I was thinking this, but he said it better
First we have a comment by “Rufus T. Firefly” about how the media will continue this:
Now the media knows it has a shiny, new toy; viral and bacterial infections that kill primarily elderly and infirm Americans. It’s been around forever. And, like clockwork, ramps up every fall and runs for months. And the media knows a panic might cause another shutdown. This has been a boon for the media. Do you think they will let this go this fall when those red circles start popping up on the map again?
They won’t hit Governors with the data and demand action? “Governor Johnson, there are already 100 deaths in your state and estimates are that number will soar in the next weeks, thousands are likely already infected. Governor Smith has already said he may not accept visitors from your state. Why won’t you act?!”
Then there’s this post by Ace, indicating that the original warning that masks don’t work was probably an attempt to keep the public from purchasing them in such numbers that health care professionals would run out. Now, it doesn’t bother me that people in health care would be prioritized; their need is great. And telling us so would probably cause even more panic. But I also don’t like being lied to.
They told me it isn’t aerosol, and now they tell me it may be. I made a mask with cotton fabric and a hair band, since elastic is sold out in all the sewing supply stores. I could have done it sooner, and gotten some elastic, if they’d told me.
I bought a small supply (12) of ordinary masks back during the ebola scare that were never used. I also have a few particulate masks for use in any dirty, dusty, project. Back in January, Chinese doctors on some link I accidentally landed on were asking relatives in the US to send N-95 masks to China. By that time, Amazon had none.
It will probably dawn on us that masks are something to keep handy in the future.
Tucker Carlson did a piece on the expert advice on masks. They tell us that masks don’t do any good, and then they say that frontline healthcare workers are desperate for masks. Which is it?
I’ve been a bit confused about transmission through the air. Here is a generic bit from Wikipedia on the whole range of transmission possibilities:
If you watch the main sewer media, you are being manipulated. Doesn’t work how many think they have waken up. They are still asleep in the Matrix of the Deep State Cabal.
By that time, Amazon had none.
3M 7500 half face masks with replaceable filters, were 18 USD on Amazon January 2020 when I bought them. They jumped to about 30 USD Near March 1. Now they are sold out, as of one week ago, with private resellers selling them at 50-150 USD. That is not a “it doesn’t work thing”.
The currency will be reset, financial markets reformed by the dissolution or nationalization of the Federal Reserve, US tanks and military divisions will move to clear out cities full of Deep State operatives, like Fallujah.
Just sit at home and wait for the Storm to be over. If you go out, you may be caught in the cross fire between US traitors vs US patriots. This applies even more so to Europe’s strongholds.
The Deep State, world wide, has approximately 1%-2% (of world population) military operatives and assassins. They may not be able to win a conventional war, but they can be hard to flush as time goes on if Trum and Space Force retakes the centers of power.
This video from Czechia (in english) explains, why even homemade masks work, and why everyone should wear one:
https://youtu.be/HhNo_IOPOtU
If you don’t hear from me again it’s because I refuse to participate. I don’t wear a mask nor do I wear surgical gloves (but I do have wipes in the car when I finish shopping). I don’t feel sick and the people around me don’t appear sick. I am comforted by the knowledge that they do wear masks! Actually I feel pretty damn safe.
Ymarsakar:
I love you, man (or woman) but your posts give me agita. Does it make you feel better?
I wore masks every day as a surgeon for 40 years, They mainly help the other guy. I think service workers would do well to wear them as they mainly control exhaled air. I see folks in the supermarket wearing them and gloves. I was skeptical about the gloves but saw the checkers wiping the gloves with hand cleanser, which is good.
Does Yammer know to do a positive and negative test on the seal of his respirator? And know to do it every time he puts it on? Does he know how to take it off to avoid inhaling the contaminants that are on the outside of the respirator? Was Yammer tested and challenged with a smoke irritant, or with a quantitative mask fit, to determine if the size and brand actually fits and seals to his face? Does he know how to clean and maintain his respirator? Important things to know if your life and health depend on that equipment. Just saying from my training and use with APRs, PAPRs, but not supplied or air-line respirators, in radiological (Pu etc.)chemically-contaminated environments. Don’t assume your out of the box from Amazon or wherever will protect you.
