Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Check Your Instruments

h/t WRSA
 










Pull out your calculators, kids.

For the last three days, the J-H ArcGIS website has showed "Number Tested" in the upper right. Spiffy. So what?
Well, e.g., in the last 24 hours, another 150K people got tested.
Only 25,000 additional cases were confirmed.
In the last 48 hours, those numbers are 300K, and 50,000 (rough napkin math).

People can play games with numbers, based on open (or unstated) assumptions.
But as we approach a test sample of not quite 1% of America, there are some statistically valid conclusions.

First off, only about 1 person in 6 tested, has Kung Flu.
Most were tested because they showed symptoms, not  including hypochondria. So it does not follow that 1 in 6 of all Americans have this. (Pay attention to that if math kicked your ass in school.)
Second, if we tested 327M more Americans, we probably wouldn't find enough additional cases to worry about, nor enough to drastically alter the results. More testing isn't going to wildly skew the results, at this point, given the size of the sample. I'm spitballing this never got to or gets to more than 1M people, nationwide, based on the data.

If, at this point, with 42 states at least on moderate lockdowns, we have nearly 24,000 deaths, and we should taper down to a final death tally of around 50K or less dead.
If we don't try to get out of this stupidly, before we're ready.
(And full disclosure, I'm hoping NYFS getting better doesn't just mean we're in for 49 more separate peaks in every other state, before we get out of this.)
(50,000 dead? That's the front half of the graph which we already have, plus the yet-to-be-added back half of the graph, at the current apparent peak. Notice at no point do my hands leave my body, and there are no rabbits up my sleeves.)
Which amounts to a bad flu year, except we'll hit that marker in 8-12 weeks, not months.
Whoops.

That's with probably less that 1M Americans infected.
With 84% of America locked down as it is, and 329M other Americans not infected.

So, if you want another 50K dead per million Americans infected, lift the lockdowns unilaterally, ASAP. We can do the last 2 months another 329 times, if you liked it so much the first time.

That's a CFR around 5%, so you'll only kill off up to 16.45M more Americans, if you manage to infect all of us. Pfft. Stalin killed 20M, and Mao 80M. Thus 16M or so more would be nothing - if emulating brutally repressive communist dictatorships as your benchmark for how to treat your fellow citizens is what you had in mind. Gov. Knucklehead, for any of 50 values of that, telling you to keep your happy @$$ at home and stay indoors for a few weeks pales to insignificance there, for the dim bulbs on the Christmas tree.

















That's worst case, and a CFR of 5% is well within historical norms for viruses in the coronavirus family tree, and requires no great leap of logic.

You want best case, reality be damned? Okay.

Pollyanna Roseyglasses would assume that everyone's already exposed, and only 1/3rd of 1% of America having contracted it, and they'd paint the actual CFR as being 0.00015%, or 1/100th as serious as the annual flu. Which is utter bullshit, because we don't need extra freezers for the bodies in the first month of flu season every year, nor swamp the hospitals in NYFC as if there was a Tet Offensive being fought in Flatbush with machineguns and napalm. NTTAWWT. But that's the rosiest assumption set, based on happygas and a dearth of any actual evidence.

But there are still the "This not happening!" crowd out there, after 2000 dead/day days in this outbreak, and they would not only go there, they've never left there.
























They're also sociopathic idiots.
(If shellfire landed inside your perimeter there, it's fixable: pull your head out of your ass, and unf**k yourself.)

So the question remains when and how to get us out of this mess, and ideally, without knocking off a few million more of your friends and neighbors.

1) It isn't by yelling "Ollie-Ollie-oxenfree!!!" and returning to the status quo ante.
I don't care where you imagine the economy is, it isn't anyplace that would justify knocking off several millions of your fellow citizens, just because you were slow to stock up on Charmin Extra Soft, nor even because your pizza parlor or dog washing business is about to take a major financial sh*t. Sorry, but it just isn't going to happen. Shit happens. FIDO: (F*** It, Drive On.) And yes, this is one place where government should cushion the blow for those most put out, to help get them back in the game.

