2,905,611 VISITORS VISIT 8,324,077 TIMES 3 TIMES EVERY DAY IN ONE YEAR. HIGHEST ACTIVITY IN WPCNR HISTORY.White PlainsCitizeNetReporter lifted its worldwide visits from unique visitors to wpcnr.com to 8,324,077,a 1,306,419 increase in visits in one year from 7,017,658 visits to the site last year which covers White Plains and Westchester County. The 8,324,077 visits were made by 2,005,611 unique visitors who visited wpcnr an average of 3 visits a day. ON JULY 20- -2026 visitors have accessed wpcnr and made 3,072 visits an average of 1.6 visits. In the last week 33,495 individual vistors made 54,458 visits, averaging 1.6 visits. In the last month, 152,940 visitors recorded 229,338 visits (1.5 visits)
WPCNR COVID SURVEILLANCE. DATA FROM NY STATE COVID TRACKER. Observation and Analysis by John F. Bailey December 8, 2022:
The Center for Disease Control today called for a return to wearing masks in the City of New York, Nassau and Suffolk Counties due
THE THANKSGIVING COVID SURGE IS ON AS PREDICTED. WESTCHESTER, ORANGE, ROCKLAND, DUTCHESS, ULSTER PUTNAM SULLIVAN, NASSAU AND SUFFOLK COUNTIES AND THE 5 BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK CITH REPORTE 5,258 NEW PERSONS WITH COVID MONDAY.
WESTCHESTER POSTED 379 NEW COVID CASES MONDAY.THE FIRST TIME WESTCHESTER HAS PUSHED THE 400 NEW CASES ON ONE DAY SINCE DEC 7, 2021 WHEN THE COUNTY POSTED 366 AND DEC. 8, 2021 WHEN WE HAD 441. THE TUES CASE COUNT IS NOT IN YET FROM NEW YORK STATE.
THE TREND OF MORE INFECTIONS FASTER AFTER WEEKENDS CONTINUES. WESTCHESTER FRIENDS WE ARE INFECTING EACH OTHER AT THE RATE OF 300 PERSONS A DAY WHICH WILL PUSH WESTCHESTER OVER 2,000 INFECTIONS FOR THE SECOND STRAIGHT WEEK, MARKING 40 WEEKS OF OVER 1,000 CASES A WEEK.
DR. KATELYN JETELINA, WHO WRITES YOUR LOCAL EPIDEMIOLOGIST NEWS LETTER WEEK IS VERY CONCERNED. COVID, RSV AND FLU ARE INFECTING AT THE HIGHEST RATE AT THIS TIME OF YEAR EVER SHE WRITES
NOTE NEW INFECTION RATES POSTED ON SUNDAY RESULTS OF TESTING FOR THE 5 BOROUGHS OF NYC. NOTE THE CONSISTENTLY INFECTIOUS TRENDS OF NASSAU AND SUFFOLK COUNTIES CONTRIBUTING 1,309 CASES OVER 600 A DAY THE TWO LONG ISLAND COUNTIES. IN WESTCHESTER WE AVERAGED 8% SUNDAY. THE SOBERING OBSERVATION THE 9 COUNTIES OUTSIDE NEW YORK CITY ARE INFECTING AT A 10% POSITIVE RATE ON LAB-VERIFIED POSITIVES.
Frank Okunak Embezzled Over $16 Million and Caused Publicly Traded Corporation to Keep False Book and Records
WPCNR FBI WIRE.From the Federal Bureau of Investigation.December 7, 2022:
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that FRANK OKUNAK, the former chief financial officer of one of the world’s leading global public relations firms, was sentenced today to 52 months in prison by U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel.
OKUNAK pled guilty on July 27, 2022, to one count of wire fraud and one count of falsification of the books and records of a public corporation, in connection with a decade-long scheme to embezzle over $16 million from his employer.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated: “Frank Okunak conducted a nearly decade-long conspiracy to embezzle millions of dollars from his employer and the public shareholders of his employer. Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to executives that if they use their company’s money as if it were their own, they will face lengthy prison time.”