I’m of two minds on this Neo, on the one hand I don’t like be lied to by my government, on the other I recognize that those among us that hoard stuff when the faintest whiff of a crisis or inconvenience shows up trigger our government to react this way.
Shopping report from Northeastern Illinois.
We decided to go to a different grocery chain. Their stocking procedures were different too.
The fresh fruits looked good. But the vegetables were terrible.
They had a full section of cold & flu meds probably because it was limited to one a customer. Since I have treatable high blood pressure I picked up a small box of cold & cough meds specifically for HBP.
There were absolutely no paper goods available.
Most high end frozen food brands were also sold out. They did have my wife’s favorite frozen soup pouches and my favorite very low sodium frozen chicken patties.
Dairy was limited to a few fully stocked local brands.
Bars of hand soaps, detergents and cleaning supplies were available but, again, one package or bottle per customer.
Maybe 20% of the customers were cloth face masks and the flimsy type gloves you ( might want to ) wear when changing baby diapers.
People were very polite.
And everyone looked fatigued.
Why is sitting around your housing unit of whatever sort doing not much at all so tiring? Ennui? Lassitude? A feeling of helplessness?
Our Govenor extended the ‘stay in place’ period another 3 weeks. We are retired so we don’t HAVE to be anywhere.
Our children and grandkids are probably bouncing off the walls.
Thank our technology boffins for FaceTime!
Tuvea,
I went to a Walmart here in the south Puget Sound area today and it wasn’t too bad though they had no toilet paper and a few paper towels but the rest of the shelves were moderately well stocked. Lots of water which was an improvement from last week.
But the people seemed really glum not much interaction at all. The cashier we had was in her fifties with no gloves (all the others I saw had them) and she seems very happy friendly which was nice.
The toll of all this is so huge in so many ways not just the virtually non existent health threat for most (400 cases in my county of like 400,000 people) but the financial uncertainty combined with never ending anxiety being infused in people.
This period may be the most transformative short period of time in American history.
People I know from college that work in several major hospitals around the country said that there were boxes and boxes of surgical masks right next to boxes of tissues all over their facilities (usually next to elevators in waiting rooms). The boxes of masks were cleaned out by their patients early on when the virus was still in china (late January/early February), often by asian families who would take a hundred at a time straight out of the box and stuff them in their bags (they would then walk around the hospital and do this at many other stations). People were leaving hospitals with literally thousands of surgical masks stuffed in their bags. The hospitals were not aware this was going on for weeks on end and the usual custodial staff would dutifully replace the empty boxes, but never comment that instead of replacing them once every few weeks, they were instead replacing them several times a day. It was only at the end of February/early March that hospitals stopped freely dispensing free masks, but at that point it was too late.
I can vouch that I saw this happening a couple months ago where I work and chuckled at who I considered “panic stricken fools” stealing these paper masks. I knew then that paper masks with weak to no seals around the mouth and no eye coverage would not prevent someone from getting an airborne virus. I saw the wearing of cheap masks as a virtue signalling ploy, and at that time, it likely was.
However, now I see that cheap paper masks are helpful and should be worn by not just the confirmed infected or symptomatic but by everyone out in public, because one doesn’t know if he/she is one of the many asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic carriers of the virus. We know that plenty of people may be contagious who develop symptoms weeks later or never develop symptoms.
The mask thing is a long term issue because given what we’re seeing in New York and New Jersey, big city residents may have to get used to wearing the things all the time like Asians do. If COVID-19 does kill 100,000, that ain’t gonna be evenly distributed throughout the U.S. population. It is going to be largely concentrated in relatively few urban areas and the impact of that could fundamentally change the future of the country.
If even just 5% of the folks vacate the megalopolises and relocate to the rest of the U.S., the economic, cultural, and political impact of that would be huge.
