Long COVID

Data: U.S. Census Bureau, Household Pulse Survey 2022; Chart: Madison Dong/Axios Visuals

Of the nearly 24 million adults in the U.S. who currently have long COVID, more than 80% are having some trouble carrying out daily activities, according to CDC data released Wednesday.

Why it matters: Nearly three years into a pandemic that has left millions newly disabled, medical researchers continue to search for an effective treatment.

The big picture: Long COVID symptoms can include shortness of breath, cognitive difficulties and symptoms that worsen even with minimal physical or mental effort — a primary indicator of chronic fatigue syndrome.

The pandemic sharpened the focus on the once largely dismissed area of chronic fatigue in health care, but misunderstandings and stigma persist.

Up to 4 million people are estimated to be out of work because of long COVID symptoms, according to a Brookings Institute report in August.

While long COVID is classified as a disability, qualifying for Social Security benefits requires proof that the condition has or will last a year, even though there's no test to diagnose long COVID, per CDC.

Mortgage Rates Spike

US mortgage rates jumped to a 16-year high of 6.75%, marking the seventh-straight weekly increase and spurring the worst slump in home loan applications since the depths of the pandemic.

The contract rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose nearly a quarter percentage point in the last week of September, according to Mortgage Bankers Association data released Wednesday. 

The steady string of increases in mortgage rates resulted in a more than 14% slump last week in applications to purchase or refinance a home.  READ MORE..

Retirement Lessons

BY JOHN EDWARDS

I am fully settled into my retirement after thoroughly enjoying the first 5 years. For me, retirement is akin to a permanent summer vacation: I get to do what I want, when I want, where I want, and with whom I want. With no undue obligations. I am fortunate to be in such a position.

To be sure, the pandemic experience has put a damper on life, especially prior to widespread vaccine availability. But my wife and I have adapted and survived, even thrived. That being stipulated, there are some things I have gotten wrong and hope to change over the next 5 years. These are lessons that, if applied well, will make life more interesting, more enjoyable, and more healthy. That, in any event, is the plan.

The lessons learned revolve around the subjects that are important to me in retirement and include, in no particular, order: travel, health, mental engagement, friends and family, and living my way.

Lesson 1: Travel Is Important (We Want More, More, More)

My wife and I did not travel much when working. We were too busy. So it wasn’t until we had more time in retirement that we fully realized what we had missed. And how enjoyable the exploration of new and the revisiting of known places really is. However, with the notable exception of cruising, we don’t especially like the act of traveling, per se, but we both enjoy the planning and the anticipation of travel and exploring our destinations once we arrive.      READ MORE...

Fighting COVID with Superstition

Columbia University reverted their COVID-19 policy, requiring students to mask indoors.

Gabriele Holtermann

Boy, is US higher education full of idiots: Columbia University, affiliated Barnard College and Pace University, among other schools, have all started requiring masking indoors again.

Columbia-Barnard only scrapped the mandate on March 14, so students got less than a month to breathe free, and now will be muzzled through June.

And all because campus administrators deem it more important to virtue-signal than to follow the actual science. They blame an uptick in COVID cases, though COVID poses no significant risk to their fully vaccinated student bodies.

Plus, as noted above, case numbers stopped being a useful indicator of coronavirus perils at least a year ago.

And just 0.001% of 15- to 24-year-olds are at risk of dying from COVID, per data from Johns Hopkins. And masking does very little to reduce transmission risks, anyway.

COVID is now endemic, not pandemic — meaning we’ll have to learn to live with the background risks it poses, just like the flu. It’ll help that learning process when the supposedly smartest folks in America stop relying on superstition to “fight” it.

Sweden - 4th Covid Shot

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK -- Sweden recommended a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose to people 65 and over as well as those living in nursing homes or getting home care, authorities said Monday.

The new guideline drops the age from an earlier recommendation for a fourth shot to people 80 and older.

The recommendation also includes fourth shots for those between 18 and 64 years of age, with moderate to severe immune deficiency, Sweden's Public Health Agency said in a statement.