2) It might be (and damned well should be) by testing everyone, to see who had it and is over it, and who hasn't got it, and letting them all back on the loose, as fast as we can test them. One rapid test machine could clear 3000 people/day, remember. It should begin with everyone doing "essential" work, since they're already the ones still on the loose, even now, in most stay-at-home/lockdown states. Clear them all first, everywhere.

3) It should also include keeping the most vulnerable in lockdown until last, because screw-ups, flare-ups, and false negatives will affect them the most harshly. But doing that is not a substitute for doing #2, thoroughly and comprehensively, no matter how long that takes. Unless your last name is Heydrich or Himmler.

4) It's absolutely going to mean quarantining the actual infected until they're no longer contagious, and then another month beyond that, no matter what, just because. Short-stroking that will merely slow-roll the worst case scenario, above, and make this a monthly exercise for months or years.

5) In the meantime, by all means, research the possibility of CQ/HCQ and AZ for peer-reviewed and validated efficacy. And anything else medically reasonable. Right now, it's anecdotal, and the plural of anecdotal is never "data". If it gets to palliative, we're onto something great, and we can consider short-cuts to #2, instead of being tied to the bull until it gets tired of bucking us.



















6) And yes, sure, keep working on a vaccine. But that could take from 1 to ∞ years, and we can't keep America on "pause" that long. If you get one, and it works, happy happy joy joy! But it's way over the horizon, and a sideshow of the main effort, until you get one that works.

And that means everyone else should STFU and wait your turn.
For TPTB, it means get those gorram rapid tests and PCR antibody tests cranked out, ASAFP, in the tens of millions.

And for all the Jackie Jackboots inclined to let the temporary powers of a public health national emergency go to their heads, it should also mean federal prosecutions, and head-of-the-line privileges for all federal cases filed seeking injunctive relief. And just to put skin in the game, any state or local authorities who lose such cases should be mandatorily placed at the back of the clearance line, including their spouses and families, including specifically those "just following orders".
Going all jackbooted thug and petty tyrant should be a lot less fun if it means you're staying home last, until everyone else in your county is tested and cleared to return to work, and such tyrannical stupidity should leave a mark.

China, deservedly, is in for a rough decade or two in response to their culpability in this outbreak, even accepting it was accidental and negligent, rather than deliberate and malicious.

We've also seen the American character, and had pounded home that the most trivial issues are about what pronouns we use, which bathrooms you can visit, who's butthurt about either one, or the utter triviality and inconsequence of sports participants and vacuous celebrities. IDGAF what they're doing now, especially if they aren't backing it up with a substantial amount of their bank accounts, because 75% of their preening now is just to find the spotlight and try to return to a societal and cultural relevance which they've deservedly seen tank since February. What matters in this country are farmers, truck drivers, store clerks, and emergency responders, because they've stepped up, and they matter. So do the working people taking it in the pants right now, staying home like it or not, and hoping they'll have jobs to go back to come the day, while their bank accounts dwindle. But Suzy McYappypants, Brad Hairdo, and Twinkletoes Johnson are at best a pleasant diversion, but only in good times. We need to remember those lessons for a long, long time.

Fail to do and learn that, and this is just the opening disaster in a long-running Sh*t Riot of them.

Do that, and we'll all get through this with a minimum of muss and fuss, and come out the other side ready to roar back to where we were beforehand, and after making people real believers in the necessity of building and buying American, building the gorram Wall, getting a handle on who we let into this republic, and who may stay and work.

Then the 50K (or less, please God) people eventually killed by this damned Kung Flu won't have died for nothing. And next time (and there will be one) we won't be found with our pants around our ankles again.












