Pandemic Report
The latest weekly CDC stats:
The regular reader may notice the stat presentation this week has changed its format and source URLs. I tried the usual links for months, which failed. I had to search the CDC site to locate the current content. One datapoint doesn't make a trend, but the minor drop in test positivity might signal a summer wave peak. The biggest event over the past week had to be vaccine-skeptic HHS Secretary RFK, Jr.'s contentious Congressional hearing. I did see a notice on the CVS (Pharmacy) website that it has 2025-6 COVID boosters in inventory. This doesn't necessarily mean they are in stock at your local store. For example, the initial rush could exhaust the available supply. (On a personal level, I'll probably wait a few weeks because I had a booster 3 months ago. It depends on local COVID stats. I think I qualify in terms of elapsed time since my last shot in June. CVS has sent a text suggesting my annual flu shot.) But the second major question focused on the third of states CVS and Walgreens say they won't administer shots under the past CDC rules. For the most part, those not qualifying (generally healthier, younger people) can get a doctor's prescription. Also, many states (like the West Coast, CO, NY. MA) are looking to bypass the prescription requirement. I'm not sure but the upcoming ACIP meeting may address relevant issues: "Pennsylvania is one of 16 states that require all vaccines administered by pharmacists to be approved by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which will not vote on those recommendations until its next meeting on September 18"
Other COVID-related news items of interest include:
- "Over-the-counter nasal spray for allergies may protect against COVID-19 — and more"
- COVID relief fraud and other crimes continue to be prosecuted:
- "South Florida woman wanted by FBI in $34M COVID-19 relief funds fraud scheme"
- "Visalia CEO arrested for allegedly embezzling $4M in COVID-19 relief funds"
- Legal or political developments include:
- "Constitutional Interest Exists in Covid-19 Unemployment Benefits"
- "LAUSD, parents settle sweeping COVID-19 distance learning lawsuit"
- "Donald Trump Should Get Nobel Peace Prize for COVID-19 vaccine—Pfizer CEO"
- "COVID vaccine myth-busting can work, study suggests"
- "Fact-checking RFK Jr.’s claim that ‘everybody can get’ the COVID-19 vaccine"
Other Notes
Blogger states went from around 200+ 2 weeks ago to over 4000 last week, although most daily posts, including my last journal post, failed to hit double-digit pageviews by yesterday. On the other hand, my X/Twitter followers surged past 200, an all-time high
To those who have read my journal articles and book chapters, it is no surprise that I favor usable interfaces. It varies by individual context. It doesn't simply equate to "user-friendly". Let me give an example. I was a corporate DBA on the West Coast. The accountants were used to working with Oracle Applications (EBS) in direct character mode (a rather cryptic but quick interface). Oracle had a mandatory upgrade path to client/server, then browser-based, menu-driven systems. Oracle had desupported character-mode months before I joined AAI, initially as a contractor. Technically, that meant if we had production issues with them running in character-mode, we weren't covered by Oracle's support contract. It wasn't a question of whether or not the 6-foot accounting clerk could navigate a half-dozen or so pop-ups under the new interface; she just got to where she needed to go in a few keystrokes under character-mode; she went to her boss and said, "I can do this in 2 hours the old way or 6 hours Ron's way." It wasn't "my" way; I wasn't happy with forcing users to jump through Oracle's hoops, doing a lot of busy work of multiple prompts. That wasn't the only issue I had with the accountants. A Filipino accounting manager discovered that many of the company's assets didn't appear under Ron's system but were fully visible in character mode, proving that Ron had messed up everything with his insane upgrades and patching. It took a lot of analysis to figure out what was going on. AAI had hired some developers a few years back when they implemented fixed assets and instead of entering assets through the Apps interface, they decided to directly load to asset tables, something violating Oracle's maintenance agreements. That was one problem but the other problem was they had entered categories or subcategories in mixed case (e.g., "None" vs. "NONE"). If they did it the Apps input way, Oracle would have converted characters to upper-case. So what was going on in the newer interface, Oracle was selecting against capitalized categories. And to my chagrin, the accountants went over my head to Oracle Support. And they naively fell into Oracle's trap of doing a "row who" on assets, basically giving Oracle proof we entered assets in an unsupported way. Oracle's solution? Reenter assets the supported way, costing over $10K. I invented a fix, easier said than done (I don't think AAI ever gave me a bonus for saving them over $10K: oh, and we couldn't use the Apps for 2 weeks). I didn't brag about it because I had to violate rules in devising a corrective fix. [Ask me how I remember these details 25 years later.]
So why did I bring up the topic of usability? I recently had to process my apartment lease renewal online. (I tweeted about this.) As part of their security, they required DOB, implementing a Procrustean approach. I couldn't enter mm/dd/yyyy or select from 3 pick-lists. No, they had a monthly gadget defaulting to current date, and I had to page back every month of my life. If you're also a Boomer, that's tedious.
