Flu and COVID Are Both Surging Early This Year in Rhode Island and US

Now is the time to take precautions to stay healthy

By Nick Landekic, contributing writer/RINewsToday News Team

As much as we would all like to forget about COVID, it’s still very much with us and will be for a long time. Right now, we are experiencing an atypical COVID surge with outbreaks reported in 47 states. COVID levels (as measured by wastewater monitoring) are Very High in Rhode Island with several areas reporting the highest levels seen all year, including Jamestown and the East Bay communities of Bristol, Warren, and Newport.

The rate of COVID infections right now is higher than it was than at any time during the first two years of the pandemic. Over 1 million people are becoming infected with COVID every day, and increasing. The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative estimates that between 1,900 and 3,300 Americans are dying of COVID every week.

Flu has also come early this year. Every part of the U.S. is showing high flu test positivity which means we are in ‘flu season.’ Flu rates are climbing in almost every state including Rhode Island.

If you haven’t yet gotten COVID and flu vaccine shots, now would be a good time to talk with your doctor or pharmacist.

How serious are COVID and the flu?

COVID and influenza are the only infectious diseases that regularly kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. They are both serious infectious diseases. The severity of infection can be reduced by vaccination.

For both flu and COVID, the most vulnerable people are the very young and the very old. COVID is especially dangerous for seniors, while the flu is more dangerous for infants.

One of the most damaging myths is that COVID has somehow become ‘milder.’ It has not.  If anything some studies have shown it has become worse. It most definitely is not like a cold or even the flu. It’s much more serious.

Repeat COVID infections take an increasing toll on the body. Studies have shown repeat infections have 2 to 3 times the risk of a worse outcome, organ, tissue, and system damage, than the previous infection.

Even if you are lucky enough to have had a relatively mild acute course of infection you can still develop Long COVID. Studies have shown that most Long COVID cases started with initially mild infections. It’s estimated that right now between 389,000 to 1,560,000 people are getting Long COVID every week.

COVID isn’t something your body can handle getting over and over again. Ask someone with Long COVID what it’s like.

What’s happening in Rhode Island?

The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative rates Rhode Island, as well as neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut, as currently having Very High levels of infection. 26 states currently are at High or Very High levels. They also estimate that 1 out of every 24 people in Rhode Island are actively infectious with COVID. This also means if you are in a room with 10 people, there is a 34% chance someone has COVID – and could infect everyone else in the room.

The Rhode Island Department of Health also rates our current wastewater viral activity level as High.

CCA declares overwhelming victory as predicted

Except it’s B.S.

By Will Collette

In past election cycles, you could expect the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) to recruit a full slate of candidates to run for town office. This year, it was different. 

The best the CCA could do was offer a partial slate of only two Town Council candidates along with their usual bunch of acolytes of Planning Commissar Ruth Platner to run for Planning Commission.

They padded their numbers by adding people to their slate who never asked to be added, including Democrat Cynthia Drummond and incumbent Republican Steve Stokes (who received the CCA’s coveted “conditional” endorsement, both running for Town Council, as well as the three-member Democratic slate for the Chariho School Committee.

I predicted that the CCA would use their sleezy ploy of awarding unsolicited endorsements so they could claim an overwhelming victory in the November 3 General Election.

After closely monitoring the way the CCA operates, it’s almost too easy. Sure enough, here’s the CCA’s “victory” statement:

“Thank you to each of the over 4000 voters who took the time to vote this year and congratulations to all the winners! The election may be over, but Charlestown Citizens Alliance will continue to engage the public to encourage Charlestown’s government to protect our environment, economy, and future….Ten out of eleven local candidates that CCA supported in the November 3 election were elected, and we are grateful to the voters. Sadly, Sasha Puchalski, who we supported for Town Council, missed being elected by just 24 votes. We hope she will continue to serve the town and be involved in Charlestown’s government. Charlestown would benefit from her continued involvement.”

