Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

*sigh*

In a verbal communication, the Louisiana Health Department has stopped promoting vaccines for flu, covid, and mpox. It is hosting no clinics. It is still supposedly promoting childhood vaccines.

Department spokesman "Emma Herrock did not deny the claim or dispute any of the outlets' [NPR] reporting. Instead, Herrock provided a statement confirming that the department's policy had shifted, specifically, it moved "away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic guidance" and to the stance that "immunization for any vaccine ... are an individual’s personal choice." Discussions and decisions about vaccines should be between an individual and their health provider, the statement read."

Even the Dept of Health clinics are not allowed to advertise the fact in their own clinics! that they offer vaccinations!

Many employees are questioning just what is the point of working there.

December 20 Ars Technica article:
https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/12/louisiana-bars-health-dept-from-promoting-flu-covid-mpox-vaccines-report/


On December 23, Ars reported that Louisiana is at the lowest of the three top stages for reported influenza-like illnesses. Oregon is the only other state at this level. The article also shows a map of the USA including territories and their reported levels as of the week ending December 14.

The scale has 13 stages, three levels (11-13) classed at Very High, which is where Louisiana and Oregon are at 11. From the article: "Louisiana is at the first of three "Very High" levels. Oregon is the only other state to have reached this level. The rest of the country spans the scale, with 13 jurisdictions at "High," including New York City and Washington, DC. There are 11 at "Moderate," 10 at "Low," and 19 at "Minimal."

A comment in this article said the following:
Tangentially, Louisiana #40 in K-12 and # 49 in higher education
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/12/flu-surges-in-louisiana-as-health-department-barred-from-promoting-flu-shots/

Basically, a study showed an almost 13% increase in infant death, mainly from genetic/chromosome defects that the mothers were forced to carry to term, where in a more humane society they could have had an abortion and avoided a lot of misery. One in eight.

Still banned? Abortions for ectopic pregnancies, which have an almost zero percent chance of delivering a viable infant, and an extreme risk of mother mortality.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-abortion-ban-infant-deaths_n_6679b143e4b05e46df02c141

The biggest news is that Our Shitshow Of A President is actually killing people with his lies.

It started in Lagos, Nigeria when he tweeted Saturday that the combination of two drugs, Chloroquine and an antibiotic, that the combination was completely effective against the virus and totally safe and should be deployed RIGHT NOW. Chloroquine has not been approved by the WHO or FDA for treatment of the COVID-19 virus. It is being studied and may be approved at some point - and this is the important part - UNDER A DOCTOR'S SUPERVISION. In some countries it is available for over the counter purchase, and in Lagos, two people bought it, used it, and died.

The combination of Chloroquine and the antibiotic that Trump specified can lead to a sudden and fatal heart arrhythmia. In the medical profession they call this a Bad Thing.

Myself, I bought an Apple Watch 5 two weeks ago on my way to Phoenix. It has an ECG built-in that I use weekly when I do my infusion that monitors for arrhythmia. I don't have a history of any sort of heart problem, but I watch for it just in case - I don't need any new problems!

On Monday in Arizona, a Bad Thing happened. A married couple saw Trump's tweet. They had formerly raised koi fish. They had a chemical in a cabinet that they used to treat their fish tanks. It was chloroquine phosphate. Same thing, right? 20 minutes after taking it, they were ghastly sick. The man died on the way to the hospital, the woman was in intensive care as of yesterday and talking to reporters.

Combination of stupid people and stupid president who can't keep his mouth shut and his hands off his Twitter account. Three people directly dead because of him.

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The Lt Governor of Texas created a slight disturbance by saying that seniors may be willing to die for the economy. Wow. Let's hope he leads the wave and sets an example for us all. "Die for the DOW" is going to be an interesting hash tag when he goes for re-election.

Regardless of your feelings on abortion, is it Pro-Life to choose the economy over people's lives?

The President did not shut down businesses during this crisis. The President does not have the power to order them to start up again. It's going to be fun to see his face when he finds that out.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the CDC hid the epidemic status of the coronavirus through restrictive testing guidelines. The head of the CDC, a Trump appointee, has a history of fiddling with statistics.

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A few days ago I mentioned that Apple closed all of its stores outside of China. Anyone who had equipment in a store to be repaired had two days notification to pick up fixed equipment. If they didn't, they are screwed. No way to get it now until the store re-opens. Equipment mailed in for repair is being fixed and returned. Too bad, so sad.

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In some better news, Apple is donating "millions of masks" to healthcare workers in the US and Europe. As is Facebook. I imagine Google and other tech giants will be doing the same. I couldn't figure out how they were doing this until I dug into an article about Facebook, turns out they stockpiled a huge number of masks in California because of the wildfires. And those masks are actually moving from Facebook to local hospitals. That's pretty awesome.

