Analytics

Saturday, September 26, 2026

Post #7865 J

 Endemic Report

The latest weekly CDC stats:


The Sick Times:


While we are now into fall, the summer surge continues, especially across northern states; it's clearly post-peak in much of the country. More coverage of the fall vaccine rollout, including the CDC finally approving vaccine shots for at-risk youth, which had delayed coverage for up to half of kids in federally funded programs administered by states. Arizona is one of several states with a standing order that allows adults to get vaccines without a prescription.  A second Swiss soccer player is implicated in a fake vaccine card scandal. The Mayo Clinic has settled a religious exemption vaccine lawsuit.

Other COVID-19 news items:

  • "Pennsylvania tops 800 measles cases as CDC acknowledges only 1 measles death"
  • "Antibodies May Not Be Enough: T Cells Emerge as Key Players in Household COVID-19 Transmission"
  • "Oral antibodies could help clear Covid-19 faster"
  • "Covid-19 'Frankenstein' variant leads to tenfold increase in infections"
  • "Brain scans reveal a possible cause of long COVID fatigue and brain fog"
  • "Chile signed an agreement with CanSino to buy 1.8 million vaccines against Covid-19"
  • "Nearly Two-Thirds of Patients With Long COVID Meet Diagnostic Criteria for POTS"

  • COVID ewlief fraud/other crimes:
    • "Lab executives face federal lawsuit for alleged $13 million COVID-19 testing scheme in senior living communities"
    • "3 men indicted for $750K COVID-19 test factory scheme"
    • "GSA claims it found $1.2B in suspected COVID-related contracting fraud"
    • "$2M COVID fraud plea, 86 calls to an ex among El Paso arrests"
    • "Former Charlotte Councilwoman Tiawana Brown sentenced to prison for COVID-19 relief fraud"
    • "Roanoke woman arraigned on COVID-19-era program fraud charges"
    • "Docs: Indiana man working for Veterans Affairs defrauded federal COVID-19 relief programs; made purchases at Total Wine, Best Buy"
    • "Dunkirk woman sentenced for COVID-19 relief fraud scheme"
  • Legal/political issues:

Other Notes

The blog is averaging a dubiously high 4K+ page reads daily. I am still planning my next essay. Probably for early next month. My X/Twitter impressions are lighter than normal, although my followers are back over 200 and I've seemingly attracted more likes over the past week.

I started this morning with a mystery. I normally schedule my daily miscellany blog post for 4 AM EDT/EST, so I checked the post to make sure I didn't typo the scheduled time, that an embedded video was still available, etc. This morning I saw a Google banner (?) in Russian. (I later verified via Google Translate because I'm not fluent in Russian but recognize the alphabet: It involved notifications about tracking cookies or the like on my Google/Blogger blog webpages.) But why was I seeing it? I use a VPN, but a domestic location (typically on or near the East Coast). In the meantime, I worried about malware or a corrupted browser; I even reinstalled Chrome. Long story short, it seemed to have more to do with how Google processed my VPN-supplied IP address rather than my provider actually using a Russian server. (I also tried using incognito browser sessions and a backup notebook PC).

I can tell we're finally in fall. I keep the thermostat set high for A/C, and it hasn't toggled on in days. 

As I've mentioned on X, I've increasingly substituted ground chicken/turkey or pork at maybe half the price of skyrocketing beef prices. I prefer grass-fed beef; I like the preferable omega fat ratios for pasture-finished meat, although, like tonight, I'll enjoy conventional beef, especially when Lidl has it on sale. It's like how I treat organics, free-range eggs, and the like: I appreciate superior nutrition, but I'm not sure that marginal benefits are worth double or more the price. I'm including more quinoa, seeded/whole-grain bread, olive oil, avocados, cabbage, and pomegranate juice in my diet.

It was hard, as a Longhorn alumnus, watching them play Tennessee this afternoon. True, they never trailed in the game; no disciplined team should have been penalized so much. Texas' defense largely shut down the offense, but I remember a Texas rusher pinned the QB on third down deep and got hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct call for first down. There was a broken tackle on a punt return for a touchdown, and the Longhorns almost blew a 10-point lead in the final minutes on an underthrown touchdown pass, then Tennessee recovered the ensuing onside kick. But the highly touted freshman QB lost his first game since early high school.  Still, Arch Manning got caught twice trying to pass while over the line of scrimmage.

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