March 26, 2020

At the Sunless Sunrise Café...

E70C44B7-83BC-4D38-B9C3-D49E8375F271_1_201_a

... you can talk all night.

318 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 318 of 318
Ken B said...

Josephbleau
The paper says that the interventions reduce the number of infections and hospitalizations. So your calculation looks backward. Example, if we have 6 antidotes and 12 hikers get snakebite then 6 die. If the hikers wear protective gear then only 7 get bitten and only one dies.

Birkel said...

Has Dr Birx lost her humanity?
Is she sacrificing millions or even hundreds of thousands of lives?

narciso said...

If you dont slice your carotid artery bwcause gangrene apparently.

Ken B said...

Walter
I already answered your question.
I have no interest in the paper, and did not bring it up. Someone else did and misrepresented it. I answered that. You don’t need my analysis of how he misrepresented it (though I gave it in like the third comment) since you have the author's own explanation.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Thanks for a great comment, HeySkipper.

Birkel said...

Dr Birx
"There is no model right now -- no reality on the ground where we can see that 60% to 70% of Americans are going to get infected in the next eight to 12 weeks."

I guess the NeverTrump set will have to wait to get their Gotcha moment.
Sorry, you know who.

walter said...

Ken B,
Post your extractions with scare quotes from your sources.
(Why not your norm?)

narciso said...

No one asks him if the reaction to the h1n1 paper, made him be more aggressive in urging protocols

narciso said...

I linked his earlier reportm

walter said...

Blogger Ken B said...
Walter
I already answered your question.
I have no interest in the paper
--
OMFG/"you know the thing"

Roughcoat said...

Narciso

60 million is low. Say 80 million. Some credible scholars say upwards of 100 million. And no one outside China knew. It was easily hidden.

Birkel said...

Dr Birx explained at the link offered in Comment #200 that the models are wrong.
And they were wrong because their underlying assumptions were wrong.
Those assumptions did not fit the facts that are now observed.

So the face saving if the professor from England is irrelevant.
He was wrong in his modeling because the assumptions about the virus were wrong.
And who really likes to be publicly wrong?
And on such an important issue.

I ask because I do not know, personally.
Ken B, you are the expert.

Ken B said...

Walter
I have really no clue what you are even asking.
I am trying to take you seriously, but it’s getting harder.

Ken B said...

Yeah, I don’t take you seriously anymore walter.

walter said...

Math!

Josephbleau said...

Yes sir Sgt. Ken sir this maggot hopped, sir. 100% sir. I was reading a summary from Imperial college. Now I see in the details that the difference in Prof. Ferguson’s estimate is that the 500,000 death figure is estimated for no social isolation and the 20,000 death figure is based on social isolation for 12 to 18 months including quarantine of all infected for 14 days. This also assumes a vaccine will be found in 12 to 18 months. So that makes sense to me now, it’s just that the 20,000 figure will be at social and economic cost and then we hope for a future vaccine.

narciso said...

Just like robert conquest, formerly of ird was the first to really quantify the holomodor.

Birkel said...

I have to take credit for spotting trolls more quickly than most.
Most of the people here are too kind by far.
But I spotted the newest one quickly.
Bless its heart.

walter said...

Hint, KenB: the paper you have no interest in is what you are defending.

Ken B said...

I guess you are not serious either Josephbleau. You asked what you missed, I told you, you got snotty.
I didn’t cite the paper, and I don’t think it very import. But if it proves anything it’s the exact opposite of what Birkel claimed.

FullMoon said...

Guess we are doing better than Italy:
........................


Italy population 60 million
deaths 8,215
1 death per 7,303


California pop 39.53 million
death 89
1 death per 443,820

Ken B said...

Walter
No I am not defending the paper. I am pointing out Birkel misrepresented it.

Birkel said...

Notice the inability to engage the statement of Dr Birx.
Avoiding those sorts of inconvenient things is classic trolldom.

Dr Birx says the modeling of Professor Ferguson was wrong because his assumptions were wrong.
There's video.

narciso said...

12 to 18 months, but theyll be green shoots for aure after this, after spending 26 to 38 trillion in stimulus, by then the currency will be like leaves in a sequoia forest.

n.n said...

Here's a question. We know that viruses are notoriously opportunistic, but, they are also notorious bigots. HIV was a behavioralist, preferring transmission through back holes. Corona viruses are diversitists, selecting for race, sex, and gender. However, where, for example, the census is discriminatory, the epidemiolog surveys, at least those reported, do not discriminate.

