tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84570124681099608252024-03-19T00:07:14.360-05:00Cipher in CyberspaceCipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.comBlogger250125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-37031446743329964472022-07-16T09:49:00.002-05:002022-07-16T09:49:52.096-05:00Rolling Blackouts in Texas?<p>I live north of San Antonio in south-central Texas. Actually, we live in the 'hill country' which is a bit cooler than most of the region. Since the start of June, it has been close to or over 100 every day. Those are the temperatures we don't normally see until the middle of August. ERCOT has been sending out notices that to avoid rolling blackouts we need to raise our air conditioning setting to 78 F and limit energy use during peak hours. Tesla sent out a message to their car owners in Texas asking them not to charge their vehicles during peak hours. I'm pretty irritated about this.</p><p>Last winter we had a multi-day total power outage during 4 F temps. Everyone lost water pumps and had frozen pipes. This year, Governor Abbot in February said their wouldn't be any problem, they had 15% more power than needed. And we didn't have a repeat of the 2021 outage.</p><p>Then on May 17th ERCOT provided <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/17/texas-power-grid-summer-ercot/">quotes </a> in the Texas Tribune about the summer capability: </p><p><i>"<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "pt serif", Georgia, serif;">Lake and Jones said asking Texans to conserve electricity is a tool they use to ensure reliability of the power supply and should not be viewed as a sign that the grid is unstable.</span></i></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "pt serif", Georgia, serif;"><i>Conservation is a good thing,” Jones said. “Conservation is what we should do every day in our lives, conservation is how we treat our use of water in the summers, and when it’s very hot, I hope that each of you will turn to conservation as a way to both lower your [electricity] bill as well as to help all of us in the market.”</i></span></p><p>I consider that BS. When we are warned of rolling blackouts if we don't conserve, it's not just a tool to ensure reliability. It means ERCOT and the power companies have not provided sufficient reliable capacity to handle normal usage.</p><p>Another article, and I don't know how reliable the data is (or my memory), said that at times wind supply has fallen to 2,600 MW from its typical 35,000 MW during the summer heat. That natural gas was supplying about 68,000 MW for a load (state usage) that is typically 86,000 MW. And a vague memory was that solar was supplying about 15,000 MW. Since most days have been very sunny, Texas has only a small problem (shortage).</p><p>But that 15% buffer that Governor Abbot quoted apparently relies on unreliable renewables. And apparently, there is NO plan to increase fossil fuel (or nuclear) generating capacity as population and industry increase usage. Reliability has to fall on the current state plan.</p><p>My suggestion would be to NOT conserve. Although I DO NOT suggest using more electricity than necessary. But if there is not sufficient reliable capacity to avoid rolling blackouts at current usage levels, it is only going to get worse. To change the views and plans of whoever controls power investment in the state, the voters need to act. Rolling blackouts might do the trick in time to change direction and increase reliable capacity. Doing nothing, won't. </p><p>I don't like the timing of this. We need to keep republicans in charge in the state, and rolling blackouts might cause losses at the ballot box. Maybe the state has plans to increase fossil fuel or nuclear power and just isn't advertising it. If so, they are idiots for not letting the voters know.</p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-81014599578899952762022-05-29T09:04:00.000-05:002022-05-29T09:04:18.154-05:00Uvalde School Shooting - Wrong 'Barricaded' Shooter Approach<p>This is going to be a pretty limited post. I live north of San Antonio and have driven through Uvalde quite a few times. It seemed like a sleepy town with the usual police radar. My personal beliefs are that we need either trained and armed school security or at the very least, trained teachers/admins with concealed carry--in every school.</p><p>On gun control, there are reportedly over 800 million guns in the US with only 330 million people. You are not going to successfully confiscate those guns. And a semi-automatic handgun (what almost every gun owner carries) would be just as effective as a semi-automatic AR-15 in classrooms and hallways. Banning AR-15's is a waste of time, and most gun owners have at least one. Please note semi-automatics fire one shot at a time; none of them fire in full-auto or burst mode. It only takes a few seconds to switch magazines, so the AR-15 and handgun distinction in a tactical situation in a school is negligible.</p><p>Now to my main point. I would like to address a statement that I have seen in nearly every recent article. This quote is from the New York Post on May 29th: <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; letter-spacing: -0.16px;">The first responders wrongly believing the situation had gone from an “active shooter” to a “barricaded” scenario, and waited more than an hour after the shooting started before they entered the classroom and shot the shooter." I'm ignoring the grammar mistakes.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; letter-spacing: -0.16px;">But in a school shooting, where multiple shots have been fired, you have to assume kids have been shot. You cannot assume that all of those shot are dead. Or that there are no more living (wounded or not shot) in the area of the active shooter. Time is essential; children could be bleeding out or slowly dying. That's why current guidance is for police to enter schools immediately and take out the shooter. Training for a 'barricaded' school shooter scenario (as Uvalde reportedly did two months earlier) is just wrong. So is any assumption that a school shooting situation has transitioned into a 'barricaded' scenario.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; letter-spacing: -0.16px;">The police chief and/or any other first responder leadership that concurred in the decision to hold-off and treat the situation as a 'barricaded' shooter should be fired and/or prosecuted for manslaughter. For their own dignity and honor, they should resign immediately.</span></span></p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-64033906983579141102021-05-13T10:49:00.000-05:002021-05-13T10:49:18.681-05:00Hamas vs Israel<p>It seems to me that Hamas' rocket barrages have tipped a scale they will wish they hadn't. While Hamas lobbing a few missiles every few months could be handled by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, lobbing thousands will simply overload those defenses. Once that capability is displayed to Israel's population, I suspect the Israeli leadership has no choice but to make sure this cannot happen again in the future.</p><p>I don't believe Israel can simply accede to a cease fire under the current conditions. They will surely be aware that Hamas will simply restock and the next time Israel will be in an even worse situation.</p><p>Israel will have no choice but to prevent this situation from continuing. Maybe heavy rocket barrages and embargoes against Hamas in Gaza might suffice. But I doubt the international community will live with that. Israel will have a relatively short term opportunity before their opposition in the international community gets their act together and starts passing UN resolutions. My guess is Biden won't veto anything.</p><p>I don't see much of an option except for an invasion of Gaza by Israel. It will last at least as long as it takes them to destroy the missile system infrastructure, and very probably long enough to remove most of the Hamas war making capabilities.</p><p>Maybe I'm wrong. Israel might accept a high level of risk and accept a cease fire. There is also the possibility that Hezbollah will get involved and start their own rocket barrages. That would start a regional war. There don't appear to be any good or safe options going forwards for the people in that region.</p><p><br /></p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-21963066519955941012021-04-22T10:58:00.000-05:002021-04-22T10:58:38.382-05:00Psychology 101: No Fair Trial for Derek Chauvin<p>My degrees are in physics and electrical engineering, so this isn't really a psychology lesson or class. But I did want to give my impressions of the psychological forces that prevented Derek Chauvin from getting a fair trial.</p><p>First, I want to start with my guess as to what probably happened from Derek Chauvin's point of view. Obviously I could be wrong, but here goes anyway. He arrives on scene to find a big African-American resisting arrest. Along with the other three officers, they try to put him in a police car but he resists, successfully. That's four small guys (Chauvin was the largest at 5'9" and 140 pounds) that cannot get one unarmed suspect (6'4" and 230 pounds) inside a police car. He's complaining he cannot breathe, but is talking and resisting. They call for an ambulance twice. Training says to put him on the ground and incapacitate him. They do so, until the ambulance arrives. A harassing crowd yells epithets and slurs at the police the whole time. Contrary to media reports, Chauvin put his weight on the upper shoulder blade of George Floyd, not his neck. The police are worried about the crowd, and wait an unusually long time for a high-priority ambulance to arrive. When it finally arrives, the medics move several blocks away from the threatening crowd before they try to resuscitate Floyd. One of the police officers goes in the ambulance and performs CPR on Floyd.</p><p>From Chauvin's point of view, he restrained an actively resisting suspect, without causing external or internal bruising or physical damage (other than pavement burns to the side of Floyd's face). He made sure an ambulance was coming ASAP. He maintained site security and the suspect's restraints in the face of a threatening crowd. He ordered one of the policeman to assist the medics in the ambulance.</p><p>When they finally get to a trial, he finds his one (union provided) attorney is working against 12-15 state-associated prosecutors. He watches the jury being selected, all of whom say they are biased against him, but really plan to keep open minds during the trial. He watches the city award, uncontested, $27 million to the Floyd family for wrongful death. He watches media as another local white police officer shoots another black man with a gun (when she thought she was using a taser) and riots begin again. And the jurors are traveling back and forth from their homes daily through or near that rioting. The judge doesn't grant defense motions for a change of venue or sequestration. His single defense attorney accepts the biased jurors. He doesn't stop all of the crowd from testifying about how horrified they were (emotions, not facts) about Chauvin's actions. He sees state witnesses piling on with analysis, both to use of force and medical outcomes, rather than just best evidence. An unusual accumulative testimony that is bound to have a negative affect. He watches his defense attorney unable to effectively cross-examine medical experts. Then his defense attorney uses a substandard use-of-force expert. His medical expert is good, but flies out before the judge allows the state to recall their primary medical witness for a rebuttal that Chauvin's lawyer is unable to address. Then, on closing arguments, the state lies on rebuttal and calls the defense liars. That's the last thing the jury hears. No mistrial is called by the judge for prosecutorial misconduct. The jury is out for just 10 hours (two half days), way too short for an evaluation of the evidence that took three weeks to present. Then guilty on all counts.</p><p>Chauvin is looking at up to 40 years in prison for actions that he considers lawful, in accordance with then-existing training, and restrained (from a force perspective). He did what he thought was right, and the police administration and everyone else has railroaded him. By the way, the death certificate indicated severe coronary artery disease, a tumor, an enlarged heart, and three times the probable lethal dose of fentanyl. Fentanyl apparently kills by suppressing the respiratory system (asphyxiation); Floyd died from asphyxiation.</p><p>My point here is that Chauvin is in a bad place, his life is likely over. And from his view point, he did nothing wrong. Maybe the general public is okay with this. But police officers won't be. Who wants to go through that type of experience? Any conscientious police officer is going to seriously consider getting out of policing. Anyone who can, will.</p><p>Now I want to turn to the reasons for the lack of a fair trial. I believe there were three 'actors' that were intended to assure a fair trial according to normal US due process where the defendant is assumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Those would be the judge, the defense attorney(s), and the jury (a composite actor consisting of 12 individual jurors).</p><p>We all would like to believe that each actor has a conscience, believes in doing what's right (as opposed to what's wrong), and tries to complete his/her job to the best of their ability. In case the judge misbehaves, there are appeals. Defense attorney behavior, unless it is egregious, doesn't have any checks or balances. You just have to hope the defendant is able to hire (or is awarded) a competent attorney. The jury is supposedly checked by having twelve jurors with a diversity of experience and the requirement that either a guilty or not-guilty verdict be unanimous. If they cannot come to a unanimous verdict, the judge will announce a mistrial.</p><p>But what if there is a mob outside the court house that has rioted and destroyed businesses and is just waiting to riot again with a not-guilty verdict? And what of today's cancel-culture on steroids? The jurors names will be eventually released, probably sooner than later. The mob will come for them with a guilty verdict. They will be driven from social media and potentially lose their jobs. They and their families will be in danger.</p><p>Unfortunately, and this has not been emphasized in even the conservative media, the same risks apply to the judge, the defense attorney(s), and even any appellate judges that get involved in appeals.</p><p>That risk and pressure can explain the judge not changing the venue, not sequestering the jury, not stopping prosecutorial over-kill and not declaring a mistrial for prosecutorial misconduct. He left it all for the appellate courts to address. Nothing the crowd didn't want was going to be his fault.</p><p>The jury's behavior is a bit easier to understand. The risks and pressure would fall most directly on their shoulders. Many observers point out that 10 hours was not enough time to analyze and argue the evidence. But it was enough to give a veneer to the fact of 'deliberation.' They couldn't just ask for a show of hands for guilty and come back in 30 minutes. Plus, there were probably at least one or two who were having trouble with their conscience, and needed a bit of prodding. That probably could have been done indirectly by the others pointing out their names would come out quickly if they voted against guilty verdicts and caused a mistrial.</p><p>The last actor I want to address is the defense attorney. He did not have the resources to properly fight a team of 12-15 prosecutors arguing a complicated fact scenario. He especially didn't have the background to properly cross-examine medical experts. I'm not sure why the union or Derek Chauvin himself did not hire additional defense support. It may be with all the media attention, they could not find anyone willing to help or there just weren't funds available. But the point I want to make is that the defense did a relatively poor job. Like the judge, Nelson did just enough to potentially support an appeal. I don't know enough about Nelson's experience or abilities, so it is possible he did the best job he could have with the resources he was given. But like the others, he too had pressure to not get Derek Chauvin off, even if no one wants to point that out.