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Saturday, September 27, 2025

Post # 7377 J

 Pandemic Report

 The latest CDC weekly stats:

 

 

  Nationally, we continue to see the summer wave of cases diminish, although some areas remain elevated: "coronavirus cases have been on the rise in nine U.S. states, including New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and both North and South Dakota.". Recently, a San Diego Padres player returned from an infection. States are still struggling to work around certain vaccine-skeptic vaccine guideline changes under RFK, Jr. Some red state residents are finding it hard to schedule updated vaccines, e.g., " Kansas pastor lost her mom to COVID-19; now denied vaccine because she’s too healthy." One of the most notable political developments is YouTube reinstated accounts suspended for violating COVID-19 misinformation criteria. Florida pharmacies are finally allowed to provide COVID vaccines.

 Other COVID-19 news items include:

Other Notes 

Bloated blog statistics continue, although they don't reflect individual post statistics which generally struggle to hit double-digits. Oddly, my last journal post, which lately tends to be my most persistent and popular post, has not reached double-digits yet. This may reflect an unusually late publication over the weekend, based on my long drive round-trip to Fall River to attend my late mother's interment at a church cemetery. [We have a maternal family plot where my late dad is also buried.] X/Twitter is reporting a minor decline in weekly impressions to 1.1 K impressions. My followers have dropped to 218 from 225

I've never cared much for talks of inheritance. I grew up in a lower-middle-class household. My Dad was a low-paid USAF NCO, and my mom was a housewife raising 7 kids (I'm the oldest). We weren't poor, but we rarely ate out, and in junior high through high school, I was in the "free lunch" program. I cleared maybe a buck a day delivering about 90 newspapers daily (except Saturdays) in the broiling south Texas sun. I never got a driver's license until I joined the Navy at 22; my dad got spooked by a prospective car insurance premium when I turned 16. I paid all my college on my own (through scholarships, work/study, minor grants. and savings). The folks may have hosted me during Christmas break and paid for bus trips to and from campus. My Dad retired from the military in the 70's, but it really wasn't until the 80's when Dad was working for the post office. Mom started working for the base exchange, and 5 siblings left the nest as the folks joined the middle class. I remember visiting home while I was working on my PhD and seeing my baby brother and sister pulling ice cream and soda at will from the refrigerator. When I was a kid that happened on special occasions like birthdays. It wasn't jealousy; it was more of a culture shock.

I really don't know what my Mom's assets were when she passed last month, or the specifics of her will/trust. She had some big expenses over the last 3 years or so due to health issues. My youngest sister is her CPA and executor. One piece is reportedly a uniform split over a modest IRA. A few weeks back, my sister told us we should all receive relevant mail from her credit union. Nope. It took multiple calls, made worse by my mother's data security, because I had no idea when Mom set me up as a beneficiary; since 2000 I've lived in 6 different states. at 5 different addresses in MD alone. I THINK they typoed my current street number. But it seems like I have to set up an account with them, but no confirmation of that yet, so I'm going to have to follow up with them again

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