Mike
So the “experts” tell us that masks don’t do any good while healthcare workers are desperate to get them for their protection.
I was born at night, but I wasn’t born last night.
I’ve heard this “logic” before: “The public don’t need firearms. Only police, soldiers, and government agencies need firearms.” I have a question: “Why do agents of the State need firearms?”
Lame answers include:
1. Citizens can just call 911. When seconds count, police are minutes away. And even if you can call 911, does the State guarantee delivery of personal protection on a timely basis? No, well then.
2. Police training takes years; citizens cannot possibly use firearms effectively. Statistics routinely show that citizens can and do use them effectively. In particular, the error rate by citizens is lower. Most police training deals with the complexity of the legal system — not firearms training. Which is one reason why many cops are such poor shots.
Similar “logic” appears when talking about the dreaded AR-15 and high-capacity magazines. The argument is made that the public doesn’t need them, but the police do. If police didn’t have them, they’d be “outgunned” — helpless against bad guys. Who are these bad guys that would attack police but don’t attack private citizens?
RE: masks
This is a missed opportunity and something we must correct in the future. People in the East wear masks. People during past pandemics wore masks (esp. 1918). If you want to prioritize the best masks for healthcare workers, that’s fine. But people would have been given instructions on how to make masks and use them effectively. If it saves one life…
Things are very different in my pocket of flyover country compared to what others have reported about situations elsewhere. Yes, we had panicked numb skulls hoarding TP, but stores quickly started limiting purchases to one package per customer. Now TP is available in limited quantities. Every other item you would expect to find in a grocery is well stocked.
I don’t get the impression that the majority of people where I live are fearful and anxious. Mostly they are frustrated and concerned about the economic consequences, as should every level headed adult. People here are using common sense precautions we always use whenever a particularly harsh seasonal flu strikes.
Stay safe and strong hearted.
So this mask business is the latest blame festival. Did the surgeon general “lie?” Who (WHO) knows or can tell? We know the WHO is a big ole China whore so it’s motives are clear but the SG backed up his statement with authority (study that masks don’t help prevent spread of disease to wearers in hospital setting) and common sense (masks give false sense of security and will cause relaxation of social distancing). Also I recall something about how masks can actually harbor/increase risk of infection somehow. OTOH, wearing a filter over mouth and nose does also make sense given potential airborne virus delivery but do we all really need a manufactured mask to do that? Just get a bandana or some sort of cloth and wear it if it makes you feel better. And wash it frequently. Maybe it was to prevent a run on masks so healthcare treaters dealing with the truly sick would have an ample supply. I’m okay with that, esp given how the locusts descended on the paper products aisle. The SG did limit his remarks to masks themselves. This really doesn’t seem like a big bad conspiracy to betray The People with lies but rather the restless musings of bored anxious people with time on their hands and willingness, for whatever reason, to stir up shit.
Wore a mask today. For me it was very uncomfortable, made me gag and cough.
Very hard for me to get use too. The good point is that I won’t have to go in for at least another 2 wks. Oh, and I had gloves on. Many at the WM did not have either one, some had both and some had only one, either a mask or gloves.
Did my weekly shopping foray today. Local Safeway has set aside Tuesdays from 7am to 9am for gray panther shoppers. Probably twenty customers in the store, mostly women. Nearly all the women wore face masks. I saw no men with face masks. Most people seemed wary. Every one seems to avoid getting too close, as if you were a turd in a punch bowl or a leper.
The stocks of food were better than they have been, though the frozen foods were heavily picked over. There were a few rolls of paper towels and I scored a four roll package of TP. First TP I have seen in a store in a month. Fortunately we had bought a big 12 roll package of Costco TP just before the panic began. Hand sanitizer and wipes are still non-existent on store shelves. I have been able to get enough to last for two months from Amazon.
We have a small box of face masks, which we had before this all began. After watching that Czech video, I may wear a face mask when I go out from now on.