Birkel said...

Birkel is, quite conveniently, relying on the expert statements of Dr Birx.

Drago said...

narciso: "12 to 18 months, but theyll be green shoots for aure after this, after spending 26 to 38 trillion in stimulus, by then the currency will be like leaves in a sequoia forest."

If it takes another 100 million unemployed thats a small price to pay to pretend early model assumptions weren't so vad after all despite being horrendously out of whack with reality.

Anybody painting red x's on the doors yet?

Josephbleau said...

I was not snotty, I did what you suggested, I did not like the tone of your suggestion though.

Birkel said...

I went with ram's blood on the door frame.
Cannot be too careful as I am a firstborn.

narciso said...

And the same thing goes with rolling dumpsterfire of a box of chocolate, you dont want to make people starve do you, this is an offer you cant refuse.

walter said...

Blogger Ken B said...
Walter
No I am not defending the paper. I am pointing out Birkel misrepresented it.
--
And blowing off my request.
Dance Ken, DANCE!

narciso said...

I know im crossing metaphors, should i resece a ticket for the kennedy center,

narciso said...

Its like the python sketch about the coal miner and the playwright.

Birkel said...

🚨 ALERT Classic troll move ALERT 🚨

A certain NeverTrump moby is trying to ignore Dr Birx statement that Professor Ferguson's bull shit was GIGO.

Josephbleau said...

The paper makes no claim that isolation reduces infection and death in the long term, only that isolation and an eventual vaccine will reduce deaths. Further, I stand mute. Sorry if I misunderstood your comment Ken.

Ken B said...

Your crack about boot camp sounded snotty. Sorry if I misread you.

Ken B said...

Birx actually said they were looking into the paper. Which they should of course. She said it doesn’t match the facts on the ground they see so far and no one quite knows why. She said serum testing is needed to evaluate. She said we don't know yet but want to find out. These are all responsible, sensible statements.

I think Birkel portrays her as irresponsible, claiming she said GIGO without proof.

Birkel said...

See? The comments about GIGO from Dr Birx must be ignored. To address her comments would be, uh, inconvenient. Models are so much more fun because they create flexibility during a crisis. The walk-back of Professor Ferguson is classic CYA. But he knows the real world caught up to his poor assumptions.

Moby gonna Moby.
Classic troll.

Birkel said...

Dr Birx:
"I'm going to say something that is a little bit complicated but do it in a way we can understand it together. In the model, either you have to have a large group of people who a-asymptomatic, who never presented for any test to have the kind of numbers predicted. To get to 60 million people infected, you have to have a large group of a-symptomatics. We have not seen an attack rate over 1 in 1,000. So either we are measuring the iceberg and underneath it, are a large group of people. So we are working hard to get the antibody test and figure out who these people are and do they exist. Or we have the transmission completely wrong.

"So these are the things we are looking at, because the predictions of the model don't match the reality on the ground in China, South Korea or Italy."

What she is saying, politely, is GIGO.

Birkel said...

White knighting for the good doctor is a classic moby move.
You moby so well.

Drago said...

Ken B: "Birx actually said they were looking into the paper. Which they should of course. She said it doesn’t match the facts on the ground they see so far and no one quite knows why."

Actual Birx statement: "So either we are measuring the iceberg and underneath it, are a large group of people. So we are working hard to get the antibody test and figure out who these people are and do they exist. Or we have the transmission completely wrong."

I don't see where Birx said "doesn't match the facts on the ground they see so far". She said the model doesn't reflect what we see on the ground. Period.

Further, Birx explicitly identifies 2 specific data acquisition failure conditions which require further testing. Not "we don't know why".

Drago said...

Of course, I do realize that by addressing Birx's actual statement which involve statistics I have once again moved into the "morally unserious" category, if not actually the category of hater of all human life.

FullMoon said...

Jon Ericson said...

Keep hope alive!


Nobody knows what Mueller knows!

FullMoon said...

Oops, sorry, Pavlovian response..

narciso said...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/26/unemployment-could-soar-chancellor-delays-coronavirus-help-self/

Ken B said...

Iceland has done a lot of testing, and according to this site has found a lot of asymptomatic carriers.

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/03/25/Coronavirus-Iceland-s-mass-testing-finds-half-of-carriers-show-no-symptoms?fbclid=IwAR0IK-a4ym-JXmlHZcfqbakbL5mLLCxCjUYOy4NeLdkklyCfDonpuBbl51E

This could be very worrying if it’s right. Or maybe it’s different in Iceland.

