Pandemic Report
For a second week. CDC didn't update weekly statistics, this time displaying a note that website updates were not a priority during the ongoing government shutdown under the Trump Administration:
The basic major news item over the past week. ehe mRNA COVID vaccines may help cancer patients fight to survive:
In a recent study in the journal Nature, researchers investigated whether SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines could sensitize cancerous tumors to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in patients with melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The study leveraged several extensive human datasets and found that COVID-19 vaccination within 100 days of starting ICI treatment was associated with improved survival in retrospective single-institution cohorts of melanoma and NSCLC patients.
Notably, preclinical models revealed that the vaccine triggers a massive type-I interferon surge, with anti-tumor effects dependent on signaling through the type-I interferon receptor (IFNAR1), a mechanism known to prime the body's T-cells to attack cancerous tumors. This interferon-driven response also promoted epitope spreading, in which activated T cells recognize multiple tumor antigens, and led tumors to upregulate PD-L1 as a counterdefense, rendering them newly susceptible to ICI therapy. These findings suggest that widely available, “off-the-shelf” mRNA vaccines could offer a practical, hypothesis-generating strategy to enhance ICI responses, pending further clinical validation.
Other COVID news items include:
- "Cats caught coronavirus from owners during early pandemic"
- "COVID-related smell loss may last years"
- Myocarditis not an indicated issue with the latest Moderna vaccine shot
- "CDC downplayed COVID vaccine efficacy concerns, newly released emails show... a January 2022 CDC study cited evidence that natural immunity was better at warding off repeated infection than vaccination alone by late 2021."
- "Data supports usage of mRNA-1273.815 Covid-19 vaccine in young children"
- "The University of Washington and Oxford University study found that closing schools created $2 trillion in future economic losses — a conservative estimate — while reducing Covid spread by just 8%.. Mask mandates, on the other hand, lessened transmission by nearly 20% and cost relatively little, researchers concluded."
- "Snopes: Unpacking claim that Nevada woman Tonja Marie Johnson's death was caused by COVID-19 vaccine. Posts circulating across social media (archived here, here and here) claimed Tonja Marie Johnson, a 57-year-old woman from Nevada, spent two years in the hospital and later died following complications allegedly caused by the COVID-19 vaccine. Medical experts said at the time that the condition [an uncommon but dangerous clotting condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, which was associated with the vaccine in rare cases] was extremely rare and the risk of developing severe complications from COVID-19 remained much higher."
- "COVID Pandemic Drove Up Deaths From Respiratory Distress and Sepsis"
- "Children with multiple long-term conditions face nearly threefold higher COVID-19 mortality"
- COVID relief fraud and other crimes continue to be prosecuted:
- "Man indicted for allegations of stealing over $450k in Covid-19 relief funds in Hawaii"
- Legal/political issues:
- "Alabama judge throws out COVID-19 unemployment delays lawsuit"
Other Notes
Inflated blog pageviews are still inflated most days, although minimal today. I might hit 40 posts this month if I post the essay I'm working on over the coming week. My X/Twitter followers have surged past 230, although some handles are dubious variations of Musk. I doubt Musk is reading my feed. I still suspect many of my tweets are being shadow-banned. On the other hand, more of my tweets are getting liked or reposted than ever before.
For some odd reason, my workhorse desktop's WIFI connection is working again. I had to patch an Ethernet connection to my cable router. However, my computer streamer browser session was not recognizing my WIFI connection. The real issue was running my VPN software.
I do a lot of shopping on Amazon. And shipping is usually reliable, particularly during daylight hours, but I've recently run into a series of 3 delivery order problems over a short period of time. Night time or early morning seems correlated because you really can't see the street number driving past, but Google Maps will let you know where to stop. Now I've occasionally gotten calls from confused Amazon drivers even in daylight, but I cringe when I see Amazon imply night delivery. This is not like Uber, where you can message the driver. In this recent case, I knew from Amazon tracking that my driver's name was Eduardo, but there was no way to message him. I was watching the vehicle marker at an intersection about a half mile away, and it suddenly appeared in my area, and the status flashed 'delivered'. And apparently no photo of the delivered package. You would like to get in touch with the driver while he's still in the area, but Amazon will tell you its agents won't do anything over the next 24 hours; they hope you'll do your own search of the neighborhood, or maybe a neighbor will redeliver it. This followed an earlier supposedly same-day delivery, but 3 days later no package. I got an interim note that there was a technical issue with my order, since resolved, but no follow-up 2 days later. Both orders were eventually fixed, the first one probably redelivered by a neighbor.
Then there was a delivery via USPS of a lower-carb bagel order. USPS just dropped the order off without alerting me, and I think a squirrel burrowed itself into the box. I had to throw out 3 partially eaten bagels. Live and learn. It probably cost me $5 in product.