We have over 1229 cases here in Snohomish County. The curve is still pretty steep, but we may be seeing a lessening of the new cases. Here’s the chart:
https://www.snohd.org/ImageRepository/Document?documentID=3487
Case count as of today:
Last Updated: 2 p.m. 3/31/2020
Confirmed 1,229
Probable 57
Current Status Last Updated: 2 p.m. 3/31/2020
Isolation (home or in long-term care) 66
Hospitalized 87
Recovered 510
Deceased 33
Under investigation 590
I think our health department has a pretty good website, but we’re not experiencing anything like New York City and environs. I have a theory about why big cities tend to be hot spots. Probably wrong, but I think it has to do with the density of mass transit. Many more chances of getting a virus on mass transit than in your car. Especially if you aren’t aware of how to protect yourself and how contagious the virus is. Just a theory. We do not have a lot of mass transit here as compared to major population centers.
“Now, it doesn’t bother me that people in health care would be prioritized; their need is great. And telling us so would probably cause even more panic. But I also don’t like being lied to.” – Neo
Basically, they made a choice of what KIND of panic we were going to have.
If they had told the truth earlier, there would have still been people hoarding and stealing (coffeetube – so much havoc arises from a failure of communication by people who just don’t think to mention odd changes in their routine), but consider how much sooner companies could have started retooling and individuals sewing masks on their own (I have some kits coming from a friend to go to a hospital when done, just need to locate my sewing machine).
What is so hard about “what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” that authority figures simply can’t process it?
J.J.,
I see the Wash. State Dept of Health is having website problems and hasn’t updated the state totals since Sunday night. Down here in Pierce County we have about 450 cases and 6 deaths but we’ve only had one death in about the last week. Knock on wood but it seems like we are on the right track in this area.
The food is going to disappear from the stores by the middle of the month. The problem is that it will happen so quickly you will be shocked.
My mother and I have enough food in freezer to last at least a year- assuming the power doesn’t go off for a week. I wouldn’t count on that not happening if things get bad enough.
My sister works as a senior nurse at a high-end nursing home in the Boston metro. She’s 67 and she has asthma. She feels at serious risk for Covid.
She just took a six-week leave of absence because of her age and asthma plus she doesn’t trust her employer to give the staff sufficient protective gear. They are only issuing nurses one mask per week!
J.J., Griffin —
The WA State Dept. of Health is having trouble with their website because their data reporting wasn’t able to handle the volume of (new-to-the-system) negative results along with the (expected) positive results — for a total volume in the thousands of records.
In other words, whoever designed their reporting system is less competent than a mid-level full-stack web developer. [facepalm] Manual de-duping of records? Seriously?
https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/DelayDataPosting.pdf
Parker – also in the Midwest. Pretty much the same response as you’ve seen.
Next up from Pete Williams – “Midwesterners, too stupid to panic?”
Yancey Ward,
Human contrived systems don’t remain static in changing circumstances. The food we will eat next month was prepared long before this pandemic started. Why will there be shortages?
Let’s do a thought experiment on extremes:
20% of farmers are incapacitated by COVID-19 during planting season. Wouldn’t the government implement some sort-of conscription system? Young, healthy single adults currently furloughed from their day jobs report for testing. Anyone with the anti-bodies receives a crash course in planting seeds. Anyone with experience operating heavy machinery goes to the head of the line. Crane operators, backhoe, and fork lift operators are put in the cabs of combines and quarantined farmers guide them virtually, in real time as they get this year’s crop in.
20% of our long haul truck drives come down with the disease. Industries will shift to ensure that the supply lines from our farms, slaughterhouses and food processing plants remain open to our grocery stores.
It becomes so extreme that grocery stores have to close. The government will set up distribution centers in parking lots where staff in hazmat suits distribute rations to citizens. Citizens are assigned a day and time based on street address, social security number, whatever. They arrive by auto, individually, 10 minutes apart. Or, workers deliver the goods.
