TrickstaPriest

The people I work with don't appreciate the scale a virus can work on, or have any ability to judge reality. I envy people who work with normal people that understand the basis of reality.
CES

That's a great bit of journalism.  So it seems like maybe as much as 30% of the deaths are not being recorded.
 
 

AAAHHHGGGGHHHH!!!!

Gotta vent.
 
So...yesterday the Governor expanded the restrictions;  grocery stores are restricted to 20% of their capacity, starting this morning.  Well, today was the day I'd planned, plus my normal "damn I'm an old fart" prescriptions had to be picked up.

So I get them, get a couple things at Nat Grocers...then hit Sprouts.  They've got a door monitor, and there's a short line.  No big.  Everyone's cool.  Except for this one idiot woman in front of me, going "this is all stupid, we don't need this, it's nothing more than the flu."  You know the lines.  OK, MAYBE I can see the argument down here;  we had 30 cases as of last night, in a county of about 220,000.  Still, the blanket rejection is foolish, IMO.  But THEN, of course, she trots out the classic.  "It's all because people don't like the President."
 
Unreal.  STILL?  Wow.  Let's just deny the evidence from around the world.  From every competent authority.  Does this count as blinders?  Or simply blind?
 
Upside...meat counter was nicely packed.  They had the frozen ground venison I really like...and being frozen, I can keep a pack in the freezer for a fair while, just fine. 

Giant Pandas Take Full Advantage Of Locked Down Zoo, Finally Have Sex

Jeebus - negative much?

1. The Hospital is enthusiastic about receiving the masks and shields.  We're going to talk about the multiplexing tubes for the ventilators to ensure that they will work with their setup, but to say that there's interest is an understatement.

2. The nozzle is brass, surgical steel (non-ferromagnetic), silicon, and either ruby or sapphire (depending on size).  The bed is glass.
 
3. DO NOT FUCKING TRY TO DISSUADE PEOPLE FROM HELPING, YOU UNBELIEVABLE ASSHOLE. NO ONE is talking about just showing up at a hospital and dropping a truckload of supplies in the ER.  Of course proper channels are followed - it's the only way to arrange delivery to the proper location.

4. For those that may be interested (and who either have a 3d printer or the means to get one), there are several groups that are coordinating efforts with hospitals and first responders, helping to ensure that masks and shields get to where they're needed the most (some on a global scale, others focusing on the US) - PM me if you need help hooking up with one.

Well, she;s safe. She called in just before I went to bed, very upset that I was making a fuss.
 
Which was a relief but which also hurt a bit.

I got the joy of a tooth filling falling out today.  Though, it doesn't seem to hurt as long as I  am careful with sugary foods.
 
 

Our mayor died of Covid today.
 
Meanwhile, and idiot woman was run out of a grocery store--- coughing, hacking, and proclaiming "Y'all just needs ta stay back a little bit; you'll be fine, just stay back 'cause I got the virus.  i just needs to get a few things and I'll can go home..."
 
 
WTF?!
 
_This_ is why our efforts will not be enough:
 
 
Morons.   
 
 
Morons will undermine _anything_.
 
 
 

Getting setup with a new 3D printer (courtesy of my brother’s company 3DUniverse) - going to start making N95 masks, faceshields, and potentially multiplexing connectors for the two ventilators at our local (rural) hospital. Should be an interesting way to spend the shutdown.

And we're supposed to believe that China stamped this thing out weeks ago.
 
Meanwhile there are undercover reports of thousands upon thousands of people waiting in lines at cremation sites to get their relatives remains.
 
I've been watching some NTD News and the coverage felt pretty biased.  So I headed over to MediaBiasFactCheck and it turns out they're pretty solid overall, but are very anti-current-Chinese-regime as they were founded by Falun Gong members.
That being said - They have a lot of video coverage and interviews with people in China and I'm pretty  convinced the current Chinese numbers are not even 10% of the real numbers.
 
Also, I hope all of the help being sent to New York pays off.   They are going to be at serious risk of hospital overload which will send the mortality rate through the roof.
 
It seems like the mortality rate is 1.5 - 2.0% if advanced care is available and MUCH higher when its not. 

Heart Disease, Diabetes, smoking and vapping are big 'oh #$#$" factors in the lethality of this. And being poor, uninsured ,etc will also be a factor as it always is.
 
COVID-19 is going to cut through the South East of the USA like a hurricane full of Scythes 

The introvert / extrovert split on this shelter-in-home stuff is so weird.
 
I work remotely while my daughter works on her art projects or plays on her iPad.  Every few hours she'll pop out to tell me she loves me and maybe we'll kung fu fight for a couple minutes. 
Then she goes back to her room.
 
Meanwhile my wife, the extrovert, is tromping around the house having run out of any possible chores to do going, "I'M F*CKING BORED!!" like a broken record.
 
Strange times.

I have recently read a handful of articles and social media posts arguing that shelter in place declarations and similar restrictions on public gatherings are a violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of assembly. Here are a few thoughts on the matter from me.
 
1. I take the Constitution of the United States of America very seriously. And unlike a lot of people who like to argue about what it says, I have actually read it. Multiple times. I acknowledge the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. And I believe that its creation was a divinely-inspired process.
 
2. Having said that, the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are not and have never been absolute. Yes, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of expression. But when people use expression to harm or threaten others, that's against the law, and people can be held civilly or criminally liable for doing so.* The old adage is true. You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
 
Similarly, the Second Amendment guarantees that individuals have the right to own firearms. Some have argued that the specific wording of the Second Amendment means that there can never be any kind of regulation on firearm ownership or sales, but the Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that this isn't the case.
 
