current covid rate: 1%

Two (three after edit) lines of evidence point to around 1% of the US being infectious with SARS2 right now:

Just officially reported cases are around 210,000 per week, 30,000 per day, 100 per million people per day. Real cases are probably 10-20x that, so 1000+. Assuming a 10 day infectious period, that's 10,000 people per million actively infected -- 1%.

source: https://twitter.com/BNOFeed/status/1716228683612991852

And, someone's model based on wastewater data and history also points to 1% infectiousness:

https://twitter.com/michael_hoerger/status/1716497172844175699

with longer term source: http://www.pmc19.com/data/index.php

Is it _actually_ 1%, vs. 0.5% or 2%? I have no idea. But it's more likely near 1% than 0.1%, say.

Walk around, and around 1 in 100 of the people you meet likely have SARS2. You can't even count on "stay home if sick" removing many of them, given asymptomatic periods, 'mildness', and lack of sick leave.

And if you're not in the US? There is no reason why things would be any better where you are. The people around you probably aren't any more current on vaccinations (not that those help much), and outside of East Asia aren't masking more, and even the Asians aren't masking _well_ as far as I can tell.

Edit to add: reported death rate is about 0.42 per million people per day. If the overall infection fatality rate is 1 in 2000, that's an infection rate of 820 per million, and 8200 per million infectious.

source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/covid-cases.html
975 deaths in past week, 975/3/330 = 0.42 per million. (Also, covid is 2.5% of all deaths.)

food adventures today

I grew up not eating fast food; it just wasn't done in my family, like drinking soft drinks (as my parents called soda/pop). Even in college, while I took to Asian fast food like Taipan, Yoshinoya, or Panda Express, I barely did American fast food. Never have much, apart from Greyhound rest stops, or a period in grad school when I would turn to student center Burger King between classes.

But I've been watching a bunch of food videos, and reading posts about "best burgers", and got interested in trying them again. So today I went to McDonald's and had a double quarter pounder with cheese (actually with extra cheese, due to miscommunication with the kiosk, so 3 slices total.)

And it was good! Not the best burger ever by far (that would be a medium rare burger at a Bloomington cafe), but it was a gustatory experience I enjoyed and would choose to repeat, at least ignoring price/health/ecology. Meaty and juicy (though between meat, cheese, ketchup, and mustard, I'm not sure _which_ juices.) Far better than the cheap Burger King cheeseburger I tried a few months ago, which did not arise above "this is technically food".

(Where did I eat my burger? Outside on the grass. And that stretch of San Pablo is especially stroad for the area. Fast food with parking lots and driveways on one side, auto dealerships on the other.)

Speaking of which, I've learned that the standard McDonald's patty is a mere 1.6 oz before cooking. I'd figured they'd be at least 2 oz. I think this may have always been the case, not modern shrinkflation. The Quarter Pounder ones are 4.25 oz, up from 4, and supposedly never frozen.

Moving on from food for a bit, I afterwards walked west along Harrison, an area I haven't been to. There are a lot of homeless people in the SFBA. There have not been many homeless people around where I'm staying. There were a lot at 7th and Harrison, which (I checked) is in Berkeley, not Albany. I wonder if the Albany police are less tolerant, or Albany is too small and far from services.

Later and back home, I tried my first roast cabbage. Cut up a giant head of red cabbage into, well, pieces; recipes suggested quarter wedges, but my serrated knife was not big or sharp enough to pull that off. Pieces on tray, bit of olive oil, salt, curry powder, garlic powder. 30 minutes at 450 F, 20 at 400 F. The pieces at the front of the tray came out pretty well. The pieces further back are decent, but also have some overly crisped leaves, which I guess tells me something about temperature distribution in the oven.

I am frankly suspicious of the oven, but my new CO detector has not budged, except the one time I deliberately challenged it.

I have mostly moved on in life from instant ramen, despite the blandishments of Yuru Camp's cup noodles, but Safeway has had big sales on Cup Noodles, $1 instead of $2.29, and I have given in to temptation. Certainly tasty. Odd flavors like Terikyaki Beef and Yellow Curry. Protein-enriched with tofu, and green onions except I forgot I have those.

Finally! When I buy hummus, I check the ingredients for what kind of oil it uses. At the foofy store today, I found Haigs "rich and creamy" hummus, which doesn't list _any_ oil. After tasting it, I believe it, though not the "rich and creamy" claim. A good place to add my own olive oil...

As a child, one culinary treat was going to a "Lebanese" (my father said "probably Palestinian in disguise") food shop and getting a plate of hummus, with a pool of olive oil in the middle, sprinkled with paprika, and of course warm pita. Tonight I had carrots not pita, and didn't use a plate, but seeing oil in hummus, and mixing it around, with a bit of kick, gives lots of nostalgia.

(That food shop also had open faced meat pies of a kind I've never seen since. Still miss them.)