“The goal is just as before to prevent serious illness and death from COVID-19,” Agency chief Karin Tegmark Wisell said.

Tegmark Wisell added that it's “justified" to provide a second booster shot to a wider age range because infections in Sweden and other countries continue to significantly multiply and vaccine protection is starting to decline for older age groups.

“For people aged 65 and over, it is now four months since the previous vaccine dose, and the vaccine’s protective effect diminishes over time,” she said.

For most of the pandemic, Sweden has stood out among European nations for its comparatively hands-off response. It never went into lockdown or closed businesses, largely relying instead on individual responsibility to control infections.  READ MORE...

Top Problem is INFLATION Since 1985

The share of Americans who rate inflation as the top issue facing the country is at the highest in nearly 40 years, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

About one in five Americans, or 17%, surveyed March 1-18 cited inflation as the nation’s most important problem. That’s up from 10% in February, and compares with 4% who pointed to fuel prices in particular.

U.S. consumer prices are rising at the fastest pace in four decades, outpacing wage gains and fanned further by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Gas prices are near record highs -- well over $4 a gallon nationwide -- especially straining lower-income families.

Among those polled -- a little over 1,000 U.S. adults -- 22% say the government is the top problem outside of the economy, while 9% cited the war in Ukraine. The share citing the coronavirus fell to the lowest level since the pandemic began.

Similar to a University of Michigan survey -- which showed U.S. consumer sentiment remained at a decade low in March -- inflation concerns diverge sharply from a political perspective. Nearly 80% of Republicans are worried about inflation, more than double the proportion of Democrats, according to Gallup.   SOURCE:  Bloomberg      READ MORE...

Anti Work Movement

Many employees are frustrated with the nature of employment. But some fed-up workers are asking a bigger question: what’s the purpose of work?

Chris, a US-based IT professional, says he’s experienced terrible working conditions in his recent roles. He says two separate employers, one offering no sick pay and the other only a week’s worth of paid time off, forced him back to work despite illness. At other labour-intensive jobs, he says he’s ended up having to treat his own wounds.

But it was a role in customer support that pushed him too far. His job, which paid less than $13 (£9.40) an hour, involved verifying whether peoples’ dependents qualified for health-care insurance. He says he would have been fired if he had given callers certain helpful information he was not authorised to disclose, like how much time they had to submit their paperwork.

“There were people literally begging for their lives on the phone, and I couldn’t do anything about it,” he says. “That broke me to a point where I realised that absolutely nothing in this system is working… It’s the lack of empathy and human kindness. I’m not sure how that went missing.”

Two years into the pandemic, employees across the globe are tired. Poor mental health and burnout are common, particularly among low-wage and essential workers. This prolonged period of uncertainty has made many re-examine the role their employers play in making matters worse; record numbers of workers are leaving jobs in search of better options.

But some people are going further, wondering aloud if there’s purpose to their work – or the economic system itself. These people are part of the ‘anti-work’ movement, which seeks to do away with the economic order that underpins the modern workplace. Anti-work, which has roots in anarchist and socialist economic critique, argues that the bulk of today’s jobs aren’t necessary; instead, they enforce wage slavery and deprive workers of the full value of their output.

That doesn’t mean there would be no work, however. Supporters of the anti-work movement believe people should self-organise and labour only as much as needed, rather than working longer hours to create excess capital or goods.  READ MORE...

Robots Already Taking US Jobs

GETTY

If we didn’t have enough to worry about—Covid-19, a nation divided, massive job losses and civil unrest—now we have to be concerned that robots will take our jobs.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) concluded in a recent report that “a new generation of smart machines, fueled by rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, could potentially replace a large proportion of existing human jobs.” Robotics and AI will cause a serious “double-disruption,” as the coronavirus pandemic pushed companies to fast-track the deployment of new technologies to slash costs, enhance productivity and be less reliant on real-life people.

