If you’re confused by the CDC’s new isolation guidelines, you’re not the only one.
America’s COVID Rules Are a Dumpster Fire — https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/cdc-new-isolation-guidelines-confusing/621192/
Great title, good article. Just don’t expect any confusion on the topic to clear up after reading the full article.
Dumpster fire!
While Big Pharma corporations took billions of dollars in public funding to help develop vaccines from which they then reaped enormous profits while often charging exorbitant prices, Hotez and Battazzi created Cobervax with $7 million, mostly from private investors. One of these, Austin vodka distiller Tito’s, contributed $1 million to the effort.
Texas Team Applauded for Giving What Big Pharma Refuses: A Patent-Free Vaccine to the World — https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/30/texas-team-applauded-giving-what-big-pharma-refuses-patent-free-vaccine-world
And for whatever reason everyone seems to be out of stock for an at home rapid Covid-19 antigen test.
If I drank vodka I would only buy Tito’s for the rest of my life.
As we approach the eve of the New Year, the skeptical cardiologist recognizes that many of you will be consuming vast quantities of alcohol tomorrow night. Whether this is done in celebration or in hopes of transiently forgetting pandemical stressors please be aware that as the fermented beverage of your choice begins to cloud your…
Acute and Chronic Alcohol Consumption and the Risk of Atrial Fibrillation: What Did We Learn in 2021? — The Skeptical Cardiologist
Thank you Dr. Pearson.
Meet one of our extended family members. Sadie is so excited about the holidays she wore this sweater for Thanksgiving.
This week I made a donation to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma https://www.regionalfoodbank.org/. If you live in Oklahoma please consider a year end gift. There is a $500,000 dollar for dollar match until year end. If you live elsewhere there will be a similar charity you can give to.
End of post.
People with talent and high-value skills, like most technology workers, aren’t returning to traditional offices.
How to lure employees back to the office? You can’t. Not now. Not ever. — https://www.zdnet.com/article/they-really-arent-going-back-work-from-home-is-here-to-stay/
I started working from home in 2006. I love reading articles on topics I already know a lot about.
The future of knowledge work will be a hybrid. A small percentage (like myself) will WFH 100% of the time and an even smaller percentage will work in an office 100% of the time. Most will travel to their offices a few times a month and WFH the rest of the time.
I drove a 2006 Ford Taurus for nearly 15 years and didn’t pass 80,000 miles. (short commute)
My business casual attire consists of jeans and a tee shirt.
Coffee is cheaper and tastes a lot better than office coffee too.
Poor metabolic health and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors have been associated with higher risk and severity of COVID-19.
A dietary pattern characterized by healthy plant-based foods was associated with lower risk and severity of COVID-19.
We found evidence of a synergistic association of poor diet and increased socioeconomic deprivation with COVID-19 risk that was higher than the sum of the risk associated with each factor alone.
Merino J, Joshi AD, Nguyen LH, et al
Diet quality and risk and severity of COVID-19: a prospective cohort study
Gut 2021;70:2096-2104. — https://gut.bmj.com/content/70/11/2096
In six countries, plant-based diets or pescatarian diets were associated with lower odds of moderate-to-severe COVID-19. These dietary patterns may be considered for protection against severe COVID-19 In 2884 front-line healthcare workers from six countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, USA), individuals who reported following plant-based diets and plant-based diets or pescatarian diets that were higher in vegetables, legumes and nuts, and lower in poultry and red and processed meats, had 73% and 59% lower odds of moderate-to-severe COVID-19, respectively.
Kim H, Rebholz CM, Hegde S, et al. Plant-based diets, pescatarian diets and COVID-19 severity: a population-based case–control study in six countries
BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health 2021;4:doi: 10.1136/bmjnph-2021-000272 — https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/4/1/257
Eat your vegetables!
RESULTS During 170,148 person-years (PY) (median follow-up 8.5 years), 283 individuals died: 133 with type 1 (103.0/100,000 PY), 55 with type 2 (161.5/100,000 PY), 87 with secondary (1,952/100,000 PY), and 8 with other/unknown diabetes type (312.3/100,000 PY). SMRs (standardized mortality ratios) (95% CI) for the first three groups were 1.5 (1.2–1.8), 2.3 (1.7–3.0), and 28.0 (22.4–34.6), respectively. Diabetes was the underlying cause of death for 42.1%, 9.1%, and 4.6% of deaths, respectively. The SMR was greater for type 2 than for type 1 diabetes (P < 0.001). SMRs were significantly higher for individuals with type 1 diabetes who were <20 years of age, non-Hispanic White and Hispanic, and female and for individuals with type 2 diabetes who were <25 years of age, from all race/ethnic minority groups, and from both sexes.
Demographic Correlates of Short-Term Mortality Among Youth and Young Adults With Youth-Onset Diabetes Diagnosed From 2002 to 2015: The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study — Diabetes Care 2021 Dec; 44(12): 2691-2698. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc21-0728
CONCLUSIONS In the Danish population screened for diabetes with HbA1c, the highest risk of MACE (major adverse cardiovascular event) and all-cause mortality was found in subjects with HbA1c just below the diagnostic threshold for diabetes. Our results highlight the need for increased focus on the treatment of cardiovascular risk factors for subjects with prediabetes.
Prediabetes Defined by First Measured HbA1c Predicts Higher Cardiovascular Risk Compared With HbA1c in the Diabetes Range: A Cohort Study of Nationwide Registries — Diabetes Care 2021 Dec; 44(12): 2767-2774. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc21-1062
Differences between actual mortality and expected mortality range from a drop of about 36%, in Connecticut to an excess of 50%, in one state in the West. The median difference is an excess of 10.5%.
5 Worst States for All-Cause Mortality, Already — https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/12/02/5-worst-states-for-all-cause-mortality-already/
The slideshow for the five states didn’t work for me but the article also contains a data table for all 50 states.
I was surprised Oklahoma was not one of the five worst states.
Cryptocurrencies are a social movement based on the belief that markings in a ledger on the internet have intrinsic value. The organizers of these ledgers call these markings Bitcoin, or Dogecoin, or offer other names based on the specific ledger. That’s really all a cryptocurrency is. There’s no magic. It’s not money, though it has money-like properties. It’s not anything except a set of markings. Sure, the technology behind the ledgers and how to create more of these markings is kind of neat. But crypto is a movement based on energetic storytellers who spin fables about the utopian future to come. In a lot of ways, cryptocurrencies are like Florida land that no one ever intends to use. It has value in the moment it is traded, but only because there’s a collective belief that it has some intrinsic worth.
Matt Stoller BIG newsletter 12.07.21 — https://mattstoller.substack.com/
TBH I never really understood crypto until I read Stoller’s descriptive paragraph.
Now I understand this is something I will never “invest” my money in. Not that I ever intended to do that before today.
lifeunderwriter.net 
You must be logged in to post a comment.