</p><p>So I started with Derek Chauvin's point of view. A good police officer that believed he was doing the right things to properly restrain and arrest a suspect. An officer that is now facing up to 40 years in jail when he fully believes he's innocent. Obviously, those are my assumptions.</p><p>But what about the three actors that were supposed to assure a fair trail? They know the facts of the case. Of course they cannot see into Chauvin's mind to see his actual intent and situational awareness at the time of the events (neither can I!). But they know there was a reasonable set of facts indicating that Chauvin did not use excessive force, that his actions were consistent with his training and police policy, and that Floyd likely died from the drugs, his physical problems, and his decision to violently resist arrest. The judge did little to control the trial and prosecutor misconduct. The defense attorney did a substandard job for much of the trial (with some exceptions). And the jury quickly gave into the mob.</p><p>What happened to their supposed conscience, belief in doing what's right, and doing their jobs to the best of their ability? It really appears that their fear for their own safety, and maybe for their families and city, overrode all of those behavior patterns.</p><p>I know it's hard to second guess people when their safety is on the line. Most of us don't want to do that when a case of lawful self-defense is brought to court. So how could we condemn a judge, jury, and maybe a defense counsel for making such a decision? The problem is that they very likely sent an innocent man to prison for up to 40 years. They made a conscious decision to end a man's life in order to potentially save their own lives and careers.</p><p>This is not the way we want our justice system to work. In fact, if this continues, the good police officers will quit and the system will eventually implode, along with our nation.</p><p>I want to wrap up with a little self-introspection. Would I have voted differently if I had been on the jury? Obviously, my analysis says that I should have voted not guilty, and there probably then would have been a mistrial. I'm usually not very good at convincing others to change their opinions, so I would likely have been nearly alone on the jury. But would I have caved to the pressure from the other jurors or even from my own risk assessment?</p><p>My last physical fights were in grade school. During my employment, I had some senior jobs where I felt I had to take unpopular positions. There were some political repercussions (within the organization) that made me unpopular with some folks. But in those cases, I was not at physical risk and neither was my family. The downstream impact did result in my retiring earlier than I normally would have. In all those events, I did what I thought was right.</p><p>But in the Chauvin jury situation, my self-assessment would have been that me and my family were at risk if I voted not-guilty. In planning to do so, I would have expected to have to quit my job (if I wasn't retired) and move to another state. There've been times in my life where that wouldn't have been a problem, but other times when it would have been effectively impossible.</p><p>So I cannot say how I would have voted; though if I was retired like today, I would have held out for not-guilty. But what surprised me a little was that none of the 12 jurors was in a position where they could, or were willing to, make the life changes necessary to vote not-guilty. Of course, it's always possible that they all really believed Chauvin was guilty on all counts.</p><p>Unfortunately, this all makes me extremely concerned about the future prospects of life in our country.</p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-75170403308351680792021-04-16T06:34:00.002-05:002021-04-16T06:34:43.445-05:00Derek Chauvin Trial: Asphyxia or 98% Oxygen?<p>I've been following the Derek Chauvin trial where he's charged with murder for George Floyd on the Legal Insurrection web site. My primary source is Andrew Branca's (the Law of Self Defense expert) blog wrap-up of each day's events. </p><p>I'm particularly disturbed by the sudden recalling of the state's witness Dr. Tobin to rebut defense's Dr. Fowler on possible carbon monoxide effects on George Floyd. Apparently he was about a foot away from the exhaust of the running police cruiser. Dr. Fowler said Floyd could have had a 10-18% carbon monoxide displacement of oxygen in his hemoglobin.</p><p>Judge Cahill allowed the state to recall Dr. Tobin after the defense rested its case. He pointed out that at the hospital, George Floyd's oxygen saturation level was 98% from a blood draw (not just a finger sensor).</p><p>What bothers me, is that all the experts claimed George Floyd died from asphyxiation. Maybe my not being a doctor means I don't have a clue. But I always thought asphyxiation meant you weren't getting enough oxygen (and the dictionary agrees). 98% is a great amount of oxygen. Maybe dead people can have 98% oxygen in their blood, even when they were asphyxiated? In my opinion, that is just BUNK.</p><p>If his oxygen level was that great at the hospital, how could any actions earlier at the arrest site have caused asphyxiation?</p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-6696967462969293982021-04-13T13:41:00.001-05:002021-04-13T13:45:35.164-05:00Why Many Conservatives Are Hesitant About COVID Vaccines<p>This is just my take on the topic. But I really hate the media's implication that all Trump supporters are anti-vax or just opposed to the vaccine because of some Trump mania. I am not surprised that polls find that up to 30% of Trump supporters don't want the vaccine and a similar number of evangelicals are also opposed.</p><p>While I am getting the shot myself, I think they have valid reasons for their positions.</p><p>First, there are all the reports of bad reactions and deaths following COVID-19 vaccination. Sure, I did a back of the envelope statistical analysis that showed the number of deaths were not excessive considering the number of people vaccinated. In fact, they were quite low assuming the percentage of people that would normally have died during the period when we've been vaccinating people. But that does not make the stories any the less scary, and they certainly make you strongly consider what might happen if you get vaccinated.</p><p>Related to that is the ridiculous media and CDC reports that address those concerns. They amount to "We, the CDC, have looked at the data on those deaths and adverse reactions and they are not related. Trust us!" As far as I can tell, not a single report details what they found and why they claim there is no relationship between vaccination and the reported deaths. If anybody trusts the CDC or the WHO after the last year-plus of COVID recommendations, well I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell. Still, my lack of trust in the CDC does not mean they are necessarily wrong, just that I cannot trust what they say. Why would I expect others to trust them?</p><p>Then there are the many headline stories about the people getting COVID-19 after they are fully vaccinated. Most of those seem to be Johnson & Johnson, but I won't rely on that here. The reports of the trials indicated that Pfizer was 95% effective at preventing COVID, Moderna was 94%, and J&J was 66%. Since then, Pfizer and Moderna seem to have dropped to about 90% effective. That's a lot of percentages where they weren't effective at preventing COVID. Sure, your chance of getting COVID goes way down, but you would expect some COVID cases with those numbers. So why are individual cases getting headline news? All it does is raise doubt about the effectiveness of the vaccines; especially when the news stories do not emphasize the efficacies that came out of the trials.</p><p>Then there are all the stories that show your chance of surviving COVID is 99.7% with almost all of the fatalities in people 70 or older with comorbidities. Everyone by now knows a bunch of people that have tested positive, had some minor symptoms, and are now back to normal. Then there are even more stories about how a COVID positive test may be a false negative because the tests use too many amplification cycles and reportedly find COVID where just a few dead viruses are present. When you wonder about the safety of the vaccines from the stories, and the lack of effectiveness of preventing COVID, where do you see the advantages of taking the vaccine?</p><p>Then there is the fact sheet for (at least) the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It emphasizes that there is no FDA approved vaccine for COVID-19. That the emergency use authorized vaccine may prevent you from getting COVID-19. That there are a lot of possible side effects, including death. And they include a link to a CDC app that lets you report side effects so you can help collect data on the 'not approved' vaccine. You come away with the belief that you are a guinea pig in an experiment.</p><p>Also, the Trump supporters and evangelicals would mostly be found in red states where life either was not in lockdown or is now mostly reopened for normal functioning. They don't have the lockdown 'stick' to drive them to feel the vaccine is necessary.</p><p>But, and I suspect this is the biggest driver, media and the Biden administration are going full blitz at how safe and necessary the vaccine is. Conservatives have essentially watched the media lie to us 98% of the time for the last four years. Until the election, Biden was warning how dangerous the short trial new vaccines were. Most of use see how stupid and damaging most of Biden's actions have been since the election. Are we now supposed to believe that the media is telling us the truth and the Biden administration is right on something? I don't think so. If I had to base my decision on what the media reports, I would simply not take the vaccine.</p><p>So what really surprises me is that only 30% of conservatives are opposed to vaccination.</p><p><br /></p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-52325699551932089752021-03-30T15:37:00.001-05:002021-04-01T06:25:18.624-05:00The Morals of Derek Chauvin's Prosecutors<p>Today's rant is about the morality of baseless prosecutions. Some prosecutors are, I believe, just lower than dirt. I don't have any problem with defense attorneys doing their best to keep scumbags out of prison. Everybody deserves a good defense against the government bureaucracy. But when a government prosecutor knows the defendant is not guilty, and still tries to put them in jail, that I just cannot stomach.</p><p>Here's the facts that I am aware of. George Floyd was about 233 lbs and 6' 3". Derek Chauvin was the largest of the police officers at 5' 9" and 140 lbs. George Floyd resisted arrest. He took an overdose of fentanyl and methamphetamines, reportedly to hide them from the police. He bloodied his nose on the car's window while resisting arrest. He complained about trouble breathing before he was put on the ground. The police officers called an ambulance at least 9 minutes before it arrived. The knee on the neck was approved police procedure to subdue unruly prisoners. It was in the police manual and they received training on it. Finally, the autopsy found no evidence of trauma to the neck and reportedly indicated that George Floyd died from an overdose of fentanyl and methamphetamines.</p><p>Unless any of the reports are wrong, or there is some evidence of which I am not aware (possible), there is no other conclusion but that George Floyd died from a drug overdose and not from Derek Chauvin putting his knee on his neck.</p><p>I am not sure why the judge did not grant a motion from the defense for summary judgment. Maybe it's not allowed in Minnesota law for the charged crime. More likely, the judge would have been afraid of mob justice. After all, his identity is not kept secret.</p><p>Now I turn to the government prosecutors' team of 12 or so lawyers. They clearly must know about the above facts, more intimately than I do. But in their opening statements they either left out key parts or lied about some of the facts (like the knee being approved procedure). So they too must know Derek Chauvin is innocent of the charges. Yet they are trying to get 12 jurors to send him to jail for 20 years or more.</p><p>Who would do such a thing? Why would someone do such a thing? Let's consider the alternatives.</p><p>First, might the prosecutors have a different take on the evidence? Since the autopsy indicated no trauma and death from a drug overdose, I cannot understand manslaughter or murder charges. Doesn't matter what took place before death if that autopsy is correct. That alternative is out. Maybe they could claim delay in calling an ambulance, I don't have those facts. But with five officers at the site and charged, I suspect they called the ambulance as soon as they heard the claims about having trouble breathing. So this alternative is not realistic.</p><p>Secondly, maybe they are just trying to prevent a riot. That I could understand. Give him a fair trial and present the evidence. Except that they don't need 12+ prosecutors for a fair trail. And the jury selection definitely showed that they did not want anyone with an open mind. Further, their opening statements were false and misleading. Maybe preventing a riot is part of the rationale that lets them sleep at night. But it apparently is not associated with giving the defendant a fair trial.</p><p>Third, maybe they were not given a choice by their bosses about whether to accept the prosecution or give it a pass. That could very well be true for the government employees that are part of the prosecuting team (not the outside attorneys assisting). I can definitely understand wanting to keep your job and wanting to get promoted. But here is the crux of my blog. How far would you go to keep a job and a chance of promotion? Would you be willing to put an innocent man (or five) in jail for 20 years to life? Would you respect someone that would? I would not.</p><p>The last alternative would be that the prosecutors want to stir up racial enmity and justify BLM/Antifa actions and positions. I do not understand such a position. Hence, I cannot say whether this is the situation and explanation for the continued prosecution. Continuing a prosecution of an innocent man for such a reason is just despicable.</p><p>Bottom line, I have no respect for the prosecuting team, and not much for the judge. If I were a Minnesota police officer, I would be finding another line of work or move out of state.</p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-70184167500781329612021-03-20T11:28:00.000-05:002021-03-20T11:28:40.005-05:00Death Statistics and COVID-19 Vaccines<p>A week or so ago, my wife sent me a link to an article on COVID-19 vaccine deaths and side effects. The article was mostly a light touch on statistics with a bit of anti-vaxxer opinion thrown in, but no analysis. My wife is very leery of the vaccine, and to some extent I think she is right. But the numbers don't really show that. Let me explain.</p><p>At the time of the article, there were over 1,500 deaths reported following COVID vaccination. According to the reports, there is no data on the causal relationship, and no statistical data was provided on time-frames after vaccination. There were also indicators (though numbers weren't provided) of significant numbers of emergency room visits and hospitalizations.</p><p>Further, the reports indicated 100 million vaccines had been given to people by that date. And I'm assuming for this analysis that the time frame was December 21st to March 21st for both vaccinations and deaths. Since most vaccines required two doses, one can assume somewhere between 50 million and 100 million people were vaccinated--out of a population of 330 million. Let's say on the conservative side, 1 in 6 people had been vaccinated.