So yes, the First Amendment to the Constitution does guarantee freedom of assembly. But that doesn't mean, and in my opinion, cannot reasonably be interpreted to mean, that all gatherings of all types at all times and in all places and under all circumstances are okay.
 
3. The focus on rights is inherently one-sided. Rights are always, always counterbalanced by responsibilities. While we have the right to free expression, we also have the responsibility not to use that right to harm others or to spread false information. We have the right to own a firearm, but if we use that firearm to threaten or injure someone else, that right can be taken away.
 
4. The Bill of Rights specifically outlines a number of protections to individual liberty. But in no case does it give an individual license to put the people around them at unnecessary risk. And to me, this is really where the rubber meets the road. Large gatherings present an unnecessary risk where the spread of a highly virulent disease is concerned.
 
So yes, by all means, wear a mask if you have to go out. Wash your hands. Use hand sanitizer. All of these things will help. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist, or an epidemiologist, to understand that the most effective way to stop the spread of disease is to reduce contact between people who may have it and people who may get it. And for right now, that means staying at home and avoiding large groups.
 
And to be clear: This is not an either-or situation. This is, by all accounts, the worst outbreak of disease this planet has seen in a century. If we want to keep as many of us as possible alive through this thing, we need to use every available remedy to fight COVID-19. Even the ones we find personally inconvenient or distasteful to our political sensibilities.
 
Politically, I admit that the idea of quarantine may not be popular. But I'm not a political scientist. I'm an actual scientist. And scientifically speaking, the argument for reduced contact is sound.
Be safe and well, everyone.
 
--
 
* I find it interesting that the current Administration has used this idea--threats of legal action for allegedly false statements--to try to silence its critics on more than one occasion.

The current social distancing and shelter at home? We cannot. That's absolutely not going to happen.
 
I would think that's assuming it takes 18 months for a vaccine, plus distribution. Even after the current measures end, the virus will continue to be a factor. 

the linear trajectory may be misleading because we are limited by the number of tests available.  The death trajectory, sadly, will be likely the most accurate measure of pace.  The next 3 months will be a combination of boredom, depression and terror.  

I've been using Newsguard for a bit now. 
 
It's not perfect, but it generally identifies the sites that can't be trusted at all and points out the key flaws of the ones that get a passing grade.
 
Trust is not earned much these days.  Most times that I fail to get 2 or 3 confirming sources I end up regretting it.

While I applaud his naked attempt to curry favor and recognize that his understanding of humanitarian concerns is roughly on par with a dog's comprehension of quantum mechanics, I must question the wisdom of allowing at least two major economic engines to fall into disrepair if he is (purportedly) dedicated to preserving this nation's economy.

Trump is sending extra aid to red states. For example, Florida has received three times the money and supplies that they requested, while New York and California have been left to fend for themselves. Thus, Floridians will regard him as a hero, while blue state voters are allowed to die. 

I was wondering if much the same. A lot of his support is rural areas, and much of what rural folks are hearing is "New York City has @##$# ton of infected".. and figure they're safe as they live in less dense areas. Not realizing that a big factor is that some of the big 'liberal' cities testing positive is what you get when you actually TEST period. As bad as it is getting in some urban areas, the rural areas, when they get hammered, are going to have whole new challenges like no hospitals nearby at all, smaller hospitals with fewer staff, and finding some supplies have run low already because other places needed them first. etc.
 
The Lt. Gov of Texas who made it sound like a noble sacrifice to turn old folk into soylent green so save the Stock Market is already getting some backlash from even some normally loyal republicans. Maybe eventually they'll catch on that he pretty much said out loud what Trump's values have indicated all along. But I worry by the time they do they'll be dying as they try to drive an hour and a half to a hospital that is already full.

I was looking at that this morning and I thought:  Germany must be doing some bleeding-edge treatment to have such a low rate.  Turns out they were testing more aggressively than most other countries.
If their medical treatments have any advantage at all its that they're identifying sick people earlier.
 
It just feels insane that Italy has a mortality rate more than 10x higher than that of Germany.

Ratchets up the suspicion they're lying through their teeth....
 
From a planning perspective, it also says that if we want a more reliable estimate of the mortality rate of the virus......we have to take the Chinese data out.  It is completely unreliable.
 
Lessee...
  total cases total deaths case/1M Est Pop (M) Deaths/1M Mort Rate World 746178 35347 95.7 7797 4.53 4.74% China 81470 3304 57 1429 2.31 4.06% World – China 664708 32043 104.4 6368 5.03 4.82%  
Just a bit of number crunching.  The top 2 rows' data from worldometers.com,(https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) except for the population estimate...that's from cases per million and total cases.  The third's simple math, only here the cases /deaths per million people is computed from the total cases/deaths and estimated population.  Mortality rate is simply deaths/cases.
 
So the big upswing is, both infection rate and death rate go up about 10%.  The death rate goes up but not by enough to matter *yet*.  It's too early, there's too many variables at play for that mortality rate to be considered final.  And the data for Spain and Italy are disastrously high;  their mortality rates are about 8 and 10%.  

EDIT:  Mortality rates by country.  Same data source.
  Cases Deaths Rate World 746178 35347 4.74% USA 145131 2608 1.80% Italy 97689 10779 11.03% Spain 85195 7340 8.62% China 81470 3304 4.06% Germany 63929 560 0.88% Iran 41495 2757 6.64% France 40174 2606 6.49% UK 22141 1408 6.36% Switzerland 15526 333 2.14% Belgium 11899 513 4.31% Netherlands 11750 864 7.35% S. Korea 9661 158 1.64% Austria 9520 108 1.13% Turkey 9217 131 1.42% Canada 6671 67 1.00% Portugal 6408 140 2.18%