Millions of people have lost their jobs due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and now the machines will take away even more jobs from workers, according to the WEF. The organization cites that automation will supplant about 85 million jobs by 2025. WEF says there’s nothing to worry about since its analysis anticipates the future tech-driven economy will create 97 million new jobs. Currently, approximately 30% of all tasks are done by machines—and people do the rest. However, by the year 2025, it's believed that the balance will dramatically change to a 50-50 combination of humans and machines.

Management consulting giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers reported, “AI, robotics and other forms of smart automation have the potential to bring great economic benefits, contributing up to $15 trillion to global GDP by 2030.” However, it will come with a high human cost. “This extra wealth will also generate the demand for many jobs, but there are also concerns that it could displace many existing jobs.”

In a dire prediction, WEF said, “While some new jobs would be created as in the past, the concern is there may not be enough of these to go round, particularly as the cost of smart machines falls over time and their capabilities increase.”

Concerns of new technologies disrupting the workforce and causing job losses have been around for a long time. On one side, the argument is automation will create better new jobs and erase the need for physical labor. The counterclaim is that people without the appropriate skills will be displaced and not have a home in the new environment.  READ MORE...

China Not Impressed

US climate envoy John Kerry has told China that climate change is more important than politics as tensions between the two countries continue.  He made the remarks following two days of talks with Chinese leaders in the city of Tianjin.

But China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Wednesday that the worsening relationship could hamper future co-operation on climate issues. Both countries have outlined steps to tackle climate change.  But Mr Kerry has called on China to increase its efforts to tackle carbon emissions.

Tensions between the two countries have worsened in recent months with disputes over China's human rights record, the South China Sea and the Covid-19 pandemic.  Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Mr Kerry said he had told the Chinese that "climate is not ideological, not partisan and not a geostrategic weapon".

"It is essential... no matter what differences we have, that we have to address the climate crisis," he said   Earlier, Mr Wang called on the US to "stop seeing China as a threat and an opponent", accusing Washington of a "major strategic miscalculation towards China".

"It is impossible for China-US climate co-operation to be elevated above the overall environment of China-US relations," he said. China became the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2006 and is now responsible for more than a quarter of the world's overall greenhouse gas emissions.

President Xi Jinping has said he will aim for China's emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for the country to be carbon neutral by 2060. But it is not yet clear how he plans to achieve this.  Mr Kerry said he aimed to meet Chinese leaders again ahead of the upcoming COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow this year and push for stronger emission reduction targets.  READ MORE  

PANDEMIC Heats Up Earth

Earth heats up due to pandemic’s cleaner air, study finds
by: The Associated Press, Nexstar Media Wire, Darcie Loreno

Earth spiked a bit of a fever in 2020, partly because of cleaner air from the pandemic lockdown, a new study found.

For a short time, temperatures in some places in the eastern United States, Russia and China were as much as half to two-thirds of a degree (.3 to .37 degrees Celsius) warmer. That’s due to less soot and sulfate particles from car exhaust and burning coal, which normally cool the atmosphere temporarily by reflecting the sun’s heat, Tuesday’s study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters reported.

The study states:
“The COVID-19 pandemic changed emissions of gases and particulates. These gases and particulates affect climate. In general, human emissions of particles cool the planet by scattering away sunlight in the clear sky and by making clouds brighter to reflect sunlight away from the earth. This paper focuses on understanding how changes to emissions of particulates (aerosols) affect climate. We use estimates of emissions changes for 2020 in two climate models to simulate the impacts of the COVID-19 induced emission changes. We tightly constrain the models by forcing the winds to match observed winds for 2020. COVID-19 induced lockdowns led to reductions in aerosol and precursor emissions, chiefly soot or black carbon and sulfate (SO4). This is found to reduce the human caused aerosol cooling: creating a small net warming effect on the earth in spring 2020. Changes in cloud properties are smaller than observed changes during 2020. The impact of these changes on regional land surface temperature is small (maximum +0.3K). The impact of aerosol changes on global surface temperature is very small and lasts over several years. However, the aerosol changes are the largest contribution to COVID-19 affected emissions induced radiative forcing and temperature changes, larger than ozone, CO2 and contrail effects.”