I hope none of this happens, but whatever happens people will adjust. A disease pandemic can be so severe that it emulates the front lines of a battlefield, but people still figure out ways to get supplies and food to others on the front lines of battlefields. Our country has rationed food, gas, rubber… before. If necessary, we’ll do it again. We will not go hungry.
“I was thinking this, but he said it better.”
Learning that I was thinking the same thing as polymath Neo is the highlight of my week. She has more degrees than a thermometer!
But stating it better than she would have? No way. I’m sure Neo’s independent description of the concern would have been better written and more entertaining. They say great minds think alike, but sometimes a mediocre mind, like a blind pig, finds the occasional acorn!
But does Yancey have a back up freezer in the event his current one goes down? Everything fails eventually after all. 🙂
Rufus, Neo is amazing, but you sell yourself short.
I live in a metropolitan area of a few million people and my job has me spending time in urban areas to rural; impoverished urban and rural areas, wealthy urban areas and suburbs… Even farming communities (wealthy and not so wealthy).
I noticed several weeks ago most folks in the impoverished areas were wearing face masks. Almost no one in the wealthier areas were, and those who did were always elderly. I now see more folks in the wealthier areas wearing them, but only in stores and gas stations. In the impoverished areas folks wear them outside. In the wealthy areas I do not see them outside, but people are very purposeful when outside. The wealthier folks seem to go on scheduled walks on pre-planned routes and they cross the street when they see someone approaching. People in impoverished areas seem more likely to congregate, or stand near one another when speaking. People in wealthy areas keep a polite distance.
The homeless encampments are gone, but I still see some homeless out and about. I have heard nothing about government roundups of the homeless in my area, but I don’t see large groups of homeless. There has been no noticeable reduction in roadside panhandlers. Folks I pass on the street who would typically ask me for money no longer approach or speak, but the intersections and off ramps that are always staffed with panhandlers still have someone stationed there.
At the end of last week I had to drive from the Midwest to Florida and back. I was surprised at how different things were. I left a gloomy Midwest where people seemed anxious and anti-social. I noticed a difference almost immediately after crossing into Georgia. When I stopped for gas the local roads were much busier and I saw a lot more people. A few had masks on, but people did not seem as anxious. It was even moreso in Florida. People there seemed downright happy. I was in a touristy town. I would guess a typical day sees 3 times as many tourists as residents (maybe 5X?). All the tourists were gone. It seemed like a sleepy, seaside village. The locals were in good spirits. I noticed my spirits brightened immensely after going for a run in the sun and sitting on a bench under a palm tree reading.
I really worry about people’s moods as so many of us are trapped indoors for so long.
Don’t know what’s going on, but the daily death toll has abruptly exploded in the last couple of days in the U.S., Britain, and the low countries. They’ve amended the U.S. figures from last night, adding another 200 deaths. So, it stood at 525 deaths on the 28th and yesterday the toll was 912. In Britain, there were 260 deaths on the 28th, 380 on the 31st, and the preliminary reports for today indicate 563 deaths. The enumeration period in Britain will not conclude for another 9.5 hours and they’ve already surpassed yesterday’s totals by half-again. I don’t like where this is going.
Not quite half the deaths were in New York and New Jersey, I would wager all but a scatter in the 20 counties around Manhattan.
Art Deco, I’m reposting what I put on the other thread this morning; guess I should have put it here. Anyway………….
Morning update: not much change from yesterday. Active US cases still fit perfectly by a sigmoid function. Active cases listed as 177,000. If still following an exponential curve, should have been 300,000.
Yesterday’s pronouncement by Trump is very troubling. I’m not sure whether he is a fool, or being played by Fauci and Birx. To reach over 100,000 deaths in two weeks would require the death toll to rise by a factor of 7 overnight, and continue every day. Yesterday there were 912 deaths, but there would need to be close to 7,000 for this prediction to come true. OK, that’s assuming a linear growth. The “serious cases” data is growing somewhere between linear and a power function. Further, all those serious cases would have to end up dying for this prediction to hold, and there aren’t even “enough” serious cases at 4500 to uphold this prediction. Art will probably have much better take on these numbers.
