Note to readers: I normally publish this weekly post earlier over the weekend, but I drove round trip to Fall River. MA, where my Mom was being buried in the family plot at a church cemetery over the weekend.
Pandemic Report
The latest CDC weekly stats:
The statistics (except for deaths) showed nationally the summer wave is declining from a recent peak, although still all too real in many spots, including comedian
Steve Martin, who recently had to cancel scheduled performances.
By far, the major news of the week involved the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Friday meeting (with HHS Secretary RFK. Jr.'s handpicked vaccine committee of vaccine-skeptics and the like) decided that COVID vaccines are no longer recommended for all but a matter of individual decision-making. "maintaining access for people who want shots and are able to discuss their decision with a health care provider".
Other relevant notes:
The 12-member panel voted unanimously to remove the blanket recommendation that adults 65 and older get vaccinated, instead changing the recommendation to “shared clinical decisionmaking.” The public health concept means that vaccination isn’t the default for a given population but remains an option. The panel voted against advising states and localities to require a prescription for Covid-19 vaccines. The panel initially deadlocked in a 6-6 tie, which was broken by Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Chair Dr. Martin Kulldorff.
A number of blue states have distanced themselves from the RFK, Jr. ACIP, including the West Coast alliance, Michigan, DC., etc., dealing with pharmacy confusion in vaccine distribution.
Other news items of interest:
- "Health insurers vow to cover COVID-19 and flu shots, regardless of CDC panel's guidance."
- "China gives COVID whistleblower more years in jail"
- "Covid-19 vaccines protect children from severe disease"
- "More than one-third of individuals with COVID-19 experience long COVID"
- "Recommending Covid-19 vaccines for everyone in the US could save thousands more lives than limiting to high-risk groups"
- "New California law requires insurers to cover COVID-19 vaccines"
- "Winner of mRNA Nobel Prize says ACIP member’s claim that Covid vaccines persist is “absolutely impossible”"
- "Some Arizonans struggling to get prescriptions for COVID-19 vaccines, Multiple pharmacy employees said the vaccines could only be administered with a prescription to people who are either 65 or older or have underlying conditions."
- "MRNA Stock Rises as Updated COVID-19 Jab Shows Strong Immune Response"
- "COVID-19 vaccine responses show four patterns, with 'rapid-decliners' at higher infection risk"
Other Notes
Blog pageviews remain dubious at best. Many individual posts struggle finding double-digits, at least in the short run. My X/Tritter followers are fluctuating around 225. I'm getting more impressions, likes and reposts than I can remember over the past dozen years. I finally got my first viral (1K+ impressions) post in a while. You often can't predict success, but I thought the "intellectual cotton candy" metaphor applied to FBI director Patel was clever.
The Friday-Saturday roundtrip to say goodbye to my late Mom was an exhausting experience, about a 7-8 hour drive to Somerset/Fall River. For the most part it's a straight shot north on I-95 from the Baltimore suburbs to the NE 195 split off to Cape Cod in Providence. I mostly used Google Maps. The Garmin device has a crappy short battery and tends to start in unusable charge mode. I usually have to be able to start Garmin while on a power bank. I thought I charged it up before putting it on the power bank as I left Frday, but nope. Why bring it? I remember once missing an interchange to a job interview in PA because of a Maps outage. Like every other 30-year DBA, I have redundancy checks. Plus, Garmin has utilities to point to local restaurants, gas stations, etc I think it was going into charge mode so I had to start it up off the limited battery power and it probably went dead early in the drive. Maps had its own quirks. Somehow after I stopped at a service plaza in CT for a rest break and lunch I must have fat-fingered Maps on my cellphone because it started squawking every exit. At first I thought it wanted to save 10 minutes off some local routes, then I thought it wanted me to circle back to the splitoff. I heard enough references to I-95S to realize somehow I must have hit a button for home. I stopped on the shoulder and thought I had reset Maps to Somerset but I've noticed the start button is nonresponsive. At least the nagging every exit stopped but at some point I noticed I was not hearing anything from the app--warnings about police, slowdowns, highway splits, etc. So I pulled over and restarted the app. This wasn't the last Maps issue.
