ESU option the first year at $30 per relevant device of extra years at higher fees.)
So the context is I have some Windows 11 PC's already but a certain electronics superstore (not Amazon) had a good deal on a budget HP laptop. They offered free shipping for next day delivery. I was going to be at home and it would be more convenient and save time and gas. The chain used a company called Roadie, a UPS subsidiary I've never heard of before. I got a message of delivery but no box on my doorstep. I usually don't flame vendors for making a mistake but in this case you combine a disastrous mistake with a vendor who absolutely refused to respond when I unambiguously immediately respond by text or phone/voicemail. To this day, I've never responded a single response beyond a single text back like, "Who the hell is this?" I had gotten a preliminary note to control any pet before delivery. And this text that they had allegedly delivered the laptop said to respond within 29 minutes if there was an issue. I did by phone and text, and beyond that unresponsive reply not even so much as an apology for screwing up a delivery.
So there was no link at the superstore website for indicating missing delivery. (In the interim I had gone around to neighboring homes to see if they got the delivery. I know that the idiot who delivered my item to the wrong address was convinced she had "proof" of delivery but as far as I was concerned I wasn't going to eat the cost of Roadie's incompetence. (I don't know if the superstore was able to retrieve their item or if the resident who received the package not addressed to them ever reported it. If so, they never delivered it to me.) I finally got a customer agent from the superstore. First, the agent wanted to discuss Roadie's alleged photo "proof" of delivery which I didn't have access to--yet. He referred me to Roadie's homepage--which doesn't have a tracking gadget. He's describing the photo, pointing out the street number was correct. (Simple IQ question: why might that still be a wrong address? I'm waiting ) He verbally described other things that sounded like my home, but I still couldn't see what he was looking at Finally he got me to the webpage showing a photo; There were multiple obvious differences to my home. The street number and light were on the wrong side of the door, rhe number of steps to the apartment was different, there wasn't a window to the other side of the door, it looked like the other address had a covering over the porch. Otherwise there were elements very consistent with local properties. (I texted the complex, and the agent told me there were other streets in the area with my street number.) So the solution to my brain teaser above is she must have delivered to the wrong street. How utterly incompetent do you have to be to deliver to the wrong street? Google Maps will get you to the right address. UPS hires people who can't follow Google Maps? That's sad, dude!
Thw superstore did offer to replace the missing laptop. This time I picked it up in person. I wasn't about to deal with Roadie again .