{And for those can't let go of their futile quest to minimize this calamity, jerk those numbers around to your heart's content. Let's say 2M people have been infected, halving the CFR to 2.5% So that means it can still kill another 8M people. Halve it again, and make it 4M. Or 2M. Bear well in mind we're only at 26K now, and likely, with any luck at all, to stop at under or around 50K. Thus any way you play with this (that doesn't involve either frothing sociopathy, or smoking crack and dropping acid), the pig you're trying to put lipstick on, if you aren't for testing people out of the unknown-risk population, and back into circulation, is just a clever way of saying "I think we should kill a lot more people this year, because reasons". What kind of person do I think the people who make that argument are? Well, as an apocryphal wag noted in respect to a similar discussion, "We've already settled that question. What we're haggling over now is the price."}

36 comments:

EasyCompany said...

Well, there are a number of freedom rallies going to happen soon where large groups of people are going to rally at state capitals demanding an end to the lock downs and the
stupid rules that some, like here in MI, have passed.

Wonder how much of a uptick in new cases will happen after this?

Oh, and the newest internet bs? The people that are getting this, that are not 80yr olds with cancer?

Fat people.

So now the old and fat should die, so people can go back to the way it was.

G-man said...

I have seen a number of ‘Well all cause mortality hasn’t spiked, so this is a nothingburger’... posts / articles. These posters forget that things like traffic deaths and accidental deaths and lots of other things have plummeted, and COVID has taken up the slack. Without the lockdown, we’d still have those numbers AND the COVID deaths too. Your earlier observation about your hospital census also struck a chord with me: The MSM keeps harping that hospital admissions are down, so we must be getting better. But then again nobody but COVID patients, healthcare workers, and people having actual life-threatening conditions are going anywhere near a hospital right now...

Unknownsailor said...

But then again nobody but COVID patients, healthcare workers, and people having actual life-threatening conditions are going anywhere near a hospital right now...

Some of those are not going anywhere near a hospital even with those life threatening conditions.

What I want to know is the real who-has-antibodies proportion of the population, because that should be the driver on who and when we come out of lock down. Rand Paul was interviewed yesterday, and he said he never presented with symptoms. That needs to be pinned down, as well, proportion of symptomatic vs non-symptomatic.

No way no how does the present lock downs last through May, the wheels will be falling off the logistics chain by then.

Sundance on CTH keeps harping on commercial vs retail food distribution, and how the present run on supply in retail food is diametrically opposite to the total oversupply in the commercial system, and how the commercial system can't legally sell retail. That needs to change, right freaking now. All that food stacked up in commercial supply has a clock ticking on it, and let it sit too long and that clock starts to expire.

Sarin said...

All in favor of testing the unwashed masses, it only makes sense. Less excited about how we go about proving that we're still healthy with said testing. Our host has mentioned some sort of an ID system; only concern there is how to roll it back once we're through the woods on this thing. Not a fan for historical reasons, but see the utility and even necessity.

Primary concern would be graft of said identification devices via cronyism, thereby ensuring we extend the hell out of this Shit Mardi Gras. There's no easy way to pull off something that can't be duplicated, in short order -AND- have the .gov give up the myriad benefits a "national immunity/healthy ID system" provides them when we are done with this iteration. A minor fringe benefit is that the aforementioned system would really poke some serious holes in the leftist trope of requiring ID to vote = "Raaaaaaaacist."

Get the feeling that we're going to see some Jim Jones levels of hopium pushing and subsequent ingestion in the not too distant future; although, nobody wants to the "the one" and go first, because, re-elections. I'd be willing to bet that both sides are secretly hoping for the other to blink, go first and fail in spectacular fashion, because, power. I also honestly believe that the sheeple are ready to go back to the status quo ante, because Muh Life, muh rulez and because Muh freedom.

Only time will tell if this is/was sufficient enough a wake-up call for the social myrmidons and their ilk. Probably not, for a whole host of reasons.

Color me cynical, but I see the glass as sitting at the half-way point, neither half-empty nor half-full.

Ominous Cowherd said...

Yep, your points 2 and 4 are what get us out of this with minimal damage. I wonder whether we'll get there, and whether we get there soon enough.