Overall, the planet was about .05 degrees (.03 degrees Celsius) warmer for the year because the air had fewer cooling aerosols, which, unlike carbon dioxide, is pollution you can see, the study found.

“Cleaning up the air can actually warm the planet because that (soot and sulfate) pollution results in cooling” which climate scientists have long known, said study lead author Andrew Gettelman, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His calculations come from comparing 2020 weather to computer models that simulated a 2020 without the pollution reductions from pandemic lockdowns.

This temporary warming effect from fewer particles was stronger in 2020 than the effect of reduced heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, Gettelman said. That’s because carbon stays in the atmosphere for more than a century with long-term effects, while aerosols remain in the air about a week.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, Click Here...

Can Joe Biden Do It?

The real question that Americans need to ask themselves now that they have voted Joe Biden into the Presidency is:  CAN HE DO IT?

"Do what," you might ask?

Well... for starters consider this:

1.  Use Trump's COVID Vaccine Push to stop the Pandemic

2.  Correct the economic ills that the Pandemic has caused

3.  Bring racial peace to this nation

4.  Return to Trump's full employment

5.  Raise taxes on the wealthy

6.  Negotiate favorable trade deals

7.  Create an economy that will compete with China

8.  Create a military that will compete with China

9. Create police departments that are unbiased

10.  Neutralize North Korea

11.  Stop anti-American sentiment/hate in the Middle East

12.  Keep Russia under control

13.  Stop foreign cyber crime

14.  Not keeping secrets from the American Public

15.  Stop political hatred among Americans

16.  Not allow Medicare for All to be passed

17.  Not allow the Constitution to be rewritten

18.  Not increase the number of Supreme Court Justices

19.  Not return the government regulations on business that Trump removed

20.  End our dependence on fossil fuels

Donald Trump was an arrogant, self-indulgent, inflammatory pompous ass, but he accomplished an economic society the likes of which no other American President has ever done...  and, it is highly unlikely that Biden will do much to return to that point-in-time...

Biden and Harris want to GIVE MORE TO THE PEOPLE so that THE PEOPLE will continue to elect DEMOCRATS...  the more they give, the less our economy will grow because it is NOT WE THE PEOPLE who create companies and hire people but THOSE WITH MONEY...

There is a HIDDEN CRISIS in America that was exacerbated by the Pandemic and that is our NATIONAL DEBT.  The more that we give to the people, the more we tax the wealthy, and the less money the wealthy have to create companies that provide jobs.  Plus, the wealthy will not be able to pay it all so we will BORROW...  and BORROW...  and BORROW...

And, when our borrowing capabilities end, we will devalue our dollar and most people do not understand what that means...  but, instead of spending one dollar for something you will have to spend two, cutting your purchasing power in half.

IN POINT OF FACT...   Politicians do not solve problems they work towards re-elections, trying to keep their party in control so that the future will hold their ideas not the ideas of the opposing party....  It is our FREE MARKET ENTERPRISE SYSTEM that grows the economy that supports innovations and technology advances...  if you have a reasonable doubt...   look at:

• Google
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Microsoft
• Apple
• Samsung
• Hollywood
• Stoke Market
• Banks and Credit Unions
• Airlines
• Trains
• Automobiles
• Resorts

These were not created by our Governments, by our Presidents, by our Congresses, nor by our Supreme Court Justices...   they were created by NON POLITICIANS who were clever people, using the government in such a way that allowed them to grow and provide jobs.

1. The Democrats believe that our Government should give the people FREE SERVICES
2. The Republicans believe that our Government should allow Economic Markets to grow

And, it is these two opposite opinion that have fought each other so much that since 1960 our society and culture has changed very little.  I am 73 and the social problems we have in 2020 were the same social problems we had in 1960....  60 YEARS AGO...

You tell me...  who caused this to happen?  And, if you don't yet believe do a GOOGLE search on social condition in America in 1960 and see for yourself.

Where Are We Going From Here?