I can’t think of single good reason Trump would say this. It’s already sent the market down this morning, and all it does is sow more fear into the public. What is going with the CDC? What are they telling Trump? Why are they telling him these things? Why is he believing them? Do they know something they don’t want the public to know? It’s time to start being extremely skeptical of anything they are saying; and that includes Trump. On the basis of the data we know, his statement is almost as absurd as Newsome’s was regarding California a week ago.
Physicsguy, I listened to the bulk of yesterday’s White House presser and didn’t come away with the sense that the Pres. claims 100,000 deaths at the passage of the next two weeks, (though he may have misspoken somehow) but that the peak of deaths would occur at the next two weeks with 100,000 — 240,000 the potential cumulative model range at the end of the national epidemic if the nation performs to the rule. He and the two “experts” repeatedly asserted this idea, with the necessary caveat that “it’s only a model” and they hope to adjust both the model and social recommendations to the emerging data on the ground. I make no comment critical or otherwise here, but merely attempt to report what I took away from my (frequently interrupted) listening to the presser.
sdferr, Thanks for that. I didn’t see the presser, so I was going off what I was reading which the press generally reported as 100k deaths over the next two weeks as those weeks are “going to be very rough”. Certainly the stock market took it as such.
Those models look about as reliable as the climate models. GIGO.
Physicsguy, to my simple mind, those models are the contemptible climate frenzy inducing models repackaged in a fatty virus coating aiming as always at the same end (telos): power.
physicsguy,
Thanks for taking the time to do the math and write your comment. It is comforting to hear some potential good news.
I imagine some of the CDC’s variables in their model involves hospital conditions and availability of medical staff. We can have enough ventilators to meet demand, but do we have enough healthy trained and licensed respiratory therapists? If hospitals run out of ICU beds will more deaths result, even non-COVID related?
And, not to get too grim, but I would also expect the CDC to have variables for increased suicides; deaths from rioting and other events that may increase due to anxiety levels increasing.
It seems like all those things are unlikely excepting our most densely populated cities, but there are probably many interesting variables and assumptions in their model.
. . . the press generally reported as 100k deaths over the next two weeks . . .
Yeesh, I haven’t run into this reporting yet (but can readily believe your report of it is spot on, since tailor made for their misrepresentations, the fuckers) and say here and now it’s a goddamned lie. But of course, it’s what they do.
Brian Morgan on March 31, 2020 at 8:15 pm said: Ymarsakar: I love you, man (or woman) but your posts give me agita. Does it make you feel better?
Don’t listen to him… his stuff is useless… if he was religious he would be a branch davidian, or maybe a watchtower person coming to save you… in japan he would be part of Aum Shinrikyo?… we would be lucky if he was heavens gate then he would have left for the mothership years ago..
Agitprop
political propaganda, especially the communist propaganda used in Soviet Russia, that is spread to the general public through popular media such as literature, plays, pamphlets, films, and other art forms with an explicitly political message.
The term originated in Soviet Russia as a shortened name for the Department for Agitation and Propaganda, which was part of the central and regional committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Rufus,
We also had sufficient toilet paper provided, until we suddenly didn’t. The food in the stores will be the same way- one day it will be there, the next day not. At some point, a trip wire will be triggered, and at every distribution node, the food will simply be stolen and diverted- just like the face masks, the toilet paper, and the various soaps and disinfectants. This will be like a hurricane disaster site, but only the entire country with not unaffected areas to send in supplies. We are already increasingly living off of inventory, and production continues to crater.
sdferr: “He and the two “experts” repeatedly asserted this idea, with the necessary caveat that “it’s only a model” and they hope to adjust both the model and social recommendations to the emerging data on the ground.”