I've always hated driving through NYC (earlier). I made a mistake of a Maps-suggested exit. I came to a minor split and it was silent on the non-default split. And I found myself driving into the city. Luckily., Maps woke up and guided me back onto the interstate.
I had been worried I would reach my Somerset hotel before check-in but stop-and-go driving through NYC and Providence. I'm still going through sticker shock on eating out. The CT Subway shop offered a $7 6-inch combo 6-inch sub special but I didn't want a tuna sandwich. A 6-inch club sandwich alone was about $11.50. Add a combo option plus tip, and you're over $17.
Five of my 6 younger siblings also separately made the trip; they had booked $200+ nights at the local Hampton Inn. I had been at the same Somerset hotel at roughly half the rate for my late maternal uncle's funeral mass. We had decided to go to McGovern's, Mom's local favorite restaurant. I decided to visit the sibs at the Hampton Inn and carpool to the restaurant. McGovern's really doesn't reference parking on its website, and 2 calls to the restaurant resulted in <10 second hang-ups. (I had to make multiple Google searches to find vague references to limited local parking.) I have to reference my childhood love of clam boils. My maternal Granduncle Oscar was the butcher for my Grandfather's grocery store and made the most delicious sausages for our clam boils. (My Dad was stationed at Otis on the Cape, through my early second grade, and I also spent my early 5th and 6th grades living at my Grandfather's while Dad secured family housing at his new assignments.) Uncle Oscar remembered me mostly because of the molasses incident. My next younger siblings and I were at the back of the store and encountered a mysterious big barrel. My siblings double-dared me to open the spigot to see what it was. We watched in awe at the thick fluid oozing down, and I belatedly failed to close the spigot. My siblings, of course, immediately alerted everyone to look at the mess Ronald made. Uncle cleaned up the mess. But Uncle Oscar never forgot. When I flew to Fall River to spend Christmas break while my family was in West Germany, Grandfather and I went to Oscar/Millie's for dinner, and Uncle Oscar reminded me of the incident.
So I ordered the $27 lil-necks bowl platter, including a lot of clams, corn on the cob, sausages, hot dogs, an onion, and multiple small potatoes. (Nope. I couldn't finish it all.)
As I drove back to Somerset, somehow I must have fat-fingered Google Maps because, within a few blocks of the hotel, it directed me back over the bridge to Fall River. I tried to recalibrate myself, pulling into these narrow old streets where I worry about side-swiping parked cars in the dark. I finally got back to the hotel. I tried to watch my room cable TV and couldn't figure out how to pull up a single channel. The front desk confirmed there were no cable/local channels available. I did have a streaming app on my cellphone. So I had a workaround.
I didn't want to go to my Mom's service on an empty stomach. I was told at check-in they had like coffee, juices, and fruits, but nothing hot. I inquired about a nearby diner. I don't think they even had that continental breakfast. I did finally find Roger's family restaurant but the weird thing is I didn't see a visible restaurant name, and Google didn't announce my nearby arrival. All I saw was a neon-open sign and nearby parking area. A decent but pricey meal with no prices I saw on the menu.
I went to Notre Dame Cemetery, but there were no Google directions to the chapel. I ended up stumbling into the office on a corner of the property and was given a local map. I found the building of 3 chapels. still locked at 9 am and no cars. I called the office, and she implied she had talked to my little sisters. Somehow, they had located the maternal family plot, and I saw a couple of relevant rental SUVs parked retracing my way back to the office. I got to see the gravestone of Dad who died in 2014, my grandparents, and others. A favorite paternal aunt's ashes are stored in the wall of the chapel.
My mom's cousin George and wife attended, Mom's very close cousin Connie and her daughters (let's put it this way: Connie has always been on my Christmas card list, and in fact Grandfather and I went to Christmas dinner at Connie's that trip while the family was in Germany.) I referenced finding cousin George on the Internet in an earlier post. Two or 3 paternal cousins also showed up. I last saw them at Aunt Phyllis' CT funeral a few years back.
I went to Connie's for lunch after the service and then drove back home (never fun going through NYC on a late Saturday afternoon).