There are roughly 600,000 cases in the US. Using the Plague Princess numbers, 20% of those exposed get the virus, half of them have symptoms and might get counted, half the symptomatic are in deep trouble, need medical intervention, and so get counted for sure. The asymptomatic half don't get counted, except by rare accident.
If the US epidemic followed the Plague Princess pattern, we are counting somewhere between 5% and 10% of the exposed population: maybe 6,000,000, maybe 12,000,000 exposed.
If the US epidemic followed the Plague Princess pattern, we are counting somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 of the actually infected: maybe 2,400,000, maybe 1,200,000 actually infected.

The pretty pie chart in this NEJM article match up pretty well to the Plague Princess pattern. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316
More than 80% of women in labor test negative, about 16% test positive, but only 2% admitted for childbirth had symptoms. Presumably the ones with symptoms and serious issues were admitted for CCP infection, and didn't get into this study. No reason to think that all who tested negative had been exposed, but many of the infected were asymptomatic, as on the Plague Princess.

This is almost surely a bigger problem than the official numbers show.

FredLewers said...

From WRSA
https://www.wate.com/news/local-news/knox-county-mayor-glenn-jacobs-outlines-6-week-phased-reopening-plan-from-coronavirus-shutdown/
Not everybody wears the same size britches. Not every area in the country or even in each city conducts themselves the same. I've been to NYC. Several times. Trying to bring the country back up to speed is going to take some time. A plan IS NECESSARY!!! Said plan needs to include protocols to identify breakouts and deal with them aggressively through contact tracing, rapid test result turnaround times, and BITCHSLAP the living fuck out of jackasses who think "Hey it's over, I don't need to respect personal space or cover my piehole when I cough, sneeze or expectorate."
It ain't over by a long shot... But I think we've got enough data that it's safe to stick a few heads above the sandbags to see what's happening. If it goes very well, we let some people out. NOT EVERYTHING OR EVERYBODY ALL AT ONCE! This is gonna be like driving a cammed up alcohol fueled muscle car with a stick shift. It's gonna be a delicate balancing act. Too much throttle and clutch and you're into the wall and your season is over. Not enough and you stall it out. And watch your competitor's taillights disappear. Again, season over with no win...
But this can possibly, maybe, work out. If it's handled properly. With a plan and resources dedicated to testing, monitoring and tracing.
Different demographic groups will have different results...
For example, I was in the dollar store. The social distancing wasn't observed that well. Same same at Wal-Mart. At least Wal-Mart has a warm body at the entrance to kind of,sort of tell people when they're doing it wrong.
Brookshires (local grocery chain) has locked down all but one entrance and one exit. An employee each with a tablet counting heads. And they won't let you in if they're at capacity... Same at Lowe's. And Lowes is pushing the purchase online so they can just bring it out to your truck. Whataburger, they didn't shut down, but they're doing their best to feed people safely. Also, out in the boondocks where I'm fortunate enough to live, people are a bit more relaxed and will stop at the end of the aisle to let you get yourself and your buggy out of their way. Not so much in the city areas... I think the urban areas are going to have to crack the whip and drop the hammer to throttle the jackassery back. Rural areas not so much.
I don't know what California is like along the rural urban divide but New York is gonna have to hammer on the assholes to get them to observe basic common courtesy. Like I said, I've been to NYC. There's a lot of jerks there. Just look at the subway pictures during this fiasco. A bunch of stupid people trying their damnedest to get culled by natural selection!
But, there's a glimmer of light way off in the distance. Might be the end of the tunnel or it may be a trainload of hurt bearing down on us.
But it's time to let a couple of smart observant people peek out of the foxhole.

T said...

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs has submitted a plan to the Governor of Tennessee that makes some sense.
It calls for a phased re-opening of businesses, over numerous weeks, while keeping a close eye on COVID-19 hospitalization rates.

https://www.wate.com/news/local-news/knox-county-mayor-glenn-jacobs-outlines-6-week-phased-reopening-plan-from-coronavirus-shutdown/

Historian said...