This is the empirical question that Birx raised and that Birkel thinks she answered before knowing the facts.

Ken B said...

I am not gonna fight you guys over your misstatements of Birx. People can and should watch her. Just like they should pay attention to Ferguson's explanation of what he did and didnt say.
These are serious professionals doing a tough job. Neither is lying, bullshitting, covering up, or jumping to conclusions.

StephenFearby said...

Google Scholar's home page now has clickable links to apparently free full-text "Articles about COVID-19" from the following 12 sources:

CDC NEJM JAMA Lancet Cell BMJ Elsevier Oxford Nature Wiley Cambridge medRxiv

The last one is particularly interesting because its contents are all "hot off the pre-press" -- submitted but not yet published "preprints":

COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv 791 Articles (599 medRxiv, 192 bioRxiv)

A probably useful one:

An artificial intelligence-based first-line defense against COVID-19: digitally screening citizens for risks via a chatbot

Background: As the pandemic of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) progresses worldwide, many governments have established phone hotlines to pre-screen potential COVID-19 cases. These hotlines face a deluge of callers that far exceed their capabilities, thus leading to waiting times of hours or, in many cases, a complete inability to get into contact with health authorities. Methods: Symptoma is a symptom-to-disease digital health assistant that can differentiate more than 20,000 different diseases with an accuracy of more than 90%. We tested the accuracy of Symptoma to identify COVID-19 both with regards to a diverse set of clinical cases and diseases similar in presentation to COVID-19.

Findings: We showed that Symptoma can accurately distinguish COVID-19 from diseases with similar symptoms in 96.32% of clinical cases. When considering only COVID-19 symptoms and risk factors, Symptoma identified 100% of those infected when presented with only three symptoms. Lastly, we showed that Symptoma's accuracy exceeds that of simple ''yes-no'' questionnaires widely available online.

Interpretation: Symptoma provides unparalleled accuracy in systematically identifying cases of COVID-19 while concurrently considering over 20,000 other diseases. Furthermore, Symptoma offers predefined questions alongside free text input in 36 languages. This makes Symptoma a key tool in taking pressure off from health authorities worldwide.

The Symptoma predictor is freely available as a web application at https://www.symptoma.com/

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.008805v1

Birkel said...

You're just bad at logic, moby.

The models do not fit reality because the underlying assumptions about the virus were wrong. But strained through the colander of bureaucratese. Do you speak it?

Drago said...

Ken B: "I am not gonna fight you guys over your misstatements of Birx."

Note to self: posting Birx's actual words is now very very wrong.

We'll add this to the list of DoublePlusUngoodThinking which includes asking for additional statistical information on %'s of people admitted into ICU's.

Drago said...

Ken B: "Just like they should pay attention to Ferguson's explanation of what he did and didnt say."

He said a kajillion dead.

Then he said never mind.

But we aren't supposed to notice that.

Just add it to the DoublePlusUngoodThinking column.

narciso said...

These policy choices have consequences, whatever happened to do no harm, answer its not anything the nhs abides by.

Birkel said...

If I were Ferguson I would be embarrassed too. He will admit error on the same timescale as Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann.

Drago said...

Right now we have democrat governors making sure their citizens won't have access to drugs that many many many doctors all over the world are using to some effect to reduce deaths.

That's all good.

But that OrangeManBad....he's just gotta go.

narciso said...

And yet thos3 are the policies thesea sages of academe are almost uniformly putting forth, which guarantees an italy type triage.

William said...

So far as I can remember, pandemic preparedness played no role in the Democratic debates. Biden didn't brag about all the ventilators he procured when Senator for Delaware. Pandemic prep was not part of our consciousness.....I saw some MSNBC people complaining how Trump didn't cancel Mardi Gras and that the subsequent surge in Louisiana cases is his fault. Shouldn't the Mayor and Governor bear some of the blame for this?....There's a lot about this debate that I don't understand. I do notice that the press expects a much higher degree of foresight and wisdom from Trump than they do from any of the Dem pols.

Drago said...

Birkel: "If I were Ferguson I would be embarrassed too. He will admit error on the same timescale as Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann."

He will need to sue a couple people first for accurately reporting on what he had done.

That's the typical followup move.

narciso said...

Mark steyns case is finally coming due after 8 years and several departed witnesses

Not Sure said...

Here's the new study:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-Global-Impact-26-03-2020.pdf

There is no change in the estimates of deaths when no mitigation strategies are followed. The paper focuses on the likely regional variation in lethality of the virus and on the relative reductions in mortality likely to be achieved by earlier vs. later implementation of social distancing policies.

narciso said...

