Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Whither the winter wave, and the trajectory of endemic COVID

Coronavirus dashboard for October 27: whither the winter wave, and the trajectory of endemic COVID Well, we got some definite good news yesterday in the FDA approval of vaccines for children ages 5-11. Probably about 1/2 of the 8.5 million children in this age group will be vaccinated by the middle of winter.In the meantime, […]

Senate Defunding Wuhan Research Already Defunded in 2020

Be aware, this post is choppy. My first point is when was the the Wuhan project defunded. The second point asks why are four Senators then passing bills to defund a project already defunded? And finally I am giving some history such as this research not being gain-of-function. This is Republicans being bad actors and […]

No Covid-19d-19 Here Or in North Korea: Turkmenistan

No Covid-19d-19 Here Or in North Korea: Turkmenistan Yes, Turkmenistan is among the few nations on the planet claiming to have not had a single case of Covid-19, along with the DPRK, aka “North Korea.”  The October 16 Economist reports, after noting the arrest of Nurgeldi Halykov, who reported that the British ambassador got it, […]

COVID vaccines and antibodies

Joel Eissenberg, Ph.D., Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology I got the Moderna vaccine as part of the phase III clinical trial back in August and September 2020. Although it was technically a blinded trial, I knew from my symptoms after the second shot I was in the vaccine arm and not the placebo arm […]

Is any State closing in on “herd immunity”?

Coronavirus dashboard for October 20: as the Delta downtrend slows, is any State closing in on “herd immunity”? It’s been a moment since my last dashboard. That’s primarily because the Columbus Day weekend resulted in anomalies for the past 9 days, that have finally mainly but not completely resolved. Here’s a look at the past […]

What If Democrats Fail to Enhance the ACA?

Hey, this is a copy and paste article by Andrew Sprung at Xpostfactoid. He does a nice job of explaining the technical aspects of expanding the ACA and making it more liberal in providing greater Commercial Healthcare Insurance benefits to more US citizens. He also discusses what could happen if we make Biden’s healthcare extensions […]

Continuing the Conversation concerning Medicare and Medicare Advantage

Continuing the conversation concerning Medicare and Medicare Advantage programs – Value Added Healthcare. Background Kip Sullivan and I have had a running dialogue on Value Added (VA) healthcare. This usually starts up with my asking a question, giving my doubts on certain topics, and a back and forth in an exchange of emails. I have […]

Private Equity Taking Over Healthcare and Doctors losing Control . . .

Articles from my Inbox as usual. There is a common thread here of private equity getting more involved. It is bad enough with ACOs buying up medical facilities. We are losing control of healthcare. “Insurers are taking decisions out of the hands of physicians, says ortho surgeon,” beckersasc.com Dr. Grant Shifflett: I don’t want to paint […]

Phone Service in a Prison Environment

The High Cost of Phone Calls in Prisons Generates $1.4 Billion a Year, Disproportionately Driving Women and People of Color Into Debt (businessinsider.com) It has been a while since I have tackled issues with the prison system in the US. Besides it being heavily skewed towards the color of a prisoner and the funding they […]