Except half of those claimed CCA wins are people who did not ask to be endorsed by the CCA. They still only have Bonnie Van Slyke on the Town Council making this the third election cycle the CCA has been out of power. Their only achievement was to tighten Ruth Platner's control of the Planning Commission, though without the Council, the Planning Commission has no power except the power to obstruct. But obstruction is what Platner is all about.

Since the CCA first emerged from Charlestown’s swamps in 2008, they have never seemed to master the skill of telling the truth. This has continually gotten them into trouble and led voters to kick them out of power in 2022.

Trump hopes his faith will save him

‘Please Guide Me In My Darkest Hour Lord,’ Prays Trump Kneeling Before Portrait Of Himself - The Onion

And the nation utters a collective sigh

More trout in local ponds

DEM to Stock Selected Waterbodies for Veterans Day

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is conducting a special trout stocking in advance of Veterans Day in honor of our veterans. Rainbow and Brook trout will be stocked in 14 waterbodies today through Tuesday, Nov. 10. The following areas will be stocked:

• Barber Pond, South Kingstown
• Carbuncle Pond, Coventry 
• Meadow Brook Pond, Richmond
• Olney Pond, Lincoln Woods State Park, Lincoln 
• Round Top Ponds, Burrillville 
• Shippee Sawmill Pond, Foster 
• Silver Spring Lake, North Kingstown 
• Simmons Mill Pond, Little Compton 
• Stafford Pond, Tiverton 
• Tarkiln Pond, Burrillville 
• Tucker Pond, South Kingstown 
• Watchaug Pond, Charlestown 
• Willett Pond, East Providence
• Wood River, Rt 165 Check Station, and "The Pines", Exeter

Regular stocking updates will be available on DEM's Division of Fish and Wildlife's (DFW) Facebook Page and www.dem.ri.gov/troutwaters. See freshwater fisheries updates and FAQs at www.dem.ri.gov/fishing.

Freshwater fishing rules, regulations, size, and creel limits for freshwater fishing are available in the 2026-2027 Freshwater Fishing Abstract. A 2026 fishing license is required for anglers 15 years of age and older and a Trout Conservation Stamp is required to keep or possess trout. 

Scientists discover a surprising link between vitamin C and cancer survival

Could help in the treatment of cancer

Van Andel Research Institute

A surprising clinical trial suggests that taking vitamin C daily could improve survival in people with precancerous blood disorders and early-stage blood cancers. Patients receiving the supplement had fewer adverse events and showed a promising survival advantage, raising hopes that a common vitamin could help protect against leukemia-related complications.

Vitamin C plays an important role in keeping the immune system healthy, helping wounds heal, and protecting cells from damage. However, people with precancerous blood disorders and blood cancers often have persistently low vitamin C levels. Researchers have been investigating whether correcting this deficiency could improve their health and treatment outcomes.

New findings from the phase 2 EVITA clinical trial suggest that vitamin C supplementation may offer important benefits for people with precancerous blood conditions and early-stage blood cancers. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted by the Van Andel Institute-Stand Up To Cancer® Epigenetics Dream Team.

Despite Trump, third major US offshore wind farm is now fully operational

More green energy for Rhode Island

By Maria Gallucci, Rhode Island Current

The service vessel ECO Edison sails toward the Revolution
Wind project near New England. (Photo by Ørsted)

This story was originally published by Canary Media. Read the original version here.

The offshore wind farm Revolution Wind is completely up and running — despite the Trump administration’s repeated and ongoing efforts to halt development of the $6.2 billion project.

On November 5, the Danish energy giant Ørsted said its 704-megawatt wind farm near Connecticut and Rhode Island began ​“generating up to its full capacity” in October. Revolution Wind began producing smaller amounts of power in the spring, and the company installed the last of 65 turbines in September.

The project is the third U.S. utility-scale offshore wind farm to reach full commercial operations, after South Fork Wind near New York and Vineyard Wind near Massachusetts.