Of course we were going to do something like rachel carson and ddt, how has that worked out.

Ken B said...

Stephen Fearby
The app sounds pretty cool. Has it been peer reviewed yet?

walter said...

ken B likes the allusion to data until it's readily referenced.

walter said...

"I'm not defending the paper, just the author of it."

narciso said...

In other dumpsterfire news, they will procede with the second season of star trek picard with a 20 million dollar tax credit from california.

chickelit said...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan posits: The Chinese are one of the most hypochondriacal races, if there was any evidence that their area was experiencing an outbreak they would immediately change their behavior in ways that would be obvious to even to a casual observer.

I live in a racially diverse and progressive community. Asians are the only ones masking themselves. Not even older whites are masking.

walter said...

"C'mon, mann!"

walter said...

(Cite and discuss the page)

chickelit said...

Face-masking can be selfish. I watched a masked elderly lady shop meats at Trader Joe"s yesterday. She fingered each and every plastic wrapped tri-tip steak with bare fingers, apparently looking for the "right" weight. I stood behind her, watching, because I too wanted a tri-tip. Her mask told me that she was protecting herself; fingering the meats with bare hands told me that she didn't give a shit about others.

Kyjo said...

And now it’s time for some fun with math!

In the last week, a record-setting 3.3 million new jobless claims were filed. As the business failure accelerates from the collapse of major industries over weeks of mandatory shutdowns, jobless claims multiply at an explodential rate, averaging 1.5X per week! If we do not restart our economy now, by Apr. 30th there will be a cumulative total of 25 million jobless claims; by June 11th, a mere 11 weeks from now, we will see 100% unemployment!

walter said...

Ken B in hiding...

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

The point of the model is that it does not match observations, notably overestimating a la climate change or underestimating, and forcing, a la Obama's Greater Middle East Wars and catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform. The strategy will change with facts on the ground, not in response to fear and terror, not as a wicked solution, in order to save lives and reduce collateral damage.

chickelit said...

Models guide, facts decide.

Apologies to I.M. Kolthoff.

walter said...

See ya tomorrow,Ken.

exhelodrvr1 said...

"The panic and 'over freak' is . . .coming from those willing to accept 200,000 premature deaths of innocent Americans as the price we must pay not to have economic recession"

That's silly -
the question has always been if a more targeted "social distancing" (shelter in place) would be a significantly better approach than what is currently being done.

exhelodrvr1 said...

" but the economy can more or less pick back up where it was"

Oh, sure!

Kyjo said...

A curve to make any coronavirus envious:

https://twitter.com/hshierholz/status/1243157938304438276?s=21

Automatic_Wing said...

Masks are more to protect others from the wearer's germs than the reverse.

Achilles said...

Meade said...
" And, yes, putting things in their proper perspective can help us not to overly freak and despair."

The panic and "over freak" is not coming from those committed to stopping the spread. It's coming from those willing to accept 200,000 premature deaths of innocent Americans as the price we must pay not to have economic recession.

Sorry Meade. That is garbage.

It was clear from the start that China was lying and the virus had been out around the world for a long time. It was widespread before we shut down the country.

All you did was panic a bunch of people who rushed to emergency rooms where numerous first responders were likely infected.

Additionally it was clear early on who the affected people were and that the vast majority of every population closely examined were asymptomatic after catching the disease.

What you and the freekers did had no real affect on slowing the outbreak.

You may even have made it worse.

But keep telling yourself you care and other people don't. It is a complete asshole move on your part.

But it makes you feel better.

Achilles said...

Ken B said...
I am not gonna fight you guys over your misstatements of Birx. People can and should watch her. Just like they should pay attention to Ferguson's explanation of what he did and didnt say.
These are serious professionals doing a tough job. Neither is lying, bullshitting, covering up, or jumping to conclusions.


Will you repent?

You have been an insufferable asshole during this whole event.

Laslo Spatula said...

The number is now 200,00 and not 11 million anymore?

I knew my Vitamin C supplements were working!

I am Laslo.

Achilles said...

Birkel said...
Dr Birx, actual expert...
"So these are the things we are looking at, because the predictions of the model don’t match the reality on the ground in China, South Korea or Italy. We are five times the size of Italy. If we were Italy and did all those divisions, Italy should have close to 400,000 deaths. They are not close to achieving that. Models are models. We are — there is enough data of the real experience with the coronavirus on the ground to really make these predictions much more sound. So when people start talking about 20% of a population getting infected, it’s very scary, but we don’t have data that matches that based on our experience.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/26/dr_birx_coronavirus_data_doesnt_match_the_doomsday_media_predictions_or_analysis.html

Achilles to the white courtesy phone, please.