Your call for testing is spot on, Aesop. If we open the gates, and this outbreak gets a second chance to spread, it damned sure will. There is a lot about this outbreak we do not know, but we DO know that this virus is very infectious, and we also know that some significant fraction of people infected will develop a severe case. If those severe cases have good, well-rested well trained care teams, with the knowledge of treatment options now out there, we get South Korea, IOW a much higher likelihood of a positive outcome.

If those severe cases have a care environment like NYC today, where dozens upon dozens of likely COvid cases die before they ever get to the hospital, and hospitals are over-run, a' la Italy, they are much more likely to see a bad outcome. I've seen bad outcomes even in great hospitals with 1st class care. I do NOT want to see the other any more closely than on the tube.

With regard to all who seek the Light,
Historian

GamegetterII said...

Damn dude...
Stop making sense
Heads will explode.
Here in NE nOhio,it looks like we might
be on the way to the right side of the bell curve.
Time will tell.
Sis says ER and ICU are all upper respiratory issues...
It "ain't that bad" here...
Younger nurses are saying fuck this I'm out.
* the ones who said that went to Detroit to work PRN for staffing co.*
A lot of small biz are fucked.
Gotta get to some kind of risk vs reward balance in the near future.

Those of us who knew this kind of shit could/ would happen will ride it out.
Those who made it worse...
Hemp rope,politicians,.gov beaurocrats...+ lampposts...


Ray - SoCal said...

The unknown is how many in the US have / had the virus. Testing is still limited, and seems to be only those probably infected. Ca is 12% positive, but is o ly testing around 9000 a day. About 4% of us deaths.

N.Y. is at 40% positive and is testing about 20,000 per day. And has almost half of us deaths.

US overall is about 20% infected, with around 146,000 tests per day.

Good news is getting more of the information to prudently open. Ca’s proposed requirements for opening mean we will not open till there is a vaccine. Starts with have enough testing and can trace infections...

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

Sundance on CTH keeps harping on commercial vs retail food distribution, and how the present run on supply in retail food is diametrically opposite to the total oversupply in the commercial system, and how the commercial system can't legally sell retail. That needs to change, right freaking now.

Some of that is happening. Some states have explicitly ruled that restaurants can sell unprocessed food (LA forbid it). Sysco says on their website that they're trialing ways to sell to consumers. I've seen reports of restaurant supply companies opening their doors to consumers; one big issue in states that charge sales tax on food is that they might not be able to do that, although it's said a consumer can get a TIN to get around this.

Baddog said...



Eric Feigl-Ding

@DrEricDing

⚠️88% ASYMPTOMATIC!!! An unusual universal screening of all pregnant mothers entering NYC hospital— yielded vast majority of #SARSCoV2 positive cases had no symptoms. Very troubling if this is the trend in gen pop too - at least 10x undercount. #COVID19 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316 …
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Baddog said...



Eric Feigl-Ding

@DrEricDing

⚠️88% ASYMPTOMATIC!!! An unusual universal screening of all pregnant mothers entering NYC hospital— yielded vast majority of #SARSCoV2 positive cases had no symptoms. Very troubling if this is the trend in gen pop too - at least 10x undercount. #COVID19 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316 …
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Baddog said...

Eric Feigl-Ding

@DrEricDing

⚠️88% ASYMPTOMATIC!!! An unusual universal screening of all pregnant mothers entering NYC hospital— yielded vast majority of #SARSCoV2 positive cases had no symptoms. Very troubling if this is the trend in gen pop too - at least 10x undercount. #COVID19 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316 …
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Anonymous said...

There are still too many unknown things about this virus, the Rumsfeldian view is the one that is prudent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REWeBzGuzCc
I personally think this thing, if not engineered, was at least tweaked by a Chinese lab. That is the reason the perceived overreaction by the Feds happened. We may never know, the Democrats firmly in the pocket of the ChiComs will fight this possibility to the bitter end.
I personally have to be out and about, Telecom means Internet these days and there would already be a shooting war if the Netflix, Disney+, etc. was not working.
My own optimism for immunity stems from the George Carlin bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo
I swam as a kid myself in a lake that was no more than a sewer ditch back in the 1970s, plus working at a hog farm in my teens kinda toughened me up.
We shall see, nobody really knows anything at this point. If this virus causes cytokine storms then I am fucked as well.