According to the allegations in the Information, statements made in court, and court filings:
For nearly a decade, FRANK OKUNAK, who was the chief financial officer and later chief operating officer of a leading global public relations firm (the “PR Firm”), embezzled over $16 million from the PR Firm and, ultimately, the shareholders of the PR Firm’s publicly traded parent corporation.
OKUNAK used the embezzled funds to finance his personal lifestyle and his own private business ventures.
OKUNAK concealed and facilitated his theft by preparing and causing others to prepare materially false accounting books and records, including invoices and payment records that falsely described expenditures as having been undertaken for the benefit of the PR Firm, when funds were actually used for OKUNAK’s personal benefit or for the benefit of his personal business associates.
Specifically, from 2011 through 2020, OKUNAK used his authority as an officer of the PR Firm to cause the PR Firm to make unauthorized payments for OKUNAK’s personal and business ventures unrelated to the activities of the PR Firm or its corporate parents.
OKUNAK used the PR Firm’s assets to provide the start-up capital for his personal, independent business ventures, to purchase tickets and luxury boxes at sporting events, and even to cover donations to his alma mater.
To hide the illicit nature of these expenditures, OKUNAK frequently prepared or caused others to prepare false or misleading invoices and other documentation to suggest, falsely, that the funds were used for legitimate corporate purposes.
* * *
In addition to his prison sentence, OKUNAK, 56, of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, was sentenced to three years of supervised release. As part of his guilty plea, OKUNAK also agreed to forfeit $10,823,575.57 and to pay restitution of $16,043,603.71.
By Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, Your Local Epidemiologist .December 7, 2022. Reprinted with permission.
The dreaded and much anticipated triple-demic is finally here—for the first time RSV, flu, and COVID-19 are rising together. And it’s not looking pretty. Here is the current state of affairs.
Overall
Last Friday Twitter covered my reaction to the latest data pretty clearly: Holy crap. There are a lot of sick people in the United States right now.
This level is truly unprecedented; we’ve never seen such high levels of ILI activity at this time of year. The map above is typically green (see below for this time in previous years). In fact, notice that before 2019, we didn’t even have the dark red/purple colors.
ILI Map by Year (Source: CDC) Note: You will notice that 2020-2021 are very green (although COVID-19 was high). There are many epidemiological reasons for this, including people avoiding doctors offices at the time.
Yesterday, the CDC Director said: “hospitalizations are the highest now than they have been in the past decade.” This is truly concerning given a backdrop of burnt out healthcare workers and low staff levels.
While ILI surveillance gives us a picture of symptoms overall, we do have some (imperfect) surveillance for specific diseases.
RSV
RSV continues to rise. We may be seeing the first signs of peaking on a national level (bottom right graph). This is expected given that test positivity rates have already clearly peaked (bottom left graph). There are certainly regional differences, as the South has clearly peaked (at least so far—Thanksgiving activity may change this) and West hasn’t slowed down yet.
Flu cases are increasing and increasing fast. Flu hospitalizations are lagged (much like COVID-19) but increasing. Flu season outbreaks typically start in schools (hitting healthy children). Then the virus takes time to get to older adults. We expect hospitalizations to continue to rise in weeks to come.
In Canada, hospitalizations by age are clearly tracked. The highest risk for hospitalization is in those under 4 years old and those over 65 years. This likely reflects U.S. patterns, too.
Influenza related hospitalizations in Canada, by age group. Source here.
As Inside Medicinereported, for the first time during the pandemic, flu hospitalizations overtook COVID-19 hospitalizations last week. This may be a one-off occurrence since COVID-19 hospitalizations are increasing now, too, but it is noteworthy.
Image: Benjy Renton for Inside Medicine.Source here.