The numbers never matched the scenarios being thrown out there.

Just going to throw out that if China has 30000-40000 deaths from Corona-Virus and something in the neighborhood of a million serious/testable cases and the unknown number of asymptomatic people everything looks different.

It would actually match everything we are seeing now.

Widespread exposure.

Extremely narrow population with serious affect.

Everything is matching the Diamond Princess case study.

The thing that threw everything off was that the media had reason and motive to do 2 things:

1. Cover for China.

2. Try to take out Trump.

And the freekers went along with it probably getting more people sick and killed in the process.

Laslo Spatula said...

Madame Defarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard.

I am Laslo.

Achilles said...

I am also going to say that the coming recession is not the greatest cost we are paying.

We have become a police state.

You people have made governors local tin pot dictators.

Really there are a lot of people around here who need to look at themselves in the mirror.

You do not deserve the freedom you are taking for granted. There are people like Ken B who want to throw "covidiots" in jail.

If you want to get all uppity and pretend you some sort of moral superiority to me or people who disagree with you it is actually quite despicable what you people are doing.

Big Mike said...

@Meade, of the small businesses that fail If this shutdown lasts to the end of April, what percent have to commit suicide to get to 200,000 dead?

@Kyjo, 100% unemployment among Democrat politicians strikes me as a way to get this country back on its feet as quickly as possible. They sure didn’t cover themselves in glory over the stimulus bill.

I was trying to make a point similar to yours yesterday, but too subtly I guess because no one seemed to pick up on it. Exponential models of infection rate have to slow down or we hit a point where there more people infected than there are people to be infected.

stevew said...

"There is no need to belittle and call out the people that turn out to have overreacted"

When I wrote that I was thinking about the folks here and those that emptied the TP and water aisles in grocery stores. I have every intention of going after the so-called experts that pushed scare-mongering models based on assumed and incomplete data, as well as the press, and most certainly the leaders in our country that locked us all down and cratered the economy. This latter bunch were certainly in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation of choosing the best course of action, but that's what they signed up for and none of them showed any courage.

@Bill, Republic of Texas: I am fine, aka: in good health, thank you for asking. My quarantine ended yesterday. As of now I have no plans to make big changes in my behavior; still WFH though I may run to the grocery store.

rehajm said...

If we do not restart our economy now, by Apr. 30th there will be a cumulative total of 25 million jobless claims; by June 11th, a mere 11 weeks from now, we will see 100% unemployment!

#StopTheSpread

Fernandinande said...

I'm not a forgiving person. I leave that to Jesus.

That's a relief!

I've learned to accept unjust injury in life but I've also learned to seek just revenge and equalization.

That acceptance sure sounds wise, and it takes a brave person to make vague threats over the internet.

It's coming from those willing to accept 200,000 premature deaths of innocent Americans as the price we must pay not to have economic recession.

That's the opposite of panic.

I fail to take seriously moral arguments regarding the inexact relationship between 200K deaths caused by disease organisms, possibly exacerbated by other people going about their normal business, unless the presenter of those arguments either denounces or justifies 600,000 deaths of "innocent" people, whatever that means, caused directly the by the actions of other people, just so a woman isn't moderately inconvenienced for a few months.

The main difference, I think, is that the people worried about 200K deaths know that they can't be killed by abortion.

Fernandinande said...

We have become a police state.

Thank you! I thought I was the only one to use that phrase, the other day. It's alarming how quickly so many people sought solace in socialism, government redistributions and handouts, at the drop of a medium-sized hat.

Maybe it's too old fashioned, even back the to Stoics, to think that some people might prefer to live their lives as free-ranging humans rather than take the chance of dying while cowering-in-place in their boltholes.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Fernandistein... I've been thinking "Police State" from the start of this thing. Gotta keep low profile though... Red Flag ya know? (Another "PS" tentacle?) An old high school friend who is a surgeon, originally worried about the magnitude of innocents killed by the economics, as he saw it. His field of surgery provides an extension of life, not a cure for the underlying morbidity. Many on this blog don't have his perspective on the issue. What comes after the disease is lost in the panic.

Jersey Fled said...

Just catching up on last night's discussion.


I swear,libs look for the worst possible spin instead of the optimistic.