I know that one is not supposed to answer a question with a question but, "Can we get there from here?"  And if we do not know where we are going, we cannot get anywhere other than putting one foot in front of the other one and keep doing that until we get somewhere...  but, even that seems like a stupid thing to do, especially from a logical point-of-view.  It would appear that my ARTICLE Title Question needs a tad more clarification...

This is a good example of how fast the mind moves relative to how fast the hand type because what I was thinking when I thought up the ARTICLE Title Question was where are we, as a nation, going relative to going back-to-work while the Pandemic is still AT LARGE.


First of all, it really does make sense, and I mean logical sense, to open up our economy slowly with the understanding of 25% then 50% then 75% and finally 100%.  But, as was pointed out to me from a restaurant owner, if his restaurant is opened with 25% capacity, he still has to employ almost as many people as when his restaurant is opened 100% so he would be losing money and quite possibly file for bankruptcy...  in other words, 25% would hurt worse than 0%...  BUT, this is not the case for everyone.  So, where are we going as a nation?

• Do we open National Parks?
• Do we open Public and Private Beaches?
• Do we open up Baseball Stadiums?
• Do we open up Restaurants?
• Do we open up Movie Theaters?
• Do we open up Schools?
• Do we open up Airline Travel?
• Do we open up Cruise Ships?
• Do we open up Hotels and Motels?

AND...  would the 25% then the 50% then the 75% then the 100% work for everyone?

New Norms After Pandemic Imagined

How is life in America going to be different after the COVID-19 Pandemic is over?

How is life in Tennessee going to be different after the COVID-19 Pandemic is over?

How is life in East TN going to be different after the COVID-19 Pandemic is over?

What an interesting set of questions and while all three seem a tad redundant, all three are different and relatively mutually exclusive.  Mutually exclusive is a statistical term describing two or more events that cannot coincide. It is commonly used to describe a situation where the occurrence of one outcome supersedes the other  In this case, we have the US versus States versus Regions/Cities and while the US supersedes all other laws, each of these will undoubtedly be a little different from each other.

Think of it this way:  GRANDPARENTS     Parents      children

ᐳWhat will be:

• wearing face masks
• keeping our distances inside
• waiting rooms
• lobbies
• bars/nightclubs
• malls
• restaurants
• movie theaters
• taking our temperatures everywhere
• video meetings with physicians more often
• cleaning everything after use
• middle seats in airplanes removed
• limited seating in restaurants
• possible end of student classrooms
• more and more online shopping

CHINA DENIES

BREAKFAST

Outside of going to a BRUNCH, breakfast is my favorite meal...  and, what I typically order for breakfast is an omelette and/or pancakes...  my omelette usually comes with pancakes and hash browns but I substitute the hash browns for pancakes giving me a total of 5 pancakes.  My omelette,typically the Everything Omelette although it has different names in different States or regional locations.

I eat half my omelette there and take the other half home for the next day.  I eat no pancakes there and take them all home to each for future breakfasts with either vege sausages or sugar free jelly, usually Strawberry.  Eating 1 pancake a day, I have breakfast for another 6 days.  Cost is around $12-$15 for 7 meals or right around $2 for each meal.  Drinks obviously are extra...

My favorite restaurant for this is PERKINS...  However, not all PERKINS are alike as they are franchised and it depends on how the franchised owner conducts his operation.  The Perkins franchise 7 miles from our house has been owned by a German man named Otto for over 40 years.  In a conversation with Otto several years ago, he told me that he started with Perkins cleaning tables, then became a waiter, then cook, then assistant manager, then manager, then OWNER...

There is two other PERKINS RESTAURANTS near us, one north about 60 miles and one south about 20 miles and neither one has the quality of food or service as the one hear our home.

My wife and I usually go to Perkins for breakfast every other Sunday and we always order the same meal.  I get the Everything Omelette and she gets the Magnificent Seven.

As a matter of fact, my wife just left a few minutes ago to pick up breakfast from Perkins since they only have "take out" because of the COVID-19 Pandemic and our State's stay at home order.  We usually ask for our senior citizen discount when we go, but decided not to ask for that discount this time...  since they need all the financial help they can get to stay open.  It may not be much but everything helps.