Wendy (KekistanTrans) said...

The Coronavirus Is Exposing Little Tyrants All Over The Country

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/13/the-coronavirus-is-exposing-little-tyrants-all-over-the-country/?fbclid=IwAR0UYhpjtk_fqmtkvKFUwymecVAyjxlMFUzrQreC-8yAQLdLsiwLTYdXvJ0

Wednesday (15 April) at noon: Protest against Whitmer's stay at home order plans to cause 'gridlock' in Lansing

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/politics/michigan-politics/lansing-protest-whitmer-stay-at-home-order/69-bbc854e1-35c0-4bcc-b7f0-47e33f1dc8d4

I won't be going. I don't think causing a traffic jam is a good way to get people to sympathize with your cause. Also, even if people stay inside their cars, many people are going to have to stop for gas and perhaps coffee and snacks at the service stations along the freeway to and from the state capitol, so it does create opportunities for spreading germs that wouldn't otherwise happen.

I'm more a fan of the legal approach:

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer facing lawsuit over stay at home order

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/michigan/gov-gretchen-whitmer-facing-lawsuit-over-stay-at-home-order/69-a6fc3f17-33ae-477d-a106-c882cddf42ba?fbclid=IwAR13NRD2P1g4MYc4XyxyxBca3b67y5qewwdV8gnZ6iCHwbo4HGBZsQX4L_c

In other news, here is a Twitter video making the rounds of Jamaicans in Florida (with a few white girls in the mix) standing around outside in groups defying police orders to get back inside their apartments.

https://www.facebook.com/100006253064892/videos/2558093967742347/

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

Local news this a.m. Big city mayor said we are dipping into rainy day fund. Simple comment with big implications if you think about it on a personal level and extrapolate. They need a plan and fast. If only they will put their top men on it it would be solved.

Mark said...

My issue with the handling of the lockdown is the one-size-fits-all view of it from on-high. For example, I live in a county in North East PA that is about 750 square miles with a population of 51,000 souls. Contrast to NYFC's 300ish square miles and 18 million people. We've had (as of yesterday afternoon) 70 cases and 1 death. Our NORMAL lifestyle is social distancing, during a given week I may come within ten feet of maybe 100-150 different people, that's from church on Sunday, darts on Wednesday, grocery shopping, etc. Most days my contact is in single-digits even before the lockdown was put in place. When I lived in NJ and commuted to NYC I'd be within body-odor range of thousands to tens of thousands of people per day (although to be fair for some homeless people body-odor range is larger than some zip codes).

So to think that we can't reopen the restaurants, liquor stores and clothing stores before Philly or NYC is nuts. And to think that we can't restart construction, home improvements, landscaping in insane. And to think that I can't go FISHING in one of the many local lakes unless I can walk there is completely stupid.

DAN III said...

I find it hard to fathom how people here and elsewhere put their faith in the less-than-honest meanderings of the communist propaganda arm of the CP-USA. That is, the mainstream media and Marxist social media like Twitter and Facebook.

Sad.

McChuck said...

The vast majority of people contracting this disease are never tested. Why? Because A) They're asymptomatic; B) There aren't enough test kits, and many of them are unreliable, so the doctors just tell people with relatively mild symptoms to stay home. These infected aren't counted in the statistics.

This is what is happening in Maryland. There are hundreds of nurses furloughed in the middle of a health crisis.

Robin Datta said...

Fer da foks hoo say

Rikers Island has had mass burials routinely:
"Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on the island, according to the Associated Press news agency.
But burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day, said Department of Correction spokesman Jason Kersten."

The burials are not exactly on Rikers Island:
Hart Island, off the Bronx in Long Island Sound, (which) has been used for more than 150 years by city officials as a mass burial site for those with no next-of-kin, or families who cannot afford funerals.