Nope. They look for any slim hope that something so bad will happen that Trump won't win election in November.

It's as simple as that.

BUMBLE BEE said...

The media stands ready to lead the sheep to slaughter.

Jersey Fled said...

By the way, Dr. Birx is a national treasure.

Browndog said...

Blogger Jersey Fled said...

By the way, Dr. Birx is a national treasure.


Not only in her command of the facts and situational awareness, but also her calming demeanor, which is not easy to maintain in front of a hostile press.

Rock star.

Which is why she's under attack.

Browndog said...

I'm glad to see Trump finally giving our great Michigan governor the attention she deserves.

No doubt he'd like to reach through the phone and slap her.

Temujin said...

Browndog- just wondering what your standard is for 'great'. She's a press-seeker, that's for sure. Before this started, she was working on her best Jennifer Granholm. But aside from that, and making sure she off-loads any responsibility for her running her state, what's the greatness you are seeing?

iowan2 said...

Tonights thread proves my earlier prediction about how history will record COVID 19.

This pandemic is ripe for misrepresentation, because you can use statistics to advance whatever narrative you feel like advancing. When push back happens, also using statistics.

Me? As of right now, I'm adhering to the govt actors recommendations. My patience will desolve at some point in the future. President Trump, with his powers of communication, and instincts about people, has landed on the perfect target date. Easter. But I,m not one that will suffer. My fixed living costs are low, so I can live cheap. My two part time jobs are in agriculture, and I have the needed travel documents to move about freely if restrictions get tighter.

Best to everyone, in the end, we will weather this challenge.

Browndog said...

Blogger Temujin said...

Browndog- just wondering what your standard is for 'great'. She's a press-seeker, that's for sure. Before this started, she was working on her best Jennifer Granholm. But aside from that, and making sure she off-loads any responsibility for her running her state, what's the greatness you are seeing?


It's kind of an inside joke.

When Granholm was running for re-election she did a campaign event in Saginaw. When she was introduced, instead of saying "The governor of the great State of Michigan" the woman said "The Great governor of the State of Michigan".

Since then i always referred to 2-penny Jenny as "the great governor", and naturally continues with her dumber clone Gretchen.

Leland said...

15 days

That's just a number. Many media outlets are suggesting 15 days won't be enough and Trump is giving false hope that it will only be 15 days (err Trump is giving false hope we will be good by Easter which is over 25 days).

grackle said...

Don’t waste time or mental energy trying to convince commentors who deny it that the threat of the Wuhan virus is real. Your efforts are futile. Italy in lockdown with hospitals overwhelmed? Worldwide pandemic, multi-national in nature? No problem – they’ll simply rationalize it away. Older populations, different familial cultures, bad health systems, etc.

After the threat has receded they’ll have it both ways: If the Trump team manages to get the nation through this with relatively few deaths it’ll be because it was all a hoax – or some other rationalization. If the bodies pile up it’ll be because the administration was incompetent and caused the crisis to be worse than it needed to be. And the fact is that in this entirely novel situation mistakes are bound to be made so they’ll for sure have some issues to highlight and throw in our faces.

Getting excited by their shenanigans only lowers your body’s immunity.

I watched Scott Adams’s on YouTube last night. Here’s his take, in abbreviated form, on the Malaria cocktail currently being set up for trials in NYC: Adams is certain that the cocktail works very well and that everyone concerned has known this for some time. But the problem seems to be that that like most other drugs that we need and use some component (for example hydroxychloroquine) is made overseas and other countries are not likely to share their supplies of this suddenly valuable commodity.

So whatever supplies we have on hand have to be used to keep our health workers on the front lines. Police, firefighters and the military would probably be next in line.

Mr. Forward said...

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will be renamed the Coronavirus Center.

Browndog said...

Blogger Leland said...

15 days

That's just a number. Many media outlets are suggesting 15 days won't be enough and Trump is giving false hope that it will only be 15 days (err Trump is giving false hope we will be good by Easter which is over 25 days).


I noticed that too.

Then again, Easter could be in July and they'd still act like Trump was going to force people back to work tomorrow, killing off the entire population.

Kyjo said...

@Big Mike: I was trying to make a point similar to yours yesterday, but too subtly I guess because no one seemed to pick up on it. Exponential models of infection rate have to slow down or we hit a point where there more people infected than there are people to be infected.

I thought maybe developing an unemployment model echoing the epidemiological models might help others understand how serious the economic problem is, based on this model. I also really wanted to use explodential.