Rhode Island’s congressional delegation prepares for more influence in Washington

Blue Wave benefits Rhode Island

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo was an 18-year-old field organizer for Sheldon Whitehouse’s first U.S. Senate campaign in 2006 when he celebrated inside Providence’s Biltmore Hotel as Democrats won back both chambers of Congress.

Two decades later, Amo returned to the same hotel Tuesday night celebrating another Democratic takeover of Congress — one that will put him and Rhode Island’s other House member in the majority for the first time in their careers. 

“This is seismic,” Amo said in an interview outside L’Artisan Cafe in Providence’s Wayland Square Wednesday morning. 

Amo was first elected to Congress in a 2023 special election a year after his colleague, U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, was elected, just as Republicans were taking control of the House. 

Despite their relatively short tenures, both could find themselves among the more senior members of the House Democratic caucus next year when a large group of new Democrats arrives, Adam Myers, a political science professor at Providence College, said.

“There’s no doubt that the state’s profile on Capitol Hill will be greatly enhanced starting next year,” Myers said in a phone interview.

Magaziner said he hopes the new majority will move quickly to address voters’ concerns about the economy and the conduct of the Trump administration.

“I don’t think the message should be that Democrats won big because people love Democrats and think that we’re awesome,” Magaziner said in a phone interview. “They were trying to send the message that they expect us to bring change to Washington.”

Both of Rhode Island’s congressional representatives identified lowering costs as a priority for the incoming Democratic majority, pointing to reversing President Donald Trump’s tariffs and restoring enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that lapsed last year. 

Another new name

Thanksgiving? USDA says start now.

A simple blood test could detect cancer

Canadian advance toward earlier cancer detection

Alexandre Pellan Cheng, École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS)

American Association for Cancer Research

Cancer is now the leading cause of death in Canada. Two in five Canadians will develop cancer during their lifetime, and one in four will die from it. Every day, nearly 700 people across the country are diagnosed with cancer. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, the most commonly diagnosed cancers are lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer.

These figures mask a key reality: survival rates vary greatly depending on the type of cancer and, above all, how advanced it is at the time of diagnosis.

The statistical data clearly show that survival rates decrease when the cancer is detected early. These data highlight the urgent need to improve detection of the disease and, above all, to detect it earlier.

A blood test instead of a scalpel

This is the context where my research takes place. As a professor of systems engineering at ÉTS Montréal and principal investigator in the cancer research division at the CHUM Research Centre, I am working on liquid biopsy. This approach aims to detect cancer from a simple blood test by analyzing the DNA that tumor cells release into the bloodstream.

Unlike conventional biopsies, which require removing a tissue sample from the tumor, liquid biopsy relies on a simple, minimally invasive procedure: a blood test is all that’s needed.

The advantages of this approach include reduced pain, lower risks for the patient and less logistical burden associated with hospital procedures. The simplicity of the test also allows for more frequent testing. And finally, unlike many diagnostic procedures, taking a blood sample does not require specialized facilities. Blood can be taken in any health-care setting, whether it’s a local clinic or a community health center.

In medicine, the term “biomarkers” is often used to refer to measurable indicators that provide information about a person’s state of health. The PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test, which has been used for decades to monitor prostate cancer, is a well-known example. Elevated PSA levels in the blood may indicate the presence of cancer, its progression, or a recurrence after treatment.

However, the biomarker approach does have limits: PSA is not specific to cancer and test levels can rise for other reasons, which can complicate the interpretation of results.

Four Red Flags and One Truth Amid the Peptide Hype

Another RFK health fad

By Amy Maxmen

Experimental peptides have become darlings among influencers, chiropractors, and doctors focused on longevity, antiaging, or “body optimization,” even though the FDA hasn’t approved them for safety or effectiveness. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other leaders of the Make America Healthy Again movement have pushed to make unproven peptides more accessible — and they’ve gained traction.

On Oct. 14, a temporary “access policy” appeared on a White House docket, proposing to allow licensed pharmacies to make and sell certain unapproved peptides to people. Scientists at the FDA had advised against the measure at a meeting in July, warning that the drugs hadn’t been adequately vetted in clinical trials.