Robin Datta said...

During the cold war, identification and verification of nuclear devices was aided by close-up photographs showing the pattern and positions of reflecting metallic crystals on the surfaces, providing positive identification for each device.

It should be simple to maintain a photographic record of each issued (laminated?) identification card if the paper used has visible, randomly distributed fibers as in grass paper.

Robin Datta said...

80% infections asymptomatic or nearly so? Big question of ethics and morals: Who is (not "should be") more important to the average Joe Schmoe: the fat fellow down the street, the gramps of his neighbor, or putting bread on the table for his kids? The low priority ones be damned?

Range Master said...

I must have been out in the parking lot smoking during class. I admit it.

Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. 5.5 million people. 4100 cases. 60 Deaths.

Why doesn't this terrify me?

dmv gringo said...

Intentionally tailoring a comment stream, so that the overwhelming majority of those allowed to be posted echo, parrot, and regurgitate your opinionated belief does not make you correct.

Aesop said...

@DMV Gringo
Posting everything (except the occasional duplicate posts), including your churlish misobservation, and eliminating only the rude, assholish troll rants from a select few, proves that what you presume is not, in fact, occurring.

Other than the dupes, and the Nigerian Wonder Cure spam - which is down drastically since I enabled moderation - I haven't blocked anything. The Usual Suspects attempts get emailed to a null account without being seen, and I periodically just flush them.

Oldfart said...

We've all tired of this endless buffet of shit-sandwiches and we'd al like to see a return to the 'good old days' of political sniping and blame shifting. Instead, we're all serving undeserved sentences of house arrest. We may get those sentences commuted... or not. We'll also find out whether this lockdown was a good idea... or not.

At this point though we do know that the CDC purposely inflated the numbers of deaths by attributing many fatalities to CoVid that may have been caused by something else. I'm close to 86 years old. I will die WITH prostate cancer though probably not OF it. How many other old people will succumb to heart disease, acute asthma or ordinary flu before this pandemic runs its course? Not to worry though, their prior ailments will all but disappear under the CoVid curtain.

If Trump is successful in his effort to get America back to work, will the CDC release new "statistics" to make him look bad and therefor unre-electable? OTOH, if the CDC does NOT come up with new numbers as I have suggested, can we expect the sun to rise in the West from now on?

I've grown to enjoy watching the sun set over the Pacific. I think I'll bet on a few more salty sunsets.

Aesop said...

Bear well in mind that some shiftless idjits at the CDC suggesting ways to fudge the death data is not the same thing as 3,000 county coroners and 6000 hospitals actually doing that.

Ominous Cowherd said...

Bear well in mind that some shiftless idjits at the CDC suggesting ways to fudge the death data is not the same thing as 3,000 county coroners and 6000 hospitals actually doing that.
I have compiled and produced official statistics in another field. The people reporting will generally try to report decent data, as long as no money is on the line. If reporting solid data takes expensive effort, you won't get solid data. If telling solid data might, maybe, raise some fee or tax rate, you won't get solid data without a credible audit threat. Most folks will give you a mostly honest report if it costs them nothing.

If idjits anywhere tell 3,000 county coroners and 6000 hospitals that they will get more funding for more corona cases, you absolutely will get more corona cases reported. Don't know that funding hinges on corona case count, but if it does, WOW they'll report a lot of cases!

Oldfart said...

You're right Aesop, but even coroners and highly paid administrators react to outside pressure. It doesn't require a majority either; by the time the media gets through "massaging" a loose statement from some "shiftless idjit" (Coroner or Hospital CEO)it seems as if it had been uttered by a state medical examiner and sworn to by the Governor and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court!
It's unfortunate that some of those "idjits" authored letters and e-mails to hospitals that "reminded" the recipient of the source of much of the funding needed to continue in business while suggesting new guidelines for classification of various causes of death.
Few of those CDC officers have had family members die from CoVid so they can treat the whole battle for lives as a computer game (I know, most treat it seriously, but there ARE the idjits).
Stick to your guns Aesop. I don't always agree with you but I do read you posts.

streamfortyseven said...