@rehajm, I found out that the previous week’s new jobless number was 1.8 million, so in fact the rate of increase each week should be 1.8X. That means we’ll reach 100% unemployment within 7 weeks, and just in time for Mother’s Day! We must take extreme action now! #StopTheSpread

Sebastian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sebastian said...

"those willing to accept 200,000 premature deaths of innocent Americans as the price we must pay not to have economic recession"

Every year we are willing to accept on the order of 200K "premature deaths of innocent Americans" due to flu and respiratory diseases. Flu alone kills some 40K on average, including over 1,000 kids; in 2017-18, we had some 61K flu deaths and 810K hospitalizations. Shutting down the economy would potentially limit the 200K or the 40K by tens of thousands; closing schools would certainly benefit kids more in the case of flu than in the case of the Wuhan virus. Yet we do nothing of the sort. We accept many thousands of "premature" deaths as a matter of course.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't take action to deal with the Wuhan impact, particularly to limit spikes in demand on hospitals -- I have advocated target but rigorous quarantines for risk groups since day 1. It does mean that sacrificing trillions to save thousands is utterly disproportional to our ordinary way of thinking about acceptable death, even without taking into account the downstream harm of the economic implosion itself.

Kyjo said...

Oops, sorry; 1.8 million was the insured unemployment figure a week ago, not new claims. Guess I’ll need to tweak my model.

https://twitter.com/usdol/status/1243153428488114178?s=21

Bruce Hayden said...

I just put something together with my two iPad Pros running IOS 13.3 (or so) for using HTML in Blogger comments.

Now some background. For a long time, my blogging, including with Blogger, was PC based, using first Mozilla, then Firefox. Both provided for add one/ins and plug ins that made HTML editing of comments. At one point, I could just outline a section of text and just hit “bold” or “italics”, and the proper HTML would be inserted. Firefox in recent years has seemingly gone through major rewrites that disable previous generations of add-ins, etc. the result has been, in recent years, that what used to be easy, almost trivial, has now become somewhat painful.

Meanwhile though, I spend less and less time in front of a PC, as I am not mostly retired. Instead of 10 hours a day, maybe 6 a week, and half seems consumed playing FreeCell (the version I use being the one shipped with Win XP, since later versions progressive suck worse, generation by generation). Instead, I run multiple iPads. I have two iPad Pros. The plan is one on the charger, while the other is in use. The older one is my overnight iPad (which I am using right now). The new one (w/o the home button) I use during the day. I had that reversed for most of a year, since OtterBoxes for the new iPads didn’t work properly (screen wasn’t sensitive enough). But after two broken screens in under a year (using up my Apple Care insurance), I now have it in a good Otter Box case (my older one survived a car driving over it in an Otter Box case - they really are the best). Both are on a very expensive unlimited data AT&T plan that almost never throttles if I have been streaming too much. I also have a couple older, WiFi only iPads that I use for backup, and for my partner, so she can watch her shows, when they aren’t available on TV.

The sum of this is that I am more tied now to my iPads than I was ever tied to PCs (which was pretty bad). I am rarely further than a couple feet from one of them. It is so bad, that I often sleep with this one (my overnight iPad Pro) in bed with me.

My problem though has been that IOS is a very tightly controlled system. It is much more secure than Android, etc. But that also means that you cannot augment browsers with plug ins and the like that provide HTML editing. So blooming with HTML is now a pain. At least until yesterday. The newest versions of IOS have features that allow you to run multiple windows at the same time on your screen. So, too often than I would like, I would accidentally get a second ap running on the screen, and then have to get rid of it. So, I decided yesterday to figure these new features out. And what I discovered was that I could get my Notes page contains HTLM to sit on top of the right 20% of the screen, right by the comment window. Moreover, drag and drop works. So I can now just highlight the HTML I want, and drag it where I want it, and drop it there.

Took me long enough. And sorry for the ramble.

pacwest said...

The Communists in China are about to fall.

Very dangerous. I believe they are capable of lashing out both internally and externally. Taiwan, Hong Kong, the South China Sea.

The desperation of the globalists will peak soon.

Considering what they have they have shown themselves capable of so far... the assault on the US elections will be key. I'd beef up Trump’s security.

There is a pivot point in history coming, and Trump was the catalyst. Interesting times.

Howard said...

The fear and loathing continues. I understand all of this vituperative back and forth is a coping mechanism. However you really need more mental fiber for the brain. Personally I am focused on bucking up family eating clean and being very physically active. I think one of the things that you people don't understand is there are no facts yet. We are in the fog stage. You should try chilling, it's a wonderful Life, seize the day.