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Microsoft was getting ready to release a new version of its new Edge browser, they've paused that because system administrators are busy helping people set up for working from home and they've got a lot on their plates right now. Very awesome! ALL software makers should pause new releases for the duration, emergency/security patches being an obvious exception.

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Formula One and NASCAR are pretty much cancelling their seasons, but their fans are getting a surprise: a lot of the drivers are competing online!

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An economist is saying that a "debt jubilee" is the only way to avoid an economic depression. In the UK, BoJo has said that businesses don't have to pay rent, and there are other forms of economic stimulus in place. Burger King in the UK has announced that it's not paying rent for the duration, but it's just a deferment. That money will have to be made-up, as lease extension or in some other way.

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Amazon now offering a "Prime Video Cinema", allowing you to buy and rent movies now showing in theaters. I'm not exactly sure what "now showing in theaters" means, since I don't think there are very many theaters now showing movies. AMC is also doing Movies On Demand.

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In foreign leader news, Angela Merkel is in quarantine after her doctor tested positive for COVID. Prince Philip of Monaco is the first foreign leader to test positive. Saudi Arabia has had its first COVID death.

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The WHO is NOT recommending against ibuprofen for coronavirus symptoms. The French health minister was full of uninformed merde, take whatever fever reducer you want and are comfortable with. The Lancet published a report three days earlier suggesting that ibuprofen could exacerbate COVID-19, the title of the article is "Are patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus at increased risk for COVID-19 infection?", so they're looking at a very specific set of patients.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/coronavirus-ibuprofen-who

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The 2020 Tokyo summer Olympic games have been postponed a year. Good call, saves individual athletes and whole countries from withdrawing. Canada had already announced that their team would not attend.

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Fiat is re-gearing their China car plant to make masks. Ford is going to re-gear a car plant to make ventilators. This is their own initiative, not something the United States government has ordered them to do, because the U.S. government hasn't used their power to do that yet.

The problem is, it takes time to re-tool a plant to make something like a ventilator. The FDA says it will revise approval guidelines to get them in to hospitals faster. That will help, but it will still take a lot of time.

In some excellent news, Elon Musk sourced 1200 ventilators in China and imported them in to California and is giving them away!

Car makers don't need to make more cars while this shit is going down, car lots will have plenty on-hand when quarantines start to lift. They'll be OK. There might be some supply problems while manufacturing resumes, but they'll survive.

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In the State of Washington, the Supreme Court orders judges to keep people out of jail. Jail and prison populations are especially vulnerable to COVID spread, and obviously treatment is going to be horrible. Some states have started early release, and Border Patrol has stopped enforcement.

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Speaking of which, Harvey Weinstein reportedly has tested positive for COVID-19 as the virus spreads in NY jails. And over 100 NYPD officers have tested positive. And U.S. Senator Rand Paul has tested positive. And Amy Klobachaur's husband has tested positive.

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This is tragic. Science labs and medical researchers are having to euthanize thousands of mice (and presumably rats and other animals) used in research because there's no one to care for them as people are being sent home to isolate themselves as our pandemic rages. Not only is this tragic, think about how much this is going to set back medical research. A friend of mine's wife works for National Institutes of Health, and her job is to care for medical animals! I feel so sorry for her.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/it-s-heartbreaking-labs-are-euthanizing-thousands-mice-response-coronavirus-pandemic

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This is very curious. There was an article last weekish that hackers announced that they would no longer target hospitals with ransomware attacks during the current crisis. Well, the problem with that is some of those attacks are off of automated botnets, so that promise may be meaningless. Anyway, the WHO is being attacked by elite hackers at a much higher rate than normal. Now here's the curious bit: it appears to be East Asians doing the attacking!

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Hospitals are increasingly turning to crowdsourcing and 3D printing for parts and equipment shortages.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/worldwide-hackathon-hospitals-turn-crowdsourcing-3d-printing-amid-equipment-shortages-n1165026

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Let's get a laugh.

A guy who owns two strip clubs in Portland posted a joke Tweet saying he was going to start Boober Eats as a play on words of Uber Eats, that stripers were going to deliver food since his strip clubs were shut down.

The response was overwhelming. So he said, 'Dammit, I'm going to make it work!' Topless strippers, wearing pasties, observing proper social distancing, are delivering food from the club's kitchens to Portland residents.

I find it hilarious. The strippers also being driven by club security and proper sanitation is being observed by the kitchens.

Love it!

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Hillary Clinton drags Trump with a Tweet: "Please do not take medical advice from a man who looked directly into the sun during a solar eclipse."

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In local news. yesterday the Governor of New Mexico shut down the state. The NMSU main library closed down either Friday or Monday before the announcement, my boss closed our library today. Today I gained access to our catalog/patron system, so I can handle renewals and such from home. Our courier system closed operations as more than half its member libraries had closed and several partner courier systems had closed, so it was basically broken.