</p><p>Reports on general deaths indicate that about 7,000 or more people die each day in the US (before the COVID pandemic). So over the 90 day vaccination period, 630 thousand people in the US would have died from any variety of causes. I would presume quite a number of those people either visited the emergency room or the hospital before their deaths. Now assume 1 in 6 of those people had taken the vaccine (a purely random assumption). You would have expected 105 thousand vaccinated people to have died.</p><p>The question I would have is how many of those theoretical 105,000 vaccinated people that died did so shortly after their vaccination and without other obvious causes of death? I don't have a clue. But a report that says 1,500 deaths after vaccination does not seem to me to be unexpected, worrisome, or even any indication that vaccination was the cause of death. If anything, the number seems lower than I would expect.</p><p>On the other hand. I do not trust government or our health agencies to tell us the truth. They have strong motivation to brush bad press under the rug and try to get as many people vaccinated as possible. If a small risk exists, I would not expect them to reveal the truth to us, but instead to rationalize the statement that "there is no indication of causal relationship between vaccinations and reported deaths."</p><p>Let me diverge from the statistical analysis to some thought on adverse reactions to vaccines. One assumes most start with no immunity. But they say exposure to other flu/coronavirus types can provide some level of immunity. Let's see what my first line of thinking leads to (note: I am not a doctor and have no experience with immunology); what follows is pure conjecture. Either your body already has some immunity and quickly overcomes the invader (vaccine), thus no noticeable symptoms. Or your body is ineffective and has to put up an extended fight; hence, you are going to get adverse reactions. Or your body's immune system is good, but is fighting something new, so you are likely to get mild adverse reactions. That would explain why I never get the flu, but always get the flu vaccine and have no noticeable reactions.</p><p>But what would explain worse reactions on a second (booster) shot of the COVID vaccine? And there are lots of stories about worse adverse reactions. At least enough so you can assume this circumstance happens more than occasionally. One would assume the body's response to the vaccine would be more effective on the second shot. And adverse reactions would be less severe than the response on the first shot. Either my line of thinking is wrong (very possible), or something else is happening.</p><p>They say the messenger RNA (mRNA) Pfizer and Moderna vaccines program your body's response to the virus rather than just presenting a similar viral-like threat as in standard vaccines. In this case, the vaccine will 1) create a first order invader response like a standard vaccine (however, to the mRNA vaccine itself rather than the virus), and 2) create a second order response by the body that enhances your normal immune response to an actual live virus.</p><p>The second order response seems to be the unknown in my line of logic. It could explain the occasionally more severe reaction to the second vaccine dose. Everybody is unique physically (our bodies are really complex), and so will be their reactions to newly introduced catalysts (in this case the mRNA vaccine). If your body did not respond well to the catalyst the first time, it might fight harder the second time. Thus, the more severe adverse reactions. That would not necessarily indicate that the catalyst's intended response is not seen (immunity). And vaccine tests indicate that even with adverse reactions, the immunity occurs.</p><p>Okay, that was a long side-bar. But I wanted to get my own thinking in order. Once again, the above was all conjecture.</p><p>What I really wanted to point out was that 1,500 deaths associated in some way (maybe only in time?) with vaccination is not an unexpected number due to the much larger number of 'normal' deaths expected in the vaccinated population in the US. In fact, that relatively small number reassures me that the vaccine is relatively safe.</p><p>But, I would like to leave you with my reservations. As I mentioned earlier, I don't trust the government (or most companies/organizations). They have agendas they are working on; and this one is to get the country vaccinated and back to work. Small 'losses' probably won't matter to them unless the media hypes the issue. And the media in this case is pro-vaccination.</p><p>Secondly, the FDA has only given an emergency use authorization; the vaccines have not been approved for general use (ha!). That is, they are still experimental. The testing has been short term, and there has not been enough time for long term effects to have been observed. Taking the vaccine is thus a risk. But it is similar to a risk with any drug. You could always be in the small percentage of users that have a bad reaction.</p><p>Third, there are stories out there that talk about unintended consequences of the mRNA vaccination on your immune system. If I remember correctly, they claim to reduce immunity to certain other pathogens for a period of about 3 months. I do not know the details, and had no means to evaluate the likelihood of the claims I've read about. But those reports definitely add to the perceived risk of the vaccine.</p><p>Finally, I am not an anti-vaxxer. I take the flu vaccine and will take any other vaccines my doctor recommends for me. On the other hand, if I had a child with a degraded immune system or a significant medical condition, I would talk long and hard with my pediatrician or family doctor about whether the child should get certain vaccines.</p><p>I do plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as I can. I know it's a risk, and a significant one; but I think it is worth taking for some peace of mind.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-64977217667303474812021-03-20T07:17:00.000-05:002021-03-20T07:17:13.742-05:00Masks and Airlines<p>Yesterday I read an article in Power Line by John Hinderaker titled <a href="https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/03/mask-theater-in-the-senate.php">Mask Theater In the Senate</a>. Most of it was about the spat between Rand Paul and Dr. Fauci in a Senate hearing, and I liked John Hinderaker's take. But he ended by touching on John Kerry's maskless flight on American Airlines. He states<span style="font-family: inherit;"> "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I don’t join in those who condemn Kerry for hypocrisy. In my opinion, not wearing a mask on an airplane is perhaps the first sensible thing Kerry has done in his last four decades in public life." Let me tell you why I felt John Hinderaker's take was just plain wrong.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">First, I want to assure you my position on masks is middle of the road. I wrote early on that Fauci was wrong when he said masks do not help. On the other hand, I think politicians and much of the public took mask wearing too far. Yesterday, I was hiking in a state park with the wind blowing about 20 miles per hour. There has not been a mask mandate for outdoors in our state. But a couple with their child came from the other direction, and put on their masks. The closest we would come was about 4 feet for maybe 5 seconds. We were on a jeep trail. I thought that was ridiculous.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">Let's also consider the recent CDC recommendations for schools where they reduced the distance rule from 6 feet to 3 feet (while wearing masks). I've read that 3 feet and a mask reduces droplet exposure by 80%. So the old 6 feet requirement would have reduced droplet exposure by 96%. But there were no statistics on airborne pathogens (that are so small they do not drop to the ground like droplets).</span></span></p><p>Next, take the situation on an aircraft. People are crammed in about 18" face to face on each side of a person. If someone reclines their seat, they may only be 10" in front of you (or behind you). If an aircraft is flying at 30,000 feet, the external atmosphere does not have enough oxygen to support life for more than a few minutes. Yet on most flights (other than to a hub), you are at that altitude for 3 hours or more. Obviously, the plane does not pull in external air in any quantities at that altitude.</p><p>Yet the airlines say they have increased circulation and fresh air on their planes to reduce the chance of COVID transmission. Sure, they could easily have increased the number or power of fans. And while on take-off or landing or at the terminal, they could increase the amount of fresh air they pull in. But at flight altitude? The only way to get more air would be to mix fresh with tanked oxygen. My strong suspicion is that that is uneconomical due to storage tank size, weight and increased fuel costs.</p><p>So during most of a flight, maybe you get some air circulating, but it is most certainly not fresh, pathogen free air.</p><p>And I used to fly quite a bit. Almost always, you heard one or more people on the flight hacking their lungs out. Way too often, they were only a row or two away. Every once in a while, I got sick after flights. I almost never got sick the rest of the year.</p><p>In my opinion, planes are still probably one of the most dangerous places to pick up a pathogen. Too many people, too close, and ineffective air circulation. Masks can only help. In fact, I wish they would require masks on planes even when there is not a COVID pandemic raging.</p><p>Finally, I can understand John Hinderaker's position on masks in general. I don't like government mandates, and most places have reasonable spacing between people and decent air circulation. Masks shouldn't be required. Those few places where those conditions don't hold, people can opt out of visiting. But traveling long distances without using numerous travel days requires airline flights. For those situations, you don't have a viable alternative, and yet the conditions for pathogen transmission are horrendous. John should have picked a different example. Masks are good policy on airlines. </p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-36303006724772749722021-02-21T12:28:00.001-06:002021-03-20T06:34:41.908-05:00Texas Deep Freeze Feb 2021<p>While the recent cold weather storm was (and to some extent still is) a nightmare. I had it relatively easy. I only lost power for 37 hours. Some folks in the neighborhood lost it for over 70 hours, and a week later, just got their water back on. But I wanted to put down my story, and some of my thoughts.</p><p>First, I should let you know about my background. I was in the military and for a few years was stationed in Rome, NY (mid to upper state near the Adirondacks). I've gone out cross country skiing when it was -20° F -- though thinking back that wasn't very smart. But it means I had and still have some cold weather gear. But I now live in the hill country between San Antonio and Austin Texas. It seldom drops to much below 30° F even in the winter.</p><p>I also love backpacking and have sleeping bags (only down to +20°) and both iso-propane canister and alcohol stoves. And this last year we converted a van for travel/camping. It has a diesel stove, diesel heat/hot water, and fairly large capacity lithium batteries.</p><p>In the 20 years or so we've been in Texas, I think we had one power outage over 2-3 hours, maybe 12 hours long. We are on well water, so we have to have electricity for water. I had plenty of bottles of water, and I even filled the van's fresh water tank half full.</p><p>We were told we might get rolling blackouts starting Sunday, and the temperature was expected to drop to 5 or 6° F both Sunday and Monday nights. I don't remember it ever dropping below the high teens at our Texas home. And it wasn't supposed to get above freezing till Tuesday, and barely then. I was running a small ceramic heater in the van to keep the batteries warm, and it was doing an excellent job. I was also using a small ceramic heater in our well house.</p><p>So I decided to sleep in the van Sunday and try to keep the batteries on during the outages. Also, this was a chance to see how well the diesel heat worked in the van. The diesel heat was doing well, and I had turned off the ceramic heater. After I got bored with watching old movies, I went to bed early. I awoke about 9:30 pm and noticed it was colder in the van. I checked the heater vents, and the air was only room temperature coming out. I shut off the diesel furnace and turned on the ceramic heater. I went back to sleep until about 11:00 pm, when I awoke again, and decided to check the battery status. They were down to 34%, when it should have been near 100%. The ceramic heater was set for 1500 W output. I then checked the inverter, and it showed no shore power (we were in a power outage). So I shut down the batteries and came into the house. I was later told the power went out about 8:00 or 8:30. Because the van operates such that it switches to batteries when there is no shore power, I did not notice when it happened.</p><p>By the way, I think the diesel in the lines gelled and likely fouled the fuel filter on the diesel furnace.</p><p>The house started at 72° F and went down for the next 36 hours to about 48°. Monday was sunny, though cold, and I think it helped reduce the heat loss during the day. I typically wore long underwear, a light fleece top, and lightly insulated snow pants. When I went outside to check the well house, I added a puffy and a raincoat (for wind). By the way, we got a whopping 2-4" of snow! Waterproof mittens, a cap, raincoat hood, and boots rounded out my attire. I was toasty even outside at 6 degrees. I slept using my 20° down quilt and long underwear, and was warm at night too.</p><p>For food, I used some instant oatmeal, freeze dried lasagna, and chili that I had prepared before the outage. The alcohol stove seemed to work better than the canister stove at those temps. I set up an aluminum bench in the garage, raised the garage door a couple of feet, and heated my water and chili in the garage (to avoid toxic fumes).</p><p>The biggest problem was disposal of human waste. We have three bedrooms and four toilets in the house. Worse, I got a mild case of the runs. I think it was old, bad milk that didn't make it through the outage. You could flush a toilet once, but not twice since there was no water to refill the tanks. I was using lots of hand sanitizer. It was not what I would call a sanitary situation.</p><p>On Tuesday morning, the toilet issue was becoming very urgent. I decided to bring the composting toilet in the van into the house. Shortly afterwards (I was hoping I would jinx the power back on), the power came back on. I had turned off the power to the well-house pumps to avoid breaking any pipes or burning out the motor when the power came back on with frozen pipes. So still no water. The composting toilet was a godsend. I cannot imagine how large families handled the situation.</p><p>On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, when I tried running the pump (after the outside air had warmed above freezing), I got a lot of noise and no water pressure. I never heard anything back from our usual plumber. On Friday, the temps were rising, and suddenly I got water pressure. It surged to 75 psi in about 5 minutes while I was outside doing some work. I shut off the pump immediately as it was supposed to have a pressure switch set at 40-50 psi. I also tried gently rocking the pressure bladder tank. It appears completely waterlogged. The only good news was that the pump still worked and we didn't have any broken water lines.</p><p>I finally got ahold of our plumber who said he does not work on well systems and that his plumbing supply house doesn't even carry those types of pressure switches. The local well system company has not gotten back to me.