It’s very hard for the press, especially the left wing MSM, to grasp the idea that the models are all theoretical. The models look in the rearview mirror at data and then try to make informed assumptions about what that means going forward. The assumptions can be too pessimistic or optimistic. They are just informed guesses about what’s likely to happen. The assumptions, it appears to me, are on the pessimistic side because they don’t want people to stop adhering to the guidelines. People are desperate for definitive answers, but the models will never provide what they want – only educated guesses. People are confused and worried because of that uncertainty. It’s a bit like war. You don’t know the outcome for sure. You only know you have to put on your game face, listen to your commanders, and do what has to be done with imperfect information. It’s not easy and never will be.
It’s my hope that the discussion over these models will result in a better understanding of how dependent the climate models are on assumptions and educated guesses – that they can never be perfectly predictive of the future. Too many people consider the climate models to be perfectly predictive of the future.
Bryan, Griffin: I watched Governor Inslee last night on the news. Oh my. Did not inspire confidence. Jay has always been a mediocre political hack. That the state’s website is not working properly does not surprise. There are competent tech people in the Seattle area, but they’re apparently not in state government. 🙁
Pierce County does look much better than King or Snohomish. Must be all that sun and warmer temps down there. 🙂
Rufus,
I wouldn’t think that the CDC models were as detailed as you suggest. But who knows?
“It seems like all those things [suicides etc.] are unlikely excepting our most densely populated cities, …”
I read somewhere that some residential buildings in NYC are nearly empty ghost buildings. Along those lines, the following is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read about the epidemic:
‘Diplomats, CEOs’ Flee to the Hamptons as Coronavirus Cases Surge in NYC
J.J. on April 1, 2020 at 12:15 am said: I think our health department has a pretty good website, but we’re not experiencing anything like New York City and environs. I have a theory about why big cities tend to be hot spots. Probably wrong, but I think it has to do with the density of mass transit.
Well… sort of… what your talking about is about rate, but you have not corrected the numbers for population…
the population of snohomish county is 801,633
the population of ny is 8,623,000
the population of the tristate area is 23 million
ny population is 10 times higher…
IF you use the new covid data (which i dont trust – see last thread for tons of issues with data)…
ny has 920
washington state has 205
IF you use the johns hopkins desktop
1,096 ny – 19.54 million in the state
150 Washington 7.536 million
you can easily explain the rate by the existence of ny and yes, its trains
but also by its population and density
manhattens population density is 66,940 per square mile
portlands pop density is 4,740 per square mile..
Physicsguy I proposed in the other thread, we come up with a BS tool..
ie… I can write it in javascript if it takes more data to be embedded and have a friend who can put it up online… no problem..
he and i were thinking what is needed is a chart of the current progression of deaths… ie not cumulative… however they just changed how the data is presented… its a mess… changing how you collect and represent data makes for bad prediction and trending at best…
but if you take the daily deaths, its reversed…
IF you take the cumulative, it still appears to be flying high
want to guess which they show?
let me know your idea of how to compute…
the chart can show current death total…
then take the terms of the person speaking.. newsome, trump, schumer, etc..
and convert them into various plots..
the linear plot is one…
the other is some form of curved plots, two sets… one in which you say this is the rate, and show where it misses, the other is what insane numbers have to be to fit the curve..
ideas?
“Assuming full mitigation: peak of 2,214 daily deaths on April 15”
That’s from Worldometers’ home page in bullet points. We can make a direct comparison come April 15 between this projection and the then reported fact.
Moreover, perhaps some statistical wizard may work backwards through April 14,13,12,. . . 01, sum those projections, then sum that number with today’s reported US total? I dunno, it might tell something about where we’re headed.
?
TommyJay, wife and i do cleaning…
if you know someone
i also do tech… 😉
sdferr, physics guy: Yea, the death toll projection over the next two weeks (or even if we extend that to two months), just doesn’t make much sense. Secular, “scientific” doomsday fodder.
Artfldgr,
I’ve been staying away from the death stats as Willis is updating those over at WUWT. At least he normalizes it to population. But as you say, if they keep changing the presentation it screws the whole process.