My wife is doing much better mentally/emotionally since finding that video Sunday night and learning that I was not at an increased risk because of my immune disorder. I was seriously concerned that she was going to have a mental breakdown, and what am I supposed to do if something like that happens?! It was not a fun position to be in, I'll tell ya! So things are calmer here.

Russet's job at the observatory is now over for the duration, the site is officially and completely closed. Both telescopes, actually all four telescopes, are being shut-down. The site will be visited daily to check power, the generator, and ensure most instruments are filled with liquid nitrogen, though one instrument will be allowed to warm up as it requires twice-daily fillings. There will be serious problems if liquid nitrogen becomes unavailable as when an instrument warms up, it loses vacuum, and has to be pumped down with a vacuum pump before it can be used again. They only have two vacuum pumps for multiple instruments, so if they have to power down the site, it will take a couple of weeks after learning they can reopen before they can resume science.

So things are reasonably good here. Dave's trying to order a desk and such for the guest room to resume studies next week. NMSU is going to resume education with distance learning next week Monday, though classes requiring physical presence will be cancelled with students getting an Incomplete, so it won't affect their GPA.

Interesting article from The Atlantic. More and more people are realizing the insanity of the BMI chart. It was formulated when a doctor started playing with calculating by dividing weight by height. The problem is that there are lots of problems with BMI as a gauge for health, such as severely underweight people, or people who are in to weight lifting, etc. For example, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, is obese according to the BMI charts.

Do you want to say that to his face?

No science behind it, just a convenient chart.

Another example: 10,000 steps a day means you're healthy! Do you know where the 10,000 steps came from? A Japanese company made a pedometer (step counter) and 10,000 steps was a cool marketing mantra.

No science behind it.

Here's two paragraphs from the article: "The speed at which you walk, for example, can be eerily predictive of health status. In a study of nearly 35,000 people aged 65 years or older in the Journal of the American Medical Association, those who walked at about 2.6 feet per second over a short distance—which would amount to a mile in about 33 minutes—were likely to hit their average life expectancy. With every speed increase of around 4 inches per second, the chance of dying in the next decade fell by about 12 percent. (Whenever I think about this study, I start walking faster.)

Walking speed isn’t unique. Studies of simple predictors of longevity like these come out every couple of years, building up a cadre of what could be called alternative vital signs. In 2018, a study of half a million middle-aged people found that lung cancer, heart disease, and all-cause mortality were well predicted by the strength of a person’s grip."

Very interesting! I've always been a brisk walker, I've only met one person who walked faster than I: the animator of the movie The Wizard of Speed and Time, Mike Jitlov. He was also over half a foot taller than me. As for grip strength, the last time mine was measured I could squeeze 90 lbs with my left hand but only 45 with my right. Considering the birth defect and surgeries on my right, that's not surprising.

Grip strength is further discussed in a Swiss Army study. It wasn't just the strength, it was the life style that lead up to it. Being a couch potato and having a diet predicated on pizza, beer and potato chips lead to a flabby lifestyle in addition to a flabby body, including increased cardiovascular risk and shorter lifespan, reflected in a weaker grip strength.

From the article: "In 2018, a study of half a million middle-aged people found that lung cancer, heart disease, and all-cause mortality were well predicted by the strength of a person’s grip.

Yes, how hard you can squeeze a grip meter. This was a better predictor of mortality than blood pressure or overall physical activity. A prior study found that grip strength among people in their 80s predicted the likelihood of making it past 100. Even more impressive, grip strength had good predictive ability in a study among 18-year-olds in the Swedish military on cardiovascular death 25 years later."

Another paragraph goes on to say "... other experts I heard from estimated that the number of Americans who can do a single push-up is likely only about 20 or 30 percent. But that’s an issue of practice more than destiny. “Most people could get to the point of doing 30 or 40—unless they have a shoulder problem or are really obese...”. I immediately dropped and did 5. I could probably have done 10, but my right shoulder isn't far from needing a rotater cuff repair so I'm rather protective of it. My wife did 6, just to one-up me, though mine were faster and I think in better form. ;-) But to be fair, she's had a sinus infection dogging her.

Anyway, interesting stuff. The speed of walking thing I found quite interesting and promising for me. I've known that BMI was Bullshit Mass Indicator for a long time: we know whether or not we're overweight if we're honest with ourselves, I also know that I'm 20 lbs lighter than when I got married 14 years ago and I'm still slowly losing. I'm eating better, and in the last several years I've greatly reduced my consumption of soda. But I do need to improve other fitness markers like physical strength and cardiovascular endurance.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/06/push-ups-body-weight-bmi/592834/