</p><p>I've been turning the pump on manually till about 60 psi, then using water for a while, then checking the psi again. I was able to run the dishwasher, and the clothes washer that way. Hopefully, we will get some help with the well system in the near future.</p><p>Before leaving, I wanted to comment on some of the things I've read about in the news. First, a word about our winter weather up till now. I've been going hiking and leaving before dawn every few days. Most days, the temperature has been below 30, and as low as 25 degrees. I believe people set their thermostats to something they find comfortable and leave them there. Most people in our area will have heat pumps. In town, they probably have gas/propane furnaces. While a lot of us in our area have wells, a lot of the newer subdivisions use city water (from Canyon Lake).</p><p>Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that nobody turns their thermostat up when the temperature drops. Any additional power used by homes most likely comes from the furnace's duty cycle going up to compensate for the dropping temperatures. This is totally predictable, and is NOT due to people's bad behavior in turning up their furnace or turning on more heaters. Journalists or bloggers that say that people turned up their thermostats because of the cold are not being honest.</p><p>Further, to my knowledge, I was never asked to turn the thermostat down, until after the event. And even that message turned out to be a hoax. If the power system operators believed turning down thermostats would have helped, there should have been a widespread news request to do so. Maybe I just didn't see it? But their announcement of the possibility for rolling outages made it seem like it was just a possibility, and nothing to worry about. Just a temporary inconvenience.</p><p>Next, the news reported that a storm in the winter of 2011 resulted in recommendations to weather proof the power grid in Texas (maybe that was the 12 hour outage I vaguely remember). The reports indicate no weather-proofing was completed. It is my belief that people are mad about what happened. Lots of them live in urban settings with gas, power, and water supplied from utilities. They have no options when services are disrupted, and their lives are put in danger. Those who have some of their own systems, like our well water, are going to encounter extended outages and expenses--because power that we relied on disappeared for extended periods. </p><p>Governor Abbot had better make sure this problem is fixed, and make the changes public, or he's going to be out on his bum at the next election. </p><p>Personally, I do not like to rely on public utilities, so I've thought about changes. I should have stored water in our two tubs before the cold arrived. I should have charged my lithium battery backups for iPhone and iPad usage (I did have one charged). I cannot do much about the van batteries if I cannot keep them warm (they automatically shut down somewhere between 20° and 30°). I've ordered some diesel anti-gel and hope that that will keep the van's diesel furnace working. And I need to keep more stove fuel on-hand.</p><p>Keep warm and safe!</p><p><br /></p>CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-24543361097549252312020-05-12T09:16:00.000-05:002020-05-12T09:16:23.285-05:00Prediction: Judge Sullivan will Sentence Gen FlynnI hope I am wrong about this one. Everyone says there is precedent that Judge Sullivan must dismiss the case against Gen Flynn since the DOJ has filed to dismiss the case. I don't think he will care about precedent.<br />
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The judge has made (if I remember correctly) statements about Gen Flynn being a traitor. He apparently strongly dislikes the general and must have been watching CNN or one of the other fake news channels to draw that conclusion. I'm pretty sure the government only filed that Gen Flynn had made false statements to FBI agents and not that he had committed treason.<br />
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Further, the judge has drawn out sentencing now for about three years. Who can afford to pay for criminal attorneys for three years? Gen Flynn is wiped out. You think Judge Sullivan cares?<br />
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The judge has also failed to allow Gen Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea, and as far as I can tell, has not called for a hearing since all of the new exculpatory material has come out.<br />
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My guess is that Judge Sullivan will claim that Gen Flynn plead guilty to the charges and confirmed his guilty plea with the judge. [Irrespective of Gen Flynn's claims that the government threatened to bring charges against his son.] He will insist the exculpatory evidence does not dispute that Gen Flynn lied.<br />
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Judge Sullivan will deny the motion to dismiss the charges again Gen Flynn. He will then sentence the general to somewhere between probation and six months in jail, and he will order Gen Flynn jailed pending appeals.<br />
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Do you think I am wrong? Let's hope so.CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-42130289716035912832020-05-09T11:02:00.001-05:002020-05-09T11:02:59.978-05:00Local Businesses Opening at 25% CapacitySince I predict (see my last blog) that infections will continue to rise, and so will mortality (slowly), during a reopening, there's going to be push-back to reopening businesses at full capacity.<br />
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So I just wanted to take a moment to think (and talk) about the impact of opening at 25 or 50% capacity. A small retail store may not be impacted. They probably only get a few people at any one time anyway. That might not be true of a small retail store in a tourist area, where they are normally packed.<br />
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But consider just about any restaurant. You have kitchen staff sized for anticipated breakfast, lunch and dinner crowds. At 25%, you will never get anywhere near your peak crowds. Only some of those kitchen staff will be needed. Likewise with wait staffs. You don't need nearly as many waiters or waitresses or cleanup folks. So you've either made everybody part time or you've laid off quite a few of your full time folks. My guess is you cannot rehire at more than 50% of what you employed pre-COVID.<br />
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Then there is the taxes that are charged on each sale. The state/county/city is only going to bring in 25% of it's usual sales tax. That assumes people feel safe enough to actually go out when the government thinks it's only safe enough to serve at 25% capacity.<br />
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Then there are the businesses that government didn't open when they opened some at 25% capacity. The government is not getting any taxes or fees from those businesses.<br />
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So 25% is a big loss for government income. It's a big failure to get people back to work. And it's a real inconvenience to the public that wants a normal life back.<br />
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So a 25% capacity limit is going to be upped quickly by government. They will go to 50% capacity within a couple of weeks. Maybe three at most.<br />
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Remember, the loss in government income isn't just a new and larger deficit figure for those non-federal government units. This isn't taking out a bond for a new arena, or committing to pensions 10 years down the road. This is loss of daily liquidity for paying government employees.<br />
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And the most obvious government employees to most of you is police, sheriff and fire departments. In some locations and localities, it will include water, sewer, garbage collection, and even electricity. Not that they don't make you pay for some of those, but sometimes the municipality has taken over the utility and run it themselves.<br />
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So where are the municipalities, counties and states going to make cuts? Can they make cuts without legislative action? If they don't, where do the pay and benefits come from when the state is getting 10 to 25% of its normal income?<br />
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If your local government is run by democrats, my guess is they will try taking out bonds. They will also expect the feds to bail them out before they file bankruptcy. Maybe they will, but the republicans will generally be opposed to government bailouts. Republican US senators (congressmen don't count since they are in the minority) may be willing to pay for COVID-19 health costs, but I do not expect many of them will want to reimburse states for lock down losses.<br />
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Anyway, no matter how much governments want to open safely, they are going to be squeezed hard if they don't start substantial re-openings soon. My guess is the reluctant ones will use protests as their excuse to relax their lock downs. The country will reopen, and it will reopen soon.CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-76422035398251603832020-05-09T10:10:00.003-05:002020-05-09T10:10:28.507-05:00COVID-19 Modeling and the FutureI hit the modeling topic in the prior blog. But I've also had more time to think about it. The IMHE models at Healthdata.org were frozen (unchanged) for about four days, from a couple of days before May 1 to a couple of days after. When they were frozen, the graph for Texas was showing a bunch of up and down bounces in the past data, just like you would expect. The death rate was low enough that daily variations showed up distinctly. Once the freeze stopped, those bounces disappeared. The data was now smooth with one exception. On May 1 there was a minimum and then a sharp rise thereafter.<div>
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So a death rate that is at least 14 days behind the curve in infections, decided to jump up the day that Texas began reopening. The same thing happened with the US mortality. I didn't actively follow the other states, so cannot say what happened there.</div>
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So either IMHE drastically changed their model or their data. My suspicion is they did both. They used to use actual data for plotting the curve in the past and projected data for plotting the curve in the future.</div>
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It looks to me like they've now fit the past data into a 'best-fit' curve of low order (high order would have more inflections). So you cannot see what real data is actually being reported or recorded.</div>
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Since they showed an inflection point the day reopening began, I suspect they jumped the infection rate (R) value significantly and they did it at least two weeks before May 1. Either that, or they artificially changed the model to reflect an immediate rise in mortality on May 1.</div>
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To me, they are lying scum. Maybe whoever was providing their data changed it, and I should apologize. But I won't. They should have made a big statement on their prediction website with a big warning icon. Maybe it's in the FAQ, but I won't look.</div>
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They could have continued to show their previous model output as it evolved after reopening so we could see how the reopening actually affected the data and their model. They did not do that. Instead, they drastically changed their model and data on the reopening day. How can anybody trust them after that? I WILL NOT.</div>
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On the future. I don't believe it matters now whether the infections and mortality rate rise. People and businesses cannot continue to survive without income. The feds cannot continue to print money without causing a financial failure. States do not have the income to continue to provide services. The economy will reopen, and it will not close again. </div>
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The economy will be sputtering for a while. States are limiting opening by social distancing and capacity. That will hurt most businesses. And many people will still want to hide at home. The mainstream media will still be trying to scare the public to help Joe Biden beat Donald Trump.</div>
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You may see a few cities or counties go into lock down again if their infection and mortality rates decide to jump up. But state wide, people won't take it. I'm not even confident that if a city or county opens, for more than a week, they will be willing to go into lock down again unless it gets really bad.</div>
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Unfortunately, I don't think people will wear masks in places where it's not required. Especially if they are mad at the government for other reasons; and a lot of people are mad at the government. And most especially if they do not feel at risk. And risk is kind of limited to those over 65 and those with multiple comorbidities. The vast majority of people believe they have only the risk of a bad flu.</div>
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So like my simple math predicted, I think the virus will continue to spread. I think the hospitalization and mortality rates will go up some, but not a lot. It will spread slowly to the states that weren't really infected. The cumulative death rate is going to continue to rise nationwide, but we won't see dramatic jumps like we did with New York.</div>
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I see little chance of highly effective new therapeutics or vaccines. We'll have to get to herd immunity the hard way. Keep those high risk people safe!</div>
CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-83394275961384114412020-05-05T11:18:00.000-05:002020-05-05T11:18:05.354-05:00Garbage at Healthdata.orgThe IMHE models at Healthdata.org are just garbage. If you looked at the US and Texas yesterday and then today they are completely different. Yesterday we had lots of little small ups and downs in the curves for the prior couple of weeks. Today, those have disappeared (the curves became relatively smooth) and the numbers nearly doubled. They even changed the types of data they were reporting on. Any curve that used to approach an asymptote (they leveled off), now keeps heading towards infinity.<br />
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This is all just crap. In previous blogs, I've told you why the models are bad. I also described how a simple back of the envelope assessment would show that infections would continue to increase until we had herd immunity or a vaccine. I guess the virus could also mutate into an innocuous strain.<br />
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All of the IMHE models used to have a hump and then went down. Now, they have a big, big hump and barely go down.<br />
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My conclusion is that IMHE simply uses assumptions about mitigation efficiency from lock downs and social distancing as the PRIMARY variables in their models. That is, you can change variables to change the model's output, and the variable that affects the output the most is what I am calling the primary variable.<br />
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They are apparently not using past data to validate their models and do smaller and smaller refinements. They are jumping an effective R from 1.1 to 2.0 (I made those numbers up) because they see some states starting to open. That is, they made a radical change in a primary variable.<br />