A panel that advises the FDA disagreed, however, voting to loosen restrictions. Many of the panel members are new appointees with financial stakes in the peptide industry. In an email, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said that every committee member satisfies the FDA’s ethics requirements.

“I voted ‘yes’ for patient safety, the greater good, and medical freedom,” Haleem Mohammed, one of the new committee members, said at the FDA meeting. He’s the chief medical officer of a men’s clinic that sells peptides, Gameday Men’s Health.

To make good decisions, consumers need to rely on accurate information, but much of the hype around peptides is misleading. KFF Health News flags four misleading phrases commonly used by those promoting peptides — and one truth.

Short supplies of crucial equipment stymie changes to US electricity grid

If you thought we had plans for this...

Jasmine Garland, University of Colorado Boulder

Americans have a lot of plans for the country’s power grid. Some people want to expand renewable energy by building solar and wind farms. Others want to add new coal- or natural gas-fired power plants. There are those who want to provide power to some unknown number of data centers processing artificial intelligence algorithms.

To accomplish any of these goals, the country will need a significant number of pieces of equipment whose design was invented in the late 19th century: large power transformers. These giant metal structures are about the size of a two-story house and weigh as much as 400 tons – roughly equivalent to a fully loaded Boeing 747. They convert high voltages used to transmit electricity down to voltage levels people can use in their homes and businesses. And they are made largely in the same way they were when they were invented 150 years ago.

Many of the large power transformers in service in the U.S. and around the world are aging beyond their intended lifespans. And there aren’t enough replacements to meet the world’s needs. It can take more than three years for a company’s order to be filled and delivered.

A video explains how large power transformers work and how they are made.

How Trump destroyed his own dictatorial ambitions

He burned down the government and self-immolated in the process.

David R. Lurie

We are entering the last two years of the Trump era with the man who would be king not only a lame duck, but a desiccated and ever more reviled loser.

In retrospect, it was nearly inevitable that a president who tried to seize dictatorial power over the US government by frontally attacking the US government would not succeed.

Some have described the second Trump regime as the apotheosis of the decades-long growth of presidential power that established a so-called “imperial presidency,” in which presidents expanded their power by expanding the reach of the federal government. But the opposite is true.

Trump set out to assault and gut much of the government to great success, mistakenly believing it would enhance his own power. But Trump’s “success” in immolating the government he is charged with overseeing also ensured his own failure as a would-be dictator.

A head of state at war with the state

Ronald Reagan, the most effective right-wing president of the post-war era, famously presented himself as an opponent of “big government” — but it was an act.

Reagan and his acolytes recognized that lasting political power and ideological influence would come from systematically populating the government with their fellow reactionaries, and using the mechanisms of government to their own ends. By remaking government agencies to serve their purposes, Reagan and subsequent Republican presidents achieved their most significant and resilient successes, to the frustration of Democrats.

But Donald Trump — whose prior “business” career was focused on gutting and pillaging and scamming people — entered government in 2016 with no knowledge of, or curiosity about, how to use the mechanisms of government in his favor.

Trump went on to spend his first term raging over how the government he presided over limited his ability to destroy it, and he left office in 2021 after a vain effort to literally take it down. In the wake of his failed coup, Trump became convinced that an ordered, rule-following government was the greatest possible threat to his power.

So immediately on retaking office, Trump set out to hobble governmental institutions, and replace them with … chaos. In his second regime, Trump has been singularly devoted to destroying the US government, no matter how much it damages his office, and therefore impairs his own power.

By immediately unleashing SpaceX CEO Musk and his “DOGE” — comprised of young nerds whose level of ignorance of the government agencies they assaulted was exceeded only by their vast egos — the self-styled caudillo in the White House made clear he believed that achieving absolute power depended on gutting the executive branch of the government.

While DOGE utterly failed when judged by its supposed purpose of lowering government spending and making agencies more efficient, Musk and his nerdy crew of neo-fascists succeeded in setting a pattern for the entire Trump regime. The lines of authority and rules that govern the operation of the federal government have been gutted through mass firings and driving out professionals who helped to keep the complex machinery of the government running for decades.