We don’t know if this will be the “worst flu season we’ve ever seen.” The Southern Hemisphere (Australia specifically) had a high number of flu cases but moderate levels of hospitalizations. Epidemiologists are crossing our fingers that this is what the Northern Hemisphere will see, too.
COVID-19
COVID-19 is on the rise across the globe due to the combination of seasonal changes, behaviors changes, and the variant soup. In the U.S., all signs point to the beginning of a wave. For example, SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater is rapidly increasing across all regions.
SARS-CoV-2 National Wastewater Trends, over time. Dark blue= wastewater; Light blue/green= Reported cases (Source: Biobot Analytics)
One major concern is the rapid rise in hospitalizations among older adults, which has exponentially increased 28% in the past two weeks. In many states, like California, the rate of hospitalizations is higher than the BA.5 wave, BA.2 wave, and/or Delta wave.
This is partly (or wholly) due to abysmal vaccination rates—only 1 in 3 adults over the age of 65+ have their fall COVID-19 booster. A public health failure. Without a recent booster, many people are technically vaccinated but not protected. I appreciated a recent U.K. public health campaign displaying the best messaging I’ve seen thus far.
Thanksgiving was 1.5 weeks ago, and because of it, many social networks expanded, providing new opportunities for viruses to spread. For COVID-19, it takes about ~2 weeks to see the epidemiological impact of holidays. The recent COVID-19 uptick may be partially explained by a “Thanksgiving effect,” although we are seeing an uptick in other countries that don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.
I expect Thanksgiving will springboard us into more RSV and flu, too, but this surveillance is delayed.
Bottom line
This viral season is like no other. I’m running out of adjectives to describe it. (Unprecedented. Worrisome. A pain. Exhausting.)
Unfortunately, we don’t know how long this will last or how bad it will get. I’m especially concerned for hospital systems, kids under 5, and adults over the age of 65, as they are at highest risk.
There’s a lot we can do: mask, test before seeing loved ones, get that airflow moving, stay home when you’re sick.
The least you can do for a healthy season is get a flu and fall COVID-19 booster. If you haven’t gotten one yet, it’s never too late.
The Arizona engulfed, December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor
Out of the sun they came
Birds of death blazened with red suns raining fiery havoc on Battleship Row.
One by one, ruthless planes dove, destroyed to their nation’s shame.
Thunderous explosions scattered fiery death on Sunday dawn’s glow.
Flames belched from hull of stricken Arizona, America’s pride,
Hicham Field pilots raced to planes to defend
Their birds crippled on ground by Zeros’ glide
Gunners in turrets on ships floundering filled skies with flack’s din.
In search of carriers, marauders could not find
Ruthlessly strafed and bombed leaving Pearl
In smoking ruin. Ships sunk, burning as raiders flew back into dawn’s Sun
The day of infamy had been ignited in the Zeros’ swirl.
The Attack Begins 8 AM December 7, 1941
As America listened a world away, somber FDR
Spoke of this day that will live in infamy.
America must never forget its Pearl Harbor Scar
When an unsuspecting America slept in complacency.
To the 2,403 perishing that day under merciless bombs
Hails of bullets, terror of torpedos out of nowhere
America must remember forces against our freedoms
Relentlessly work always to surprise with deadly bombs’ glare.
Vigilence is the price of freedom always to be defended
By dark forces in far off places we have offended.
Against those who would destroy our republic from within
The answer is not curtailing freedom at home rather it to champion.
The USS Arizona lies in Pearl’s waters, bleeding the lives
Of her men through the eerie eternal slick marking the rusting hulk.
Beneath Pearl’s waters, the blood of free people oozes from the shadowy bulk,
Bleeding forever, freedom’s spirit living forever in lost lives remembered.
She never rests.
Note:The Pearl Harbor attack started 81 years ago today 2 PM Eastern Standard Time. The aftermath is dramatically depicted at http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm