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The issue is that it has been less than a week since openings began. It takes 2 to 14 days to develop symptoms and up to another two weeks for a person to die. They have absolutely NO data on what state openings are going to do to the numbers. They are making guesses.<br />
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Have you been surprised at how accurate the models have been in the past? Me neither; they've been horribly inaccurate and a failure at prediction. Why would you want to believe their new guesses?<br />
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I hate to say it, maybe they put their best modelers on this (ha ha). But it sure looks like more fear mongering to me without a sound basis for any kind of reasonable estimate.<br />
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So once again, this is all just garbage.<br />
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<br />CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-12997131806193979402020-05-03T17:51:00.000-05:002020-05-03T17:51:23.059-05:00Ugly Visit to the Verizon Store in Selma TXSaturday was just a bad day. I've recently been having battery problems with my iPhone X. Early last week, I used it half a day and was checking my email, and it went blank. No low battery warning or anything. So I went online to see how much Apple charged for a battery replacement. It was reasonable, so I sent my iPhone in for service. The Apple stores here, like everywhere but China, are still closed.<br />
<br />
Friday mid-day, I got the iPhone back. They have you do an erase before you send it in, and they also have you pull the (Verizon) SIM card from the phone. So I put the SIM back in the 'repaired' phone and went through the phone restore process. I used an iCloud backup.<br />
<br />
Then, for some reason, the phone did an update to IOS 13.4.1. I had done that a week earlier. Was this a replacement rather than a repair? They did the service awfully quickly. Once the update was done, the iPhone wanted to do a cellular activation.<br />
<br />
The activating message stayed on the phone for quite some time, then it told me it failed, and I needed to connect to a PC running iTunes or a Mac. At this cellular activating stage, there is no way to get out of the 'activating' cycle, you cannot get to the home page or any of your apps. The phone is pretty useless. I found out later, if you pull the SIM out, you can get to the home page and the phone will do everything except use cellular. You know, everything except make phone calls and texting.<br />
<br />
So I hooked it up to my PC, and it tried activating through iTunes. Another failure. I hooked it up to my Mac and used Finder (the newest MacOS does not run iTunes). Activating through iTunes resulted in another failure. So I left the phone for the evening and tried to relax.<br />
<br />
Saturday morning I got up and got on the Verizon chat support line. They took me through a bunch of stuff. Part of which also showed that the IMEI on the iPhone was not the same number as before I sent it off for repair. I was pretty sure this was a replacement iPhone, though Apple had not told me that. The support guru finally told me to take the iPhone into a Verizon store and get a new, free SIM.<br />
<br />
So off we (my wife and I) went to the Verizon store in Selma. The closest one that was still open. When we got there, there was a Verizon rep outside the door taking a look at people's phones. After a few minutes, I got my chance.<br />
<br />
Please take the following as a paraphrased account. I do not have perfect recall.<br />
<br />
I told the 'gentleman' about my problem. That Apple had replaced my battery and now the iPhone wouldn't activate cellular service and the Verizon chat support had told me to come in and get a new SIM.<br />
<br />
He looked at my phone, which was on the Update to IOS 13.4.1 Complete page (where the activation starts after pressing the Continue button.) He told me I needed to update my phone and handed it back to me.<br />
<br />
I told him I had already updated my phone and gave it back to him. I told him the IMEI didn't match what Verizon had on their device page, and re-emphasized that Verizon tech had told me to get a new SIM.<br />
<br />
He told me it didn't matter what my IMEI showed, and that a new SIM would not make a difference and handed the phone back to me.<br />
<br />
I was starting to get pretty heated. I don't like going to ask for tech support in person, as most don't have a clue. But this guy wouldn't even take me in and try to solve the problem.<br />
<br />
So I asked to speak to the manager. He said he was the manager, and he had 20 years of experience. That it wasn't a SIM problem and that it was a phone issue. And he handed the phone back to me again!<br />
<br />
I asked him to pull the SIM, he did, and I showed him that the iPhone was fully functional except for the cellular activation.<br />
<br />
At some point during our conversation, I think about now, he had hit the Continue button and saw the attempt to activate. He also saw that the phone go to the Connect to a PC or Mac page. So he told me to take it home and connect to a PC or Mac.<br />
<br />
I told him again that I had done that, also with the Verizon chat tech, and they had told me to go to a Verizon store and get a new SIM. I was pretty heated, and my voice was probably fairly loud. We were outside the store and people were lining up behind us. I drove 25 miles to this store at the Verizon tech support's recommendation, and this guy wasn't even going to try a new SIM.<br />
<br />
He finally said to come into the store, but that my wife could not accompany me. They had a guard on duty inside that was locking and unlocking the door. The Verizon guy said they were only allowing one person in the store at a time. Seemed there were half a dozen Verizon people in there, but nobody but me as a customer.<br />
<br />
Well, he pulled out a new SIM from the back of the store and put it in, and it behaved the same way as the previous SIM. He told me to take it home, connect to iTunes or a Mac and get back on line with a tech rep. I asked him whether he meant Verizon or Apple, and he said Verizon.<br />
<br />
So I went home, connected the iPhone to my Mac, and called Verizon support on my wife's phone. They went through the whole story again, had me hold for a bit, then told me they would connect me to Tier 2 support who had more troubleshooting ability. I was on hold for an hour listening to their music before I gave up and hung up. Then I did a bit of troubleshooting on my own. I tried a reset and this time I didn't do an iCloud restore, thinking maybe the previous restore had somehow messed up. Didn't do any good. Had the same cellular activation problems.<br />
<br />
So I decided to go to my media room and watch some TV to relax. I got there and tried to turn on my projector. But it's status lights wouldn't even come on. The projector had failed too.<br />
<br />
I did not go to bed happy yesterday.<br />
<br />
Today I got up and connected to the Apple support chat line. I like chat because I can be exact and don't forget anything, and it is easier to stay cool. They are always very polite! Anyway, I went through the problem with support person #1. After a while, she transferred me to her supervisor, support person #2 that claimed to have more tools and expertise. After a while, he said he needed to transfer me to phone tech support, and he scheduled a call in about 5 minutes. He said I should have iTunes up on my computer, and that he thought they could fix the problem from their end.<br />
<br />
Apple support person #3 called on schedule, and I went through a lot of the story again. He went off and did some checking. Then pointed out that they had replaced my iPhone rather than repaired it, and that he believed the replacement iPhone was defective. So they are sending me another replacement iPhone. That's where I am in the process today.<br />
<br />
I want to point out that the Verizon store manager was correct about it being an iPhone problem rather than a SIM card problem. At least, that seems likely. I hope it isn't a bug in the new IOS 13.4.1. But that manager was the rudest customer service rep I have ever encountered. I sure hope his employees don't follow his lead on how to make their customers happy. The Verizon chat and phone support people were nice though; despite not providing useful help.<br />
<br />
<br />CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-69281768598308130782020-04-29T09:29:00.000-05:002020-04-29T09:29:26.195-05:00Fantasy Novels - A Rare Misfire by Martha Carr and Michael AnderleIn most cases I really like Martha Carr and Michael Anderle's books. Martha Carr tends to favor urban fantasy novels that seem written without an excess of sexual detail; rather refreshing. Michael Anderle seems to like to write fantasy in a science fiction setting. They have collaborated quite a few times. They've generated a number of fantasy 'worlds' that have included spin offs and collaborations with others. They are prolific, and I like almost all of their work.<br />
<br />
I just started reading "The Witches of Pressler Street" series. This seems more likely a Martha Carr work with Anderle assisting.<br />
<br />
But it's got a big gotcha in the plot that is almost impossible to get through. You've got the three sister witches trying to avoid the usual world ending attack by the evil entity. To do that, they have to destroy at least seven of twelve magical generators and capture the entity. The generators are in known locations, and the sisters have a couple of tools that let them destroy the generators pretty easily. They also have the magical ability to transport themselves to the locations of the generators. If the entity starts up six generators, the world will end. And the entity only has to capture six witches to do that.<br />
<br />
So do they take a day and destroy the generators? No! Well why not you might ask?<br />
<br />
Because it will interrupt their work and love lives. The senior sister is an archaeologist on a summer sabbatical and wants to get it done, but doesn't think it is safe to do the generator destroying alone. They need all three sisters.<br />
<br />
The middle sister is a musician and cannot, of course, cancel any of her performances.<br />
<br />
The youngest sister is an aspiring chef and has a new boyfriend. She won't skip out on her shifts or cancel any of her dates.<br />
<br />
This has got to be the stupidest plot line I've ever seen from either author, and in reality, from any author. They get around to a generator once or twice a week. The only thing more stupid than their attitude is that the evil entity doesn't seem to be any smarter or faster. Why, I don't know.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, their writing, besides the plot, is as good as usual. Read at your own risk.<br />
<br />
<br />CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-45118765175734329832020-04-26T13:24:00.001-05:002020-04-26T13:24:31.048-05:00Half-Baked IdeasAs usual, I feel irritation when people make arguments without thinking them through. The two half-baked ideas I’m thinking about today are (1) We cannot reopen the economy safely without wide-spread testing and (2) App infection tracing will allow us to reopen safely.<br />
<br />
First, I could dispute that reopening safely soon is possible in any set of circumstances. But I don’t want to go that route. Instead, let’s look at what testing or app infection tracing get us.<br />
<br />
I’ll start with testing. We have several options:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Tested recently and you have the virus</li>
<li>Tested recently and you do not have the virus</li>
<li>Tested for antibodies and you probably have recovered</li>
<li>Tested for antibodies and you probably never had the virus</li>
<li>You haven’t been tested recently and you are a complete unknown</li>
</ol>
<div>
Who do we allow to go back to work? Remember, these great medical thinkers want us to be safe, so they don’t want workers spreading the virus. Tested #3 is the only really safe worker. Tested #2 is good for at least a day after testing; but thereafter, could have picked up the virus. Tested #4 is a person who hasn’t had the virus and enough time has passed to develop enough antibodies for protection, but they might also still have an infection, or they might get one tomorrow.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In short, only tested #3 going back to work is the safe approach. But that means we only allow you to go back to work if you’ve had the virus. Numbers today show only 1 million are in that category, and most of those are presumed from virus (not antibody) testing and recovery. Actual antibody testing has been limited to sample sizes of about 1,000 people in several areas.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, let’s assume we can scale up antibody testing massively in a short period (probably a poor assumption). If the current sampling is correct, maybe 2% of the population has had the virus and recovered. It’s almost certainly a much smaller percentage since the sampling was in high-case areas. But let’s make an even more ridiculous assumption, 5% of the working population has had the virus and recovered. People want to keep social distancing and masks, so mitigation is expected to continue to slow the spread.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Can our economy run on 5% of it’s workforce? Can it run on even 20% of it’s workforce? My assertion would be no. Too many without paychecks and too many businesses without sufficient employees. We would have a crash. So the ‘must do testing first’ is a half-baked idea.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now let’s look at app tracing of infected people. Let’s make the ridiculous assumption that 75% of the population old enough to be out on their own with phones has signed up, downloaded the app and keeps their status up to date.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let’s further assume that we have the 5 test cases we looked at in the previous discussion. Everyone keeps their test status up to date in their app. However, in this situation, we just have slowly growing testing. It’s not yet widespread testing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So what is the safety benefit from this app? Supposedly, it’s going to tell you (the government) who has come in contact with a contagious individual. Maybe the app will also tell you (the user) when you’ve been exposed. So far, no safety benefit yet. If you’ve been exposed, you might get priority for testing. Some might assume that contagious and exposed people will be ineligible for working and would be quarantined and isolated. But if the infected are quarantined or isolated, there would be no exposures for the app to detect and trace. Hence, one assumes there is neither effective mandatory government quarantining or voluntary isolation. Again, no safety benefit.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Suppose the primary safety benefit or use is to identify individuals ineligible to work. And the app tracking is all post exposure after someone is tested and updates their status. That is, any contacts in the last 14 days has to self isolate for another 14 days. So, nobody gets to work unless the app gives them a clean bill of health for the last 14 days; i.e., no exposure during that period.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ok. Now suppose the app became available and the 200 million workers in the US all downloaded it on day 1. The 1 million cases update their status. The 6 thousand tested for antibodies do the same. There is no historical contact data, so everyone else shows clean, irrespective of their actual status. Let’s assume that the government is smart and prevents reopening for 14 days until contact histories are available. With current mitigation, you might have 1.5 million now possibly exposed. So everyone else can go back to work safely?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well, unless you take into account the 75% of infected who were asymptomatic or had symptoms comparable to a cold or flu. The app simply cannot find those people and in turn, the people that they came in contact with. The app would give government the ability to do contact tracing for those hospitalized. But with 75% asymptomatic, that’s a pretty useless capability. It also assumes a huge contact tracing operation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So app tracing might supplement testing, if enough people sign up. But by itself, all it would do is allow widespread reopening with a lot of contagious, asymptomatic workers. Workers that would be spreading the infection.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, I consider app tracing/tracking to be another half-baked idea.</div>
CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-13989861610405466082020-04-25T16:26:00.001-05:002020-04-25T16:26:16.393-05:00COVID-19 There’s No Indication That ...I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that medical authorities either mislead or directly lie to the public nearly all the time. As a physicist and engineer I’ve always had my concerns about doctors and their knowledge. I’m sure most have good intentions, but I get the impression that they just draw on a body of knowledge to make a best guess. If they don’t give you a test, it cannot be more than a good guess. It’s likely to be better than mine. If they do tests, they may arrive at a conclusion with a higher probability. But there is very little certainty.<br />
<br />
Take my prostate cancer. In my fifties I had a high PSA test. They did a biopsy that seemed to take samples at random. The samples suggested I had a mild, non-aggressive version of cancer. They recommended watchful waiting, but also said I had the option of removing my prostate. I took the option. Analysis of the removed tissue indicated the cancer was moderately aggressive. Their recommended watchful waiting could have killed me. Their biopsy had produced the wrong conclusion.<br />
<br />
Now take the Wuhan virus. China and the World Health Organization (WHO) both said there was no evidence of human to human contagion. This was in early January. In this case they both lied. A little later they said the virus did not spread easily between humans. Sure thing.<br />
<br />
More recently, after several animals were found to be infected with COVID-19, the WHO said there was no reason to believe that animals could give COVID-19 to humans. So if the virus jumped from bats to humans as both China and the WHO insist, as opposed to escaping from a lab, how do they make that claim? Maybe they said pets and not animals, so they wouldn’t have been literally lying.<br />
<br />
Then take there’s no evidence that masks will protect you from the virus. They even said they could be harmful. That was the WHO, CDC, and the US Surgeon General. What do people think the masks were created to do? How stupid did they think the public could be? Are you now using a mask?<br />
<br />
Then there’s the common, there is no evidence that medicine X will cure COVID-19. Any data is purely anecdotal. So take a French report that says hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc sulfate can prevent a serious case of COVID-19 when used early. New York does clinical trials and only uses it in serious cases, much later than the ‘anecdotal’ report suggested. Or the trial doesn’t use all three. Or it uses chloroquine instead of hydroxychloroquine. The trial doesn’t work, so they say hydroxychloroquine cannot assist in COVID-19 cases. Sure.<br />
<br />
And that last one brings in the media. Most of the media and all the democrats want Trump to do poorly and lose the upcoming election. You should believe what they say at your own risk. My personal opinion is that most will use the fear of the virus to keep the lock downs in place as long as possible. If republican governors open early, additional deaths can be thrown at their feet. A crumbling economy to them is just gravy. It hurts Trump and let’s the House pass more spending bills to increase the dependency of the public on government.<br />
<br />
I’ll close with the testing mantra. Sure, doctors want more testing. The media and democrats want lock downs to continue until testing of everyone. It’s kind of like waiting for a vaccine. More testing and continued lock downs could save more lives. But I haven’t seen anyone give a realistic plan that shows how more testing let’s us open up sooner.<br />
<br />
Believe what you will.<br />
<br />
<br />CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-62390302640965518252020-04-24T10:51:00.000-05:002020-04-24T10:51:32.444-05:00Suppose President Trump Had Issued a National Lock Down OrderI wanted to do some thought experiments. Namely, what would have happened if President Trump had tried to institute a national lock down to mitigate the corona virus epidemic? Lots of the media and democrats criticized him for not doing that; they wanted a national, uniform response, not just a set of recommendations or guide lines.<br />
<br />
First, I tried looking up the legal basis for martial law. As far as I can see, there isn't any in the US. A few presidents have used it in limited areas and situations, and the Supreme Court has imposed restrictions on what they can and cannot do. So apparently, the courts will sometimes allow the use of martial law, but no president has tried anything on a national basis.<br />
<br />
How about the use of natural disaster or health disaster laws for presidential use? Yeah, they exist and are used. But they primarily allow the president to apply funds to support whatever disaster is happening or has happened. They may allow for federal government to control freedom of movement in disaster areas when the local governors or managers are unable to do so. State laws tend to allow that level of control also. Nothing I've ever seen or heard about allows shutting down businesses and ordering people to shelter inside at risk of fines or jail when their area has not undergone significant physical damage or loss of life.<br />
<br />
But back to our thought experiment. The media and democrats wanted a national directive from President Trump shutting down businesses and ordering people to stay at home. Some may have been sincere in that desire. However, others may have been simply trying to find something to criticize President Trump about.<br />
<br />
Suppose he had taken the bait and issued an executive order shutting down all non-essential businesses and ordering shelter-in-place across the nation. Maybe he even called up the National Guard and had them start patrolling highways and cities for violators. Just like the democratic governors did and many republican governors. Of course, they used police for the most part and didn't really do much arresting or fining; but they did some. But in this thought experiment, the governors didn't get the chance to act, the President did.<br />
<br />
Now, just like with anything President Trump does, the media will start complaining it was wrong and the House of Representatives will start investigating his impeachable offense. But we'll also get the lawsuits started in federal district courts with Obama appointed judges.<br />
<br />
Inside of days, some federal district judge will say his actions were unconstitutional and were applied heedless of the situation in their region. He or she will issue a nation-wide injunction against the Executive Order. President Trump will ask the Supreme Court for an immediate hold to stop the judge's order.<br />
<br />
Unlike most nation-wide injunctions, this one actually addresses an unconstitutional action. But the Supreme Court, at least a few of them, think the Executive Order is the right thing to do even so. So they put the district judge's order on hold and ask for an emergency hearing with arguments from the parties within a week.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, Antifa and Black Lives Matter and democrats throughout the nation are demonstrating against the President's order. Rising cases in New York and New Jersey are pretty much ignored by all of the media except Fox. Everyone else insists this is just a bad case of the flu. And it's especially bad in New York.<br />
<br />
The President rushes to build emergency hospitals, build up testing capacity, and directs manufacture of ventilators. The media derides these unnecessary actions. Much of the country hunkers down like directed, fearful for their safety and trying to wait out the evolution of the bug to see if it is a bad flu or a plague.<br />
<br />
Congress points out how the President is quickly destroying our economy, and even some Republicans agree. They rush to quickly pass a $10 trillion relief package that gives money to everyone, including illegal aliens, all business in the US, and states and localities impacted by reduced income. All businesses have to give up some of their ownership stock, limit executive salaries, and agree to an $18 minimum wage. They plan up to 4 more relief packages like this unless the President withdraws his edict.<br />
<br />
Now the Supreme Court meets and the questions show that conservative justices think the President's order is unconstitutional on its face. The liberals seem to be simply trying to point out how the order was not needed in the current circumstances. Two days later, they announce a unanimous decision that the edict is unconstitutional and order the Executive Order in abeyance. The liberals wrote their own assenting opinion stating they believed such an order could be constitutional, but not in these circumstances.<br />
<br />
Before the President and his team can respond, governors across the nation issue hygiene and social distancing guidelines. Some order stay-at-home and shutdown of non-essential businesses for a few of the larger cities with break-out hot spots.<br />
<br />
The President comes on national TV, points out the hypocrisy of everyone that wanted him to issue a nation-wide executive order, and talks about all of the great work he's done getting the medical community help to prepare for the pandemic.<br />
<br />
The 25 million people out of work for a month now, start going back to work. But demand is down, and people still are avoiding crowded stores and arenas. The now $30 trillion deficit and all of the new dollars in circulation start generating inflation. Supply chains are still under stress, so everything goes up in price.<br />
<br />
By the time of the election, the unemployment rate is down to 11%, and the media and democrats are decrying the lousy economy that President Trump caused through his order.<br />
<br />
Joe Biden has avoided debates and all the people have seen are ads showing him 5 years earlier when he didn't have dementia. He picked Kamala Harris for vice president.<br />
<br />
The election is a runaway for Joe Biden. Trump goes down hard. Democrats pick up big majorities in the Senate and House. One week after Joe's inauguration, he resigns due to medical issues. Kamala Harris becomes president. The country never recovers and 10% unemployment and zero percent growth last forever. Freedoms disappear year after year as democrats pass ever more restrictive laws. Except of course, for their open borders that bring in millions of democratic voters each year.<br />
<br />
Thought experiment conclusion: It's a good thing President Trump did not issue an executive order locking down the nation!CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-20411563172539309752020-04-24T09:27:00.001-05:002020-04-24T09:27:25.236-05:00COVID-19 Antibody Tests ARE Good NewsI guess I want to argue again with Scott Adams. He disparages the news that antibody tests show large portions of the populations of California and New York had corona virus but were not included in the official number of 'cases.'<br />
<br />
His argument took two hypothetical bugs (reasonable since we don't know anything really about COVID-19 statistics). One was a low spreading flu with low mortality rates. Another was a quickly spreading corona virus with high mortality rates. He claimed it was ridiculous to compare the two, that the corona virus was a blight on humanity while the flu was an inconvenience. Those are my words, not his.<br />
<br />
But he was making the same case about the antibody test results that showed it fast spreading. He said it didn't mean anything because it was still a killer and a killer that spreads fast. That the antibody results are not good news.<br />
<br />
The point he doesn't seem to take into account is that the mortality and hospital rates are a lot lower than anticipated. They should be compared to the earlier assumptions about COVID-19 and not some lesser flu. He persists in comparing apples to oranges, when all the antibody data does is refine our understanding of COVID-19.<br />
<br />
If the antibody results showed that no one else had gotten the virus that wasn't an official case tested at hospitals, then the mortality rate would have been high, and you could just argue that mitigation efforts (lock downs and hygiene) successfully retarded the spread and kept the death rate down. You would have to remain fearful about the virus' effects in rural America.<br />
<br />
But now we know that mitigation was not nearly as successful as we expected. That mortality rates are lower. And that hospitals, at least of the quality of those in New York, can handle a widely spread epidemic of COVID-19.<br />
<br />
Now we have data that we can apply to more sparsely populated counties and states. We know what the hospitalization and mortality rates could be if they get a 20% infection rate.<br />
<br />
What I don't know is whether those areas have sufficient hospital capacity. Yet even so, it is useful data that can inform state and local managers on how fast they can afford to reopen.CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-35001760734520681602020-04-21T14:20:00.000-05:002020-04-21T14:20:26.990-05:00COVID-19 Testing, Herd Immunity and VaccinesLet’s talk about the ‘normal’ flu for a moment. Actually there isn’t a normal flu. Apparently there are many versions. Each year somebody guesses which strains are going to hit and tries to target our annual vaccine to those strains. Usually we hear the vaccine is 30 to 60% effective. I’m not sure whether that means the vaccine doesn’t work against the targeted strains or whether they guessed wrong on which strains to vaccinate against.<br />
<br />
Let’s stay on flu for a bit longer. Have you ever heard of anyone getting a flu test to see whether they have a flu virus? I would guess if you go to a hospital, they might administer a test. How about anybody ever getting an antibody test to see if they have recovered and are immune to another bout? You might assert we have herd immunity from those who’ve been sick and those who get the vaccine? Then why do 20,000 to 60,000 die each year from the flu? Maybe the medical community doesn’t think the costs of additional testing will have any benefit?<br />
<br />
Now to COVID-19. I initially heard there were two strains of the virus. The last report I saw indicated a dozen strains. Now, not being medical, nor having seen the reports, I cannot say what that means to potential vaccine effectiveness or to potential herd immunity. I am not making any claim that COVID-19 is just another flu. What I am doing is trying to make some points about expectations on handling COVID-19.<br />
<br />
First, even if we get a vaccine or vaccines at 12 or 18 months, or even at 6 months, we shouldn’t expect it to be more than 30 to 60% effective. I would rough that out to mean if you get a vaccine, you’ve only reduced your risk by about 50% if you are exposed to the virus. Every bit helps, and I would still like to get a vaccine.<br />
<br />