At this point, one in five government employees is gone. But contrary to received wisdom, Trump’s power has not been enhanced as a result. Instead, Trump presides over a government he has ruined, and that is rapidly draining his own power.

A shadow war with America’s allies

Over the past two years, Trump has sidelined the State Department and indeed nearly all the established foreign policy channels of the government he ostensibly heads. Instead, his key “foreign policy” initiatives have been placed in the hands of a group of extra-governmental cronies, including his friend Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, by design, operate in the shadows.

The reason Trump replaced diplomats with his cronies is that he also wants to discard America’s democratic allies and put the United States into an axis with a rogues’ gallery of brutal dictatorships and kleptocracies, such as North Korea and, of course, Russia, most immediately by assisting Putin in vanquishing Ukraine.

The problem, however, is that Trump’s goal of causing the US to leave the community of democratic nations is hugely unpopular in the US, even in Trump’s own party, and is favored only by his venally motived acolytes. Put otherwise, Trump has had to carry out an improvisational, crony-driven “foreign policy” because that policy is reviled by the American people who reject Trump’s goals ever more definitively the more he pursues them.

The recent failed scheme to kneecap Ukraine’s military and civil defense by hobbling Ukraine’s access to the “Starshield” system, and thereby aid Putin in maximizing the mass murder of children and other civilians, exemplifies the phenomenon.

It has been over two weeks since Ukraine’s access to the putatively US military controlled, but SpaceX owned, Starshield was substantially shut off, and it remains unclear how and why it happened, as is the nature of Musk’s and Trump’s involvement in the matter. But the Pentagon’s inspector general has stated he will not even investigate how the potentially illegal actions came about.

The fact that Trump wants the facts to remain as murky as possible, however, demonstrates the fundamental problem with his “strategy.”

The scheme could not be sustained for long, because it was rejected so definitively by Republicans and Democrats alike, and was so reviled that Trump had to distance himself from it. Inevitably, Trump’s broader scheme to make the US a Russian ally will fail as well. It is, and will remain, unacceptable to the American people to ally with Russia in its war on Ukraine, and the rest of Europe.

Accordingly, while Trumpers have through their crony “diplomacy” successfully placed a lot of blood on their hands, Trump will almost certainly leave (or be forced out of) office without having achieved his goal of establishing a permanently evil US foreign policy.

The DOJ at war with the justice system

Two years into his presidency, Trump’s “success” in gutting the government is nowhere more evident than in the Department of Justice, where scores of experienced and exceptionally skilled lawyers and FBI agents have been fired or hounded out of their jobs.

The problem for Trumpers is that the personnel who have replaced the highly skilled fired professionals are not only largely mediocre, but frequently incompetent. Once again, Trump’s assault on a government institution is backfiring on him.

In case after case, the credibility of the Justice Department, and therefore of the Trump regime, has been irreparably damaged before judges, making the DOJ a singularly ineffective defender of Trump’s own misconduct and persecutor of his enemies.

The results of Trump’s kneecapping of the DOJ were on full display in DC courtrooms last week during proceedings in a case constructed, reportedly at the behest of FBI Director Kash Patel, against two former FBI analysts that conspiracy theorists have long asserted deliberately “misled” Congress about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

During an extensive evidentiary hearing, Trump’s legal eagles, who a magistrate judge ruled had improperly filed an amendment to their criminal complaint, embarrassed themselves as it became crystal clear the case is probably baseless. The testimony made clear that there is not a colorable basis for asserting that Congress was deceived by the agents, and that even an agent assigned with trumping up the case was concerned that it could be seen as political.

Trumpers’ repeated gaslighting of, and lies to, a federal judge over the illegal scheme to vandalize a treasured public DC golf course also reached a crescendo on Friday, after the DOJ denied that Trumpers were about to commence a renovation of the property even as Trump was publicly announcing it — and this after a wholesale deforestation of the site that took place in defiance of representations to the court.

