Pandemic Report
The latest CDC weekly stats:
We continue to see the Stratus-led summer wave, particularly in Texas and California.
There's a lot of indecision based on the changing regulation under the vaccine-skeptic Trump regime under HHS Secretary Kennedy, state regulations tied to CDC guidance, and how private sector insurers will cover or not cover vaccine costs. By far the biggest story was The American Academy of Pediatrics publicly contradicted Kennedy's CDC COVID vaccine child restrictions; the crackpot HHS secretary argued Big Pharma is behind the AAP move. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists did the same for pregnant women.
Other COVID-related news items include:
- "Vaccination may reduce elevated risk of airway diseases in COVID survivors"
- "COVID-19 accelerates vascular aging in women"
- The government is issuing tips against COVID vaccine scams
- "Moderna Receives Health Canada Approval for Updated COVID-19 Vaccine Targeting SARS-CoV-2 Variant LP.8.1"
- "Study reveals how SARS-CoV-2 hijacks testicular lipid metabolism to replicate"
- "COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Targeting Omicron JN.1 Lineage Safe"
- Prosecution against COVID relief fraud or other crimes continues:
- "California man pleads guilty in multimillion-dollar COVID-19 fraud scheme"
- "COVID-19 unemployment fraud lands woman in prison"
- "Elk Grove man ‘fraudulently obtained’ more than $1 million in COVID-19 relief fraud"
- "Scranton man sentenced to over four years for $1M Covid-19 fraud scheme"
- "4 indicted for alleged COVID-19 relief fraud"
- Political or legal developments continue:
- "North Carolina Supreme Court says bars’ COVID-19 lawsuits can continue"
- "Houston dealership not liable for employee’s COVID-19 death"
- "Enanta Files Patent Lawsuit Against Pfizer (PFE) Over COVID-19 Drug Paxlovid"
- "Florida Attorney Sanctioned for Bringing Frivolous Covid-19 Suit"
- "Ithaca College may settle COVID-19 related lawsuit"
- "Louisiana congressman calls for defunding of the New Orleans Health Department"
- "Appeals court affirms fines imposed on Longview restaurant that violated COVID-19 rules"
- "Qantas fined $59M for illegal pandemic layoffs"
- "OSHA extends comment period on proposal removing remaining COVID-19 emergency temporary standard requirements"
Other Notes
For a second consecutive week, blog pageviews are in historical patterns, with some daily posts not reaching double-digits yet in pageviews. I thought a recent travel nightmare to Mom's funeral in my latest essay (mostly nonpolitical) did reasonably well. Other people have experienced lengthy layovers or lost luggage, but I came close to missing Mom's funeral over alleged plane A/C problems, On Twitter/X after 2-3 weeks of losing followers at under 140, they suddenly surged past 160 for the first time ever. I also seem to be experiencing more engagements (like like's or retweets), although not clusters, like 5 or more. It's almost like I've primarily become a troll of Trumpkin tweets and memes, not necessarily by intent, but Twitter seems to flood my feed with them.
I saw Southwest is going to force some overly big travelers to pay for multiple seats. I started wondering what they were going to do: force passengers to weigh in? No. I've been overweight most of my adult life. I've never spilled over into a middle seat, which obviously has implications for fully booked flights. I'm probably at a near 30-year low, although a health incident and several weeks of rehab (and strictly enforced meal portions). I mentioned in my trip essay i was able to use the standard seatbelts on Spirit and Frontier without the hassle of using an extender. I'm not done; I probably need to lose another 30 pounds to get into the shape of my Navy ensign days and to fit in standard size clothes.
One incident I didn't mention in my recent travel post is I tripped and fell on the Frontier flight on the way to the restroom in the back of the plane. It was infuriating because the aisle was thin enough without worrying about fellow passenger feet straying into the aisle and I tripped over one egregiously stray foot. I fell face down. skinning my right knee. This was a nightmare incident after my March incident.. I was secure enough not having brought a cane on my trip. I was easily able to regain my footing and resume the trip to the bathroom but not happy with a certain passenger who tripped me.
I continue to find this a challenging economy to find a new gig. It's like I don't have a high enough clearance or enough cloud vs on-premise DBA experience. This also reminded me of my exasperating experience dealing with Indian recruiters. I dealt with a typical idiot earlier today who argued he didn't see Oracle EBS (E-Business Suite) experience on my resume. How did the dumbass miss 10 years of full-time experience on the resume, which extensively discussed versions, platforms and modules, project and production experience? Probably the idiot didn't realize EBS was Oracle's rename of its (ERP) Applications and we are still primarily referenced as Apps DBA's. I'm fairly sure I cross-referenced the terms somewhere in the resume. I do realize that recruiters may not be well-informed over technical details, but I shouldn't be training recruiters on how to read a resume.