Now, would you like herd immunity? That would mean enough of us are immune so a seed of the virus couldn’t spread. Obviously a good thing if it can be achieved without a lot of people dying. From our experience with multiple strains of the flu, limited flu vaccine effectiveness, and known rates of people willing to get a vaccine, herd immunity seems unlikely to happen.<br />
<br />
Let’s look at herd immunity from a different perspective. I’ve seen reports that to achieve herd immunity (e.g. with measles or mumps) you have to get 60% of a population immune or vaccinated. We’ve already touched on vaccinations. What about through normal spread? They say it’s much more contagious than the flu (although I haven’t seen any evidence or data); so let’s assume that is true. Further, they say the worst cases are so much worse than the flu; maybe. But the point I’m making is that fear has caused us to shut down the economy and hide. People are accused of being heartless and murderers if they congregate or go around without a mask. The result is that we have done everything possible to slow the spread of the virus and prevent herd immunity.<br />
<br />
So my conclusion is that both vaccine promise and potential herd immunity are questionable. We need to get on with life and learn to live with COVID-19.<br />
<br />
Now I want to touch on testing for a moment. A couple of blogs back I pointed out my views on widespread testing—not that helpful. But that was a macro view. What about the micro view?<br />
<br />
Suppose you have a county with 1,000 cases and 50 deaths up to now. You’ve got at least one mid-sized city and 200,000 people. You are still seeing a dozen new cases every few days. You’ve been on shelter-in-place with non-essential businesses closed. Let’s say the governor is letting the county manager do their own thing. 30% of your workers are out of business with nearly all small businesses closed and at risk of bankruptcy. You want to start opening again, but everyone is saying you need extensive testing.<br />
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What are the considerations? Current testing constraints say you can only test 0.5% of your population each week. If you let only recovered or immune back to work, you can only let 1,000 people go back to work now. You can start broadening testing up to 1,000 people per week. Assuming all those are negative or have antibodies, you can open up at a rate of 1,000 per week. With 30% unemployment, that might be 1,000 out of 30,000 people. It would only take 6 months to get everyone back to work. And that’s if you only tested healthy, unemployed working age people.<br />
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But what about customers for the stores you open? Do they get tests? You don’t have enough. What about the regular workers not out of work. Do they get tested? What about contact tracing for new cases, do you test them too?<br />
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If the government is able to get more testing supplies, maybe they can double the testing in a month or two. It’s not clear to me that any significant quantity of large-scale testing machines are being built. Do we want to wait 2, 3 or 6 months with a closed economy until we can get huge numbers of people tested? I don’t. And I sure haven’t seen any testing capability in the past that says we can actually achieve that goal.<br />
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Stop reading these and get on with your life. Be safe!<br />
<br />CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-28255523713138234182020-04-21T09:29:00.000-05:002020-04-21T09:29:27.875-05:00Reopening Day at a Texas State ParkThought I would depart for a few hours from COVID-19 posting. The governor of Texas allowed state parks to reopen yesterday. And I wanted to go hiking before they closed them again. But it was a pretty weird experience.<br />
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Even before they had closed a few weeks ago, they had started requiring you to go online and get a day pass. The offices were supposed to be closed, and so were the RV/tent camping areas. The online site was going to reopen Sunday at noon to start taking reservations. But for a couple of hours after noon, all it said for Guadalupe River State Park was that you should call for reservations; but the phone line was disconnected. I tried back mid-afternoon and got a reservation/day use pass.<br />
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Apparently, they are allowing 100 passes per day for a pretty large park. Although they have a section north of the river that gets very few visitors and it was allowed 60 passes per day. The big draw for the main park (south section) is the river. Almost everyone goes there or to the RV park.<br />
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But the main park also has what many would call a back country trail system. I put together a set of trails that are just shy of 5.5 miles that I can do in under 2 hours. If you go to the northern section, you could add several miles. But the main park is 20 minutes away, the northern section is a 30+ minute drive. On the trail system in the main park, I usually encounter 1 to 2 people in the 0800-1000 time frame (no weekends, I don't like crowds).<br />
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For some reason, the governor mandated masks while in the park. At the crowded river section, that would make sense. On an empty hiking trail, it's just idiocy. If you hike fast, you are going to need a lot of air, and those masks are made for standing around a hospital bed. Anyway, I was hoping it would be cool enough I could use my buff and just pull it up if I came to anybody. But it got hot in the car, so I took it off. I used an industrial mask when showing my pass, but then took it off as I parked. I carried the mask in my fanny pack, but figured I would just step off the trail 10-12 feet and let any other hikers or bikers pass.<br />
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Well, the hike started normal enough. It's pretty rocky in sections, and the grass had grown up without hikers and made it a bit treacherous. I'm glad I've got strong ankles. I didn't see anyone for the first hour. But at about 45 minutes into the hike, I saw a shadow cross the trail up ahead. I just caught it in my peripheral vision. I figured it was a deer that had noticed me and run across the trail.<br />
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Well, as I passed the tree beyond which the animal had run, I started looking around to see if it was still in the vicinity. That's when I heard a sound halfway between a growl and a bark. I looked to the left and there was the ugliest boar I had ever seen, about 30 feet away, staring at me. I've been ready for bears (in other areas) and know to make a fuss with black bears and to gently walk away with grizzlies. But no one ever said what to do with a boar. The few I had seen before were far away and didn't come close.<br />
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On videos, I had seen them charging hunters. So I was a bit nervous. Actually, quite nervous. I kept walking away, at a slightly slower pace so it wouldn't think I was running, while checking to see that he wasn't charging. He growled/barked again, but didn't come towards me. I checked behind me for a while after that.<br />
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Well, another 15 minutes go by, and I hear some internal combustion engines up ahead. They are supposed to be working on the RV/camping areas, so I thought maybe it was construction. Though I wasn't really near those areas. I come around a bend, and there are two park maintenance guys running weed-eaters and wearing masks. They don't seem to be social distancing. I've never seen any park rangers or maintenance on foot, in the probably 100 visits to this trail system. I've seen guys on tractors with mowing decks twice.<br />
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This isn't my pre-planned encounter. They aren't moving, so I cannot get off the trail to let them pass. And I don't have my mask on. So I slow down, and slowly approach with the plan to get off trail and pass them. But they turn their weed-eaters off and put them on the ground. They seemed ready to either tackle me or run off, and I don't think they were going to run off. My wife said it was probably just courtesy, but you can let off the trigger, and still let the weed-eaters run.<br />
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Of course, as I approach they state that the Governor has required everybody entering the park to wear masks. The speaker sounded about 18 years old. I pointed out that they were the only people I had seen on the trail, and that I wore my mask when I entered the park. They didn't seem amused. So after I passed them, I got my mask out of the pack and put it on. After I got out of sight, I pulled it down, but left it around my neck. I was coming up on an area where, if I saw anybody, they would be hiking.<br />
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Towards the end of my loop, I encountered a biker. We both stopped and pulled up our masks. When we got close I mentioned the park weed-eaters had pointed out the masks. He said yeah he knew. He was the only other person I saw on the 5.5 miles of trail, beyond the ridiculous weed-eaters.<br />
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Remember, this is a back country trail. It is not marked as being accessible, and anyone with any kind of difficulty walking long distances or over rocks should not use it. I don't even want my wife with her weak ankles walking there. I always thought it was stupid to use the mowing deck. But weed-eaters are just plain idiocy. I'm a bit unhappy that my taxes and park pass fees are going to that kind of trail maintenance. <br />
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Another thing that was peculiar. My route first takes me to a horse trailer parking area. There's a picnic table and a nice bench. A second nice bench had been added. About a third of the way around, there is a nice bench out in the middle of nowhere. It had been replaced with a cheap $20 monstrosity built from one or two 2" x 8"s. Why? Another third of the way, they have a horse hitching post (metal) and two nice benches under the trees. The benches under the trees were gone, and there were two monstrosities next to the hitching post in the open sun. One was only a foot away from the post. Again, why?<br />
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There was also one picnic table near the RV area, but along the trail, that was still there. I had thought they might take away the tables (and maybe the benches) during the COVID-19 crisis. But taking away only the benches and replacing them with crude seats was unanticipated.<br />
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And by the way, at the trail parking area (about 8 spaces), there was one other truck. As I was driving out, two older folks walking a dog turned into the parking area from the road to go to that truck. Neither were wearing masks.<br />
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If you want to go to a Texas state park, get online soon and get your reservation made. And take a mask.CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-16060933625445930452020-04-18T11:06:00.004-05:002020-04-18T11:06:54.440-05:00COVID-19 and Democrats' Testing DrivelThis one will be short. I'm getting pretty irritated hearing democrats insist we cannot open the economy without more testing.<br />
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What do they think testing will add? We know how many are presenting themselves for assistance, hospitalized, in the ICU, and die. Suppose we knew the status of everyone else in the country? Let's take the situations one at a time.<br />
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First, let's suppose testing showed everyone has either got the virus or has had it. Would we open? Yes. No one is left to overload our hospital system.<br />
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Second, let's suppose no one that is outside the hospitals shows active infections. Some number show they have had it. Would we open? Yes. No one is left to infect the others.<br />
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Now suppose the situation is fifty/fifty. Say half the population outside the hospitals either have the virus or have had it. Further, assume that half is split evenly. Would we open? Yes. The hospitalization rate and mortality rate are so low, we can handle any future cases.<br />
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What do they expect to find that would justify keeping the economy closed?<br />
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About the only thing I would find of use, from an opening standpoint, is an unusually high rise of asymptomatic cases in a locality. Any rise is more severe cases can be detected when patients ask for doctor assistance. That might imply a soon-to-be hot spot breakout, and would justify a local lock down. But the same thing can be identified through rising doctor and hospital visits with lesser testing.<br />
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So any insistence on saturation testing is just drivel.CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-33378158460317794412020-04-17T15:54:00.000-05:002020-04-17T15:54:03.027-05:00COVID-19 Weird DataThis post is all about anecdotal reports and my inferences. I'll talk about possibilities, some that may sound like conspiracies, but I don't have a high confidence in any of the data or the conclusions I may draw below. Take it for what it's worth.<br />
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First, we have China with its 85,000 total cases and 3,500 deaths. Only one hot spot breakout (Wuhan and its province), a two month lock down, and the virus seems to disappear. Why? How is that possible for a reportedly quickly spreading virus significantly more contagious than the flu? Especially when a third of the city of Wuhan left before the lock down.<br />
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Next we have Sweden. Effectively no government ordered mitigation or lock downs. Sure, individuals may take safety precautions. But videos show the malls, shops and restaurants all open and well filled. But their mortality rate is not significantly different than that in the US and nations where mitigation occurred. And their hospitals are not overrun. How can this be?<br />
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The epicenter seemed to move from Wuhan to southern Europe to the New York metropolitan area. Sure, international travelers were likely to seed hot spots in those areas and probably in that order. But there are lots of big cities around the world that get international travelers. And China is a big exporter of everything, including travelers. Why haven't we seen other big hot spots? Sure, we instituted lock downs. But those are pretty poor lock downs. Everyone goes out for food. The streets in New York look empty, but the roads in the rest of America where we don't use public transportation are almost as crowded as ever. There's plenty of opportunities for an aggressive virus to spread through the rest of the world. But where are those big hot spots?<br />
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Then there's the ever-falling model mortality rate in the US chasing the actual mortality rate. Sure, the models are too complex to be accurate, but you would have thought one of them would have been in the ball park. Kind of like pollsters; someone ought to have guessed the actual outcome. Yet, there doesn't seem to be anyone that claims their model was close. Why?<br />
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If the data peculiarities were limited to China, I could accept that China is lying or hiding something. Some say they couldn't hide big break outs or a vaccine or an effective therapeutic. I'm not so sure about that. They control the media, communications, and their Internet portal. With international travel stopped, they could hide anything.<br />