When Stanley Woodward, a former Trump house counsel who is now a senior DOJ attorney, declared that he had “endeavored to answer the court’s questions as honestly and effectively as I can,” snickers and guffaws erupted in the courtroom. By the time the latest round in the debacle was over, the DOJ was left with an order mandating a full-blown investigation into potentially serious breaches of ethics standards by Trump’s DOJ attorneys and Interior Department personnel.

In the same courthouse last week, another federal judge quizzed a DOJ lawyer on his agency’s contention that Trump needs to build his desired “triumphal arch” immediately because it will double as a highly armed fortress. When the judge asked the DOJ attorney about whether it is remotely practicable to lace a DC tourist attraction with high explosives, the lawyer confessed that he had no actual facts to support the (absurd) claims he was advancing, only statements from guys like famed truth-teller Pete Hegseth.

These embarrassing proceedings are far from the only abuses of the justice system under the Trump regime, and particularly under AG Todd Blanche, who now shamelessly serves up bogus lawsuits seeking to disrupt elections and criminal charges against Trump’s perceived enemies, wholly without regard to merit.

The problem, of course, is that every bogus lawsuit and criminal charge only further erodes the DOJ’s credibility before judges and juries, which is essential to its effectiveness, especially with a lawbreaking president at the helm. Once again, Trump has dismantled a key part of the federal government to his own detriment.

At war with the Department of “War”

Perhaps the most extreme and self-destructive war Trump is waging against his own government is occurring in the Pentagon, as one of his most incompetent hacks — Department of Defense (or War) Secretary Hegseth — is busy ever more aggressively dismantling the leadership of the armed forces.

The military is one of the few parts of the government that Trump, a would-be strongman, did not want to dismantle. And the wars of choice he’s pursued have placed great demands on every branch of the military. But Trump’s choice to head the Pentagon is nonetheless engaged in an ever more destructive war on the military, right in the middle of his war on Iran.

Hegseth reportedly bears a grudge against military officers, possibly because he was drummed out of the National Guard because of an extremist tattoo on one of his biceps. Whatever the reason for his hard feelings, he has embarked on a systematic assault on the upper reaches of the military, including by intervening in the promotions process and otherwise scheming to force out highly decorated officers.

The list of discarded general officers seems to grow by the day and includes a number of the most respected and decorated leaders of nearly every service, including some with knowledge and expertise of cutting-edge defense challenges like drone warfare. Some experts believe the huge losses that the US suffered early in the war on Iran, which included the decimation of bases in the region, were exacerbated by Hegseth’s nihilistic assaults on the leadership of the Army and other services.

Most recently, Hegseth fired — for the second time — the general holding the post of senior military planner at the Pentagon, in the midst of reported planning for new potential strikes on Iran.

The latest planner to be fired, Lt. General Brett Sylvia, reportedly stands accused of revealing classified information to the press. Hegseth, of course, himself recklessly shared highly sensitive battle plans with a member of the press but was not sanctioned for it, yet he has reportedly gone so far as to refer Sylvia for potential prosecution

Trump, of course, bears full responsibility for this debacle, and has so far stood fully behind his failed “War” Secretary. Yet Trump also seems remarkably disengaged from Hegseth’s serial firings and other acts of extraordinary mismanagement. For example, he indicated his belief that Sylvia is a woman (and therefore a member of the gender he prefers to fire).

Accordingly, Trump — who envisions himself as a wartime dictator of historic proportions — is certain to leave office with a greatly weakened military, and one that is extraordinarily unprepared for the new challenges it is likely to face in potential future conflicts.

The United States is about to enter a foreboding final period in the already catastrophically failed Trump presidency. It is difficult to anticipate what further outrages the frustrated, and increasingly feeble-minded, failed dictator will attempt to unleash on the country he purportedly leads.

But one somewhat reassuring thing is already clear — Trump’s ongoing assault on the US government will continue to sap his already eroding power.

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