Shawnee County, Kansas - Topeka is the big city, 120,000 people - 180,000 people, total. 1512 tests, total, of which 81 are confirmed cases, 35 recovered, 41 active cases, 5 deaths. Very few people wear masks here, few observe anything close to social distancing. I've been wearing an N95 mask since March 16, walking into a grocery store with it on gets me the stink-eye from other customers, now, because it's store policy, all of the employees wear masks, at least at work. I'd have to assume that the majority of the population here has been exposed but there's no way to know short of antibody testing. When and if that happens, and if I have antibodies, the mask can come off. If 60% to 70% of the population here have antibodies, maybe the same. I follow pretty strict aseptic procedure - what I learned in microbiology class 42 years ago... but *very* few others do that. If everybody wears a mask, there's no reason for lockdown or quarantine, because the mask can prevent you from passing on the virus to others, something that people just don't seem to get, and the other thing is that it stops you from touching your mouth and nose... and there are simple instructions for making masks from common household materials online. Like this one: https://www.craftpassion.com/face-mask-sewing-pattern/ If *everybody* wears a face mask and washes their hands, then *no one* can give the virus to anyone else, it's that simple.

Anonymous said...

I smell a lawyer and a massive class action suit being put together against the PRC, CDC, NIH, and whatever outfit Fauci works for. Expected payouts along the lines of a big airline crash for dead and injured (in the case of the virus: infected, symptomatic/ill at home, hospitalized, ventilated/ICU, dead). Would seem to be a fairly straightforward math problem payable through tariffs by the Chicoms as a condition of doing business here or anywhere. That would seem also to be driving increased reporting of a virus death for folks who have coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity, etc and happen to contract the virus in end stages of their lives.

Aesop said...

You plainly don't know what you're talking about, and don't know what you don't know.
People with the listed conditions don't suddenly de-sat and need a ventilator, and then die.
COVID patients do, and that's exactly what's being observed.
You're trying to tell me that if you see a fat guy with diabetes on a cliff, and you pushed him off it, it was the obesity and diabetes that killed him.

Run that by a criminal attorney as your defense, and tell the class what he tells you.

Aesop said...

@streamfortyseven,

Yes, but.

You learned this in a higher-level class when Reagan or Carter was president.
That was a different world then.

Dipshits from later generations, by actual firsthand observation:

Wearing mask and gloves, touching everything with said gloves, transmits virus to everything he touches (his car, cell phone, wallet, everything else).
Then, can't get cell phone screen to work with gloves on, so
a) pulls mask down
b) pulls infected contaminated glove off with mouth
c) touches infected contaminated cell phone screen with bare finger
d) puts glove back on and pulls up mask when finished.

Assume afterwards
e) Can't figure out how he got Kung Flu, and asymptomatically carried and spread it to his entire office group, apartment complex, or dorm.

If you want to require an IQ test and mandatory sterile procedure class, with 100% as benchmark for pass/fail, for being let out of quarantine, I will march in your parade and subscribe to your newsletter.

Otherwise, most people are too stupid to let loose without a keeper, or a class on how to do this right run by Dominican nuns with 3' section of rebar in lieu of rulers.

Wheel said...

Regardless of how deadly or NOT in this case given the numbers the coronavirus might be, common sense has not prevailed. Lock down the nursing homes and long term facilities. Let everyone else go to work. If they are sick then stay home. Look at Japan, South Korea and Sweden for examples of how to deal with this without destroying the economy and individual freedoms. Politicians don’t need to protect me, I can look out for my own health. DEFEND MY LIBERTY!

Landroll said...

To all those worried or supposing that a lot of deaths not necessarily Wuflu related will be charged against it, rest assured someone will peruse last years deaths from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, big toe fungus, etc, and all other related maladies against the figures for these illnesses this year.They will then have a rough idea about how much gun decking was done to the Wuflu numbers.