Birkel said...

Howard,
You can upon occasion be amusing. You ought to learn to pick your spots better. Trillions of dollars may be hard for you to understand. You may not get how useful those lost dollars could have been. You may not understand that using police powers comes with inherent risk. Or you may think you are chattel.

But if you are going to try to be useful, you must try harder.

Bruce Hayden said...

Dr Birx:
"I'm going to say something that is a little bit complicated but do it in a way we can understand it together. In the model, either you have to have a large group of people who a-asymptomatic, who never presented for any test to have the kind of numbers predicted. To get to 60 million people infected, you have to have a large group of a-symptomatics. We have not seen an attack rate over 1 in 1,000. So either we are measuring the iceberg and underneath it, are a large group of people. So we are working hard to get the antibody test and figure out who these people are and do they exist. Or we have the transmission completely wrong.


Getting that italicized was really easy with Drag and Drop. And I don’t have to worry about wiping out what I just copied.

To the point though. This whole thing has been a fascinating data problem. All of the models were laboriously built based on decently good data, that was presumably cleaned up a lot beforehand. But this time, in real time, and real life, the data sucks. We don’t know when the pandemic started, because, the ChiComs lied about it - probably for better than two very critical months, as it got out and spread in the general community. If it got loose in early November, there easily could have been thousands of carriers by the first of the year. We don’t know. We could have had it in this country by early this year, just looking like the flu. We don’t really know. And even now, we aren’t able to do widespread testing to see how many people in the country caught the virus, beat it, and went on with their lives (the tests that are ramping up so quickly are for active viruses, not for residual antibodies, indicating a successful vanquishing of the virus in the past). We are still at the point where more testing means proportionally more positives. But that too is extremely biased, because the testing is not done statistically, but rather based on factors that would increase the probability of being infected (showing symptoms, living in NYC, etc). We really don’t know yet how fast it is spreading, nor how lethal it is. Even the latter, which should be obvious, isn’t.

And the data from much of the rest of the world is maybe worse. The ChiComs, where the virus originated, are still lying. They seem to have gotten the disease under control, on paper, by merely quitting counting infected people. Just like their government lies about everything else, about how much factories are producing, how much it’s farmers are growing, etc. the sins of communism are hidden all up and down the hierarchy by everyone lying, most of the time. Iran is lying too. Italy’s socialized medical system fell apart, so their data is worthless too. Etc.

This highly questionable data wouldn’t be a problem, except that this pandemic is in the process of destroying the world’s economy. Decision makers around the world are making bad decisions based on models built using good data, applied to bad data. But doing nothing for many countries is maybe worse, because then the disease gets out of control in their populations.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Hey Browndog, how 'bout Whitless' jackboot atty. general? Call the cops on governor's orders!
Well, at least she's queer! Whatta waste of resources. Not ready to govern. The best and the brightest?

BUMBLE BEE said...

governors order violators. My Bad

Howard said...

Whatever berkel. I appreciate the constructive criticism it provides additional insight into your psyche.

This is no way going to be worse than the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thank God Trump is ended so now we can turn our attentions to combating Corona rebuilding the economy and making better plans for the future epidemiologically.

Michael K said...

You should try chilling, it's a wonderful Life, seize the day.

Yeah, just like Warren Wilhelm Jr advised.

Birkel said...

Ah, I see. Howard wants to compare wars to a virus. And the reason this comparison is so great is because the wars were used to beat up a Republican, forgotten while Obama was president and remembered again when Trump was elected.

And Trump is the one trying to end US military engagement in both places. Unlike Obama.

Do you see how perfect it is? Watching somebody reveal their purely political motivations is awesome to behold.

Thanks, Howard.

Marc in Eugene said...

The Most Blessed Sacrament is exposed in the monstrance at the doors of St Peter's and the Pope and his chapel are in silent prayer. (Benediction and an extraordinary giving of the Urbi et Orbi to come.) It is emblematic of all that's wrong with Church and state that the effing Radio Vaticana commentator cannot be silent for more than a minute. He keeps explaining 'silent adoration'. Tsk.

Leland said...

If it got loose in early November, there easily could have been thousands of carriers by the first of the year. We don’t know.

My wife lost an uncle in February to an acute respiratory illness acquired while in a nursing home. It could have been many things, but it was well before anyone tested for COVID-19 in the US. He was on and off a ventilator in his last few weeks.

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