Endemic Report
The Sick Times:
Now that we are officially in summer, no compelling evidence of a summer wave yet, although there are signs of the virus spreading in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. Two major stories over the past week: the research favorable to the effectiveness of recent COVID vaccines, suppressed by the acting CDC director Jay Bhattacharya due to his ideological rejection of the use of negative test design, has been independently published by a respected medical journal, and Republicans look to exploit departing DNI Chief document dump relevant to the lab leak hypothesis and obsessive scapegoating of Dr. Fauci' alleged coverup by Rand Paul, Comer, Peter Navarro and others (Fauci has not volunteered to testify.).
COVID-related news items:
- "Hidden protein linked to severe COVID-19 and lung disease risk"
- "Peru received the first batch of 300,000 Chinese vaccines against the coronavirus"
- "AI Created a Vaccine Against All COVID-19 Variants – Trial Results"
- "Study links COVID-19 to higher sleep apnea risk years after infection"
- "Workers with long COVID more likely to leave jobs, lose productivity"
- "Spermidine supplement improves COVID 19 vaccine response in older adults"
- COVIS relief fraud/other crimes:
- "Owner of NC tax business pleads guilty to COVID-19 fraud"
- "Florida woman who claimed COVID-19 made her kill 15-month-old daughter found not guilty"
- "Naperville man accused of defrauding Medicare through COVID test scheme"
- "Sacramento man sentenced for COVID-19 unemployment fraud scheme"
- "Arizona woman pleads guilty to stealing $7.7M in COVID relief"
- Political/legal issues:
- "Oregon settles COVID-19 lawsuit for $49 million""payout to Inmates for Handling of Pandemic"
- "UNC doesn’t have to release remaining COVID research records, NC Supreme Court says"
- "Man fined RM10,000 for spreading false news on COVID-19 vaccine"
Other Notes
The blog statistics roughly doubled over the past week. I did publish my first June essay and am working on a second. X reports 1.7K impressions over the past week
I think both Hallmark and Great American Family got an early start on Christmas in July, though it's somewhat nuanced in Hallmark's case; for example, tonight's prime movie is a summer movie. Hallmark started out on a good note with 3 favorites: ' A Bride for Christmas'. 'The Most Wonderful Time of Year', and 'Christmas with Holly'.
I no longer follow WWE PLE's live because ESPN tripled the subscription price. But 2 promising results. They finally put the "undisputed" title on Sami Zayn.. and Oba Femi won King of the Ring. The latter is interesting because, in theory, he could challenge Reigns or Zayn for their belts, but it's widely expected Lesnar will battle Femi in a rubber match at SummerSlam for a likely final match on his home venue. It is possible, however, that a freed-up Gunther could reinstate his career-killer gimmick in a long-anticipated dream match against Lesnar. I think they could be eyeing a Reigns/Rollins clash for the World belt.