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Let me focus on the 'rest of the world' for a moment. They saw China, Europe, and the US be cut off from all international travel and effectively quarantined. They have limited resources for testing, and probably average to poor hospital systems. Why would they do extensive testing and reporting to the WHO? So they can be the next epicenter? Or get their own border shutdown for international travel? With no testing, no vaccines, and no therapeutics, will they just treat patients for their symptoms like they've been doing for years? Unless they want COVID-19 crisis support from other countries, they are not going to report themselves into the next 'epicenter.' They are going to do as much mitigation as they can and get by.<br />
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Finally, apparently their is a California study where they tested asymptomatic volunteers. They found a 50 to 84 fold increase of those with antibodies over the reported number of cases. Keep in mind, the US is generally only testing those with severe COVID-19 symptoms. The California study suggested a very much greater spread of the virus than currently reported. And those numbers would drop the mortality percentage way down.<br />
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So something is wrong with our understanding of the virus and how it is spread. If it weren't for Sweden, you might say we don't really understand the effectiveness of various mitigation techniques. And actually, I'm pretty sure we don't. <br />
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Those mortality models we see in the US should have included models of how the virus affects the human body once it is gets there, how the virus is spread from human to human, how the mitigation measures slow the spread, and how the mitigation varies from region to region. Way too many variables and unknowns to create an accurate model. And the data is just not there to do good validation of a model.<br />
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But like I said earlier, somebody should have gotten a model in the ball park, just from random chance.<br />
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What I'm hoping is that the virus is at least as contagious as the experts suspect, but that it's mortality is way lower, and the various mitigation techniques' effectiveness is less than anticipated. You'll see why in a moment.<br />
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Suppose the elderly or those with comorbidities (serious chronic diseases) are really the only ones, for the most part, that are going to have serious problems and potential death. Those people are, or should be, hiding. Some won't be able to (no family support structure) and some won't be willing to give up their few remaining years of freedom to hide in their homes. Some may feel they've had a good life and if the Lord wills it, they are ready to move on.<br />
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But my point is that, given that assumption, there is only a certain percentage of the population that is going to be hospitalized. Say 10% of the population is at risk. 75% of those are hiding. So 2.5% of the population has a high risk of getting the virus. Only some of those are going to come in contact with infected people. And it will happen over time, with either a short peak or a flattened peak.<br />
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We would see small rises in cases, hospitals able to handle the load, and just a few moderate hot spots once mitigation (hiding of the susceptible) takes place.<br />
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If you don't get that high persistent fever, or serious trouble breathing, or endless painful coughing, you won't go to the hospital or get a test. If the virus is spreading rapidly, and the symptoms for 90 to 98% of the infected do not rise to that level, we can get by.<br />
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That might explain most of the weird data. New York and southern Europe got hit before the susceptible population went into hiding. The susceptible in Sweden saw what was happening in time and went into hiding on their own. In China, the Wuhan lock down made the situation obvious to everyone. But they also locked down a lot of other cities--cities that never reported monumental cases like Wuhan. Once could explain that by a combination of timely hiding and Chinese information control.<br />
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New York city and northern Italy suggest the contagion rate must be about as high or higher than believed. So we are left with the mortality rate and mitigation/hiding effectiveness as critical unknowns. Let's hope the mortality rate is really low and that those susceptible are successfully (and will continue to be) hiding.<br />
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<br />CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457012468109960825.post-23941367056542608762020-04-17T14:55:00.000-05:002020-04-17T14:55:10.960-05:00COVID-19 and the US ReopeningYesterday, I gave my off-the-cuff quick reaction to the presidential reopening plan. My primary problem was the criteria to move to the first or next phase. My second problem is anticipated issues with a pseudo-random (I exaggerate) regional reopening.<br />
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Before I get into the problems with the plan, I want to present a few ideas to think about.<br />
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<ol>
<li>The original goal was to flatten the curve. This was to slow the spread of the virus so that hospitals were not overrun and people would not die for lack of care or ICU beds or ventilators. The goal was not to reduce the number of cases or to eliminate the virus. I think the 'flattening' goal has gone by the wayside, and Governors are trying to eliminate the virus.</li>
<li>How about a simple reopening plan like everyone without serious illnesses under the age of 45 go back to work now (except for hot spots). Compare the risks of that simple plan to one were we have a patchwork of regional or state plans as in the President's proposal.</li>
<li>I've seen reports that the chemicals needed to do testing are about to run out due to the worldwide run on the items. If that's true, we'll have to scale back testing instead of expanding it.</li>
</ol>
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PROBLEM 1<br />
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Let's look more closely at the gating criteria. There's one for symptoms, one for cases, and one for hospitals.<br />
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<ul>
<li>SYMPTOMS: "Downward trajectory of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) reported within a 14-day period AND Downward trajectory of covid-like syndromic cases reported within a 14-day period."</li>
<li>CASES: "Downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period OR Downward trajectory of positives tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period (flat or increasing volume of tests)."</li>
<li>HOSPITALS: "Treat all patients without crisis care AND Robust testing program in place for at-risk healthcare workers, including emerging antibody testing."</li>
</ul>
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According to the President's plan, you need to meet all three criteria before entering Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3.</div>
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I'm not too worried about the HOSPITALS gate criteria. Protecting hospital workers should be doable. I'm not sure what they mean by "without crisis care." Is this not a crisis? Are not all COVID-19 patients being treated under the states' crisis plans? Maybe they mean without withholding care to those least likely to survive because care has to be rationed? That seems most likely to me. But the wording is just horribly ambiguous.</div>
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The SYMPTOMS and CASES criteria are also poorly worded. What is a "Downward trajectory ... within a 14-day period?" In physics/ballistics, a downward trajectory means the item drops continuously throughout the path. So the most common usage would mean a continuous drop in [cases] over a 14-day period. I would assume you could throw out a couple of days where you had increases. But that is a truly idiotic criteria--until you get near saturation, it's very difficult for a spreading virus to produce ever smaller numbers of cases and symptoms. Either they are using another interpretation, or they are idiots that don't want the economy to reopen.</div>
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Let's take SYMPTOMS. This is essentially the reported number of cases with flu-like symptoms AND the reported number of cases with COVID-19 symptoms. If testing keeps rising and more people interact, you almost cannot, under any circumstances, meet this gate criteria until herd immunity is reached. Though, it might happen if summer causes the virus to recede. That's why I think they don't mean a downward trajectory for 14 days. Maybe they mean at the end of any 14-day window, the end number is less than the starting number. But that too is ridiculous, since it looks only at instantaneous values that may not represent a trend.</div>
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The CASES gate criteria is a little better. You still have problems with the "downward trajectory" terminology, but this time it's an OR situation; i.e. either of two situations is enough to meet the criteria. The first criteria is just a downward trajectory of documented cases. I expect that means cases where the patient has tested positive for COVID-19. But again, if testing increases as the virus spreads, this one is hard to meet.</div>
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The second criteria is a downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests, but they add a parenthetical of flat or increasing volume of tests. The parenthetical suggests that if the number of tests executed drops, you cannot meet this criteria. Except for the parenthetical, I kind of like this criteria. Testing and cases can still increase (what you might expect), but if the percent of tests that are positive drops, you can still go into the next phase.</div>
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My take away is that the SYMPTOMS criteria is tough to meet. The CASES criteria might be a little easier. The HOSPITALS criteria should be fine anywhere except a small county hospital. But the terminology, if taken literally, would make the criteria almost impossible to meet.</div>
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Also, there is no criteria that requires a state, region, or locality to fall back to a previous phase. Yet that would seem pretty likely if hot spots break out.</div>
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I would assess a grade of D- for the gating criteria. The ridiculously ambiguous terminology means every decision maker will read them however they want. If they try to use them rigidly, they won't be able to open their economies.</div>
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PROBLEM 2</div>
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Let's start by thinking about an option that the President did not present. Opening the entire country using a consistent set of criteria. An example would be Scott Adam's "everyone under 45 without serious illness could go back to work now." You would have problems with senior managers not being available--giving companies a lot of second thoughts. And he didn't describe how/when the others would go back to work. But his 'all under 45' plan has the benefit of all businesses potentially restarting at once except for those in hot spot break out areas. Manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, service industries and consumers all start back together. There are no major supply chain issues except for an initial delay. Products and services start flowing and most consumers start buying.</div>
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Now we go to the President's plan. Let's make some assumptions that may or may not be true. Either way, they will be representative of what could happen. Let's say the northeast states maintain their lock downs for another month and a half, maybe through mid summer. They've been hit the hardest and are afraid to open up. The west coast does a partial opening. They want to be safe, and they are used to telling their citizens what they can and cannot do with endless freedom-crimping laws. They keep closed what they call non-essential businesses. Florida has so many elderly residents that they keep some kind of lock down. The rest of the country goes lighter, and opens more, but it's hit and miss. Big cities stay locked down. Blue states tend to retain tighter restrictions.</div>
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Now let's go into businesses in some of those states. Assume you are a retail shop that is reopening, and you get your key items from a manufacturer in the northeast. That manufacturer is closed because his state either retains a lock down or considers those products non-essential. The retail shop has no product to sell until the manufacturer reopens or they can find an alternate supplier.</div>
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Let's look at a bigger business. Say one that produces military aircraft. The big business is an integrator. They sourced parts from around the country so that every senator and many congress persons would all have something to lose if they cancel the aircraft program. But their suppliers in the northeast and on the west coast cannot deliver. The big business cannot keep their production line open.</div>
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Now turn to the leisure travel industry -- people on vacation. I'll only look at in-country travel for this issue. You cannot go to Disney World or Disney Land or any of the theme parks near them. I didn't make an assumption about national parks, but let's assume they open or close depending on their state and it's phases. So some parks will be open. But most people are going to drive to get to them. What happens if they are starting from a locked down state or need to go through one? It's probably safe if you stay on the interstates (for tickets), but try and get a hotel room in a locked down state (ha). Most of the popular beaches will also be closed. Will Las Vegas open? It's in a blue state near California. Vegas has lots of crowds. I doubt it. Camping at your local state park seems the most likely option. If your state doesn't think that hookups and picnic tables present too big of a risk of spreading the virus (Texas thought so).</div>
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My conclusions are that this plan has the potential for chaos where supply chains are broken and the public is very limited in how they can use their vacation time.</div>
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If I were a governor, I might use the Phases approach to specify what people and businesses should do. But I would make my own gate criteria. Most people won't have access to the data to tell whether the gate criteria are being met anyway. And the President didn't try to make his plan mandatory for anybody.</div>
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It looks some regional groupings of governors are going to try and do a coordinated reopening (or continued lock down). My guess is it's going to be a chaotic free-for-all that makes no one happy. </div>
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CipherGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10262765410473033555noreply@blogger.com0