I dunno, maybe take the total deaths by date,take first derivative and see how it matches their death by day numbers?? Also second derivative is useful for detecting any acceleration in the data which seems to be what they are implying by their models. Reminds me of the climate claims of accelerating sea level rise. Take the data from Univ.of Colo. and it shows a zero second derivative, but they keep claiming “accelerating sea level rise!!!!” with the usual breathless panic.
The way one samples air to do quantitative assays on the numbers of bacteria in a given volume of air is to suck the air in a device over a Petri dish that causes the air to suddenly make a sharp right angled change in direction. The bacteria in the air tend to go straight owing to centrifugal force and they then impinge on the petri dish. Then you count them the next day after the colonies are grown. A face mask over a nose and mouth does the same thing. A droplet of mucous being coughed or sneezed can’t make the sharp turn as easily as the molecules of air and they impinge on the fibers of the mask and stick owing to the surface tension of the mucous. They they dry and the virus or bacteria are resting on the fibers of the mask.
The mask is not effective for inspired air because the molecules of both air and mucous are going slowly around the edge of the mask at lower speed and turn above the skin of the face, causing the bacteria or droplet nuclei to land in the skin of the wearers face or to be drawn onto the lung without turning.
The purpose of the mask is to stop droplet nuclei from leaving the wearer’s nose and mouth, not to stop inhalation of droplet nuclei.
And then you take the mask off, and get your hands covered in virus. Which is how people are infected.
You would be better to cough and sneeze into your elbow.
Medical people take the mask off and then scrub. People at home don’t. I have a beard, so a seal is never made with me anyway.
The idea that non-medical facemasks are useless predates cv-19. I recall reading about that several times in articles about the Spanish Flu.
When you are on-mask (full face or PAPR hood) in a radiologically contaminated airborne area and then come out there are particular ways you remove the mask to avoid contaminating yourself and everyone around you. And then you survey yourself or a health physics tech. surveys your face with an instrument to verify your face is clean (not “crapped up”).
Is there anything like this survey approach for a virus when you take off your respirator (mask)? Short of a personal decontamination of your and the respirator before you take it off. Probably not. So don’t assume your respirator or mask will protect you.
As Dnaxy said, a mask may prevent you from spreading a virus to everyone around you when you sneeze or cough.
Yancey Ward,
People are consuming more hand sanitizer and soap, so it makes sense there are shortages of those things.
People are not consuming more food or toilet paper. We simply shifted the demand curve. The supply curve is the same and you will see those things restocked shortly. Most of our paper products come from Michigan, Wisconsin, the Pacific Northwest. There is no impact with those products regarding China. The same with our meat, eggs, and most other food except for some produce and exotic things.
Yancey Ward on April 1, 2020 at 12:27 am said:
The food is going to disappear from the stores by the middle of the month. The problem is that it will happen so quickly you will be shocked.
My mother and I have enough food in freezer to last at least a year- assuming the power doesn’t go off for a week. I wouldn’t count on that not happening if things get bad enough.
* * *
I only put non-essentials in a freezer, after some bad experiences.
(Well, the ice cream is in there…)
Canned and dry is what I stock.
On the food supply chain, one of the CTH writers has an on-going series on how that’s keeping up.
This one post is a little old; haven’t checked the Treepers today yet.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/03/26/phase-four-supply-chain-prioritizes-proteins-return-manufactured-processed-grain-products-still-lag/#comment-7986488
I’m generally a Sundance skeptic, but if I’m not mistaken, in his mundane life he’s a manager in a grocery store. Can someone confirm or correct?
I’m not understanding where Yancey is getting his information that production is cratering in the food processing sector.
Ive been using the death numbers as the confirmed changes due to process and the recovered is not updated well… that leaves only death and thats a process we are all pretty sure of… maybe its inflated (by how they fill out the certs) or maybe its deflated (again, same thing) but its not going to be too far off given they have a body and need a reason to sign the paper.
however, i try not to look at cumulatives… thats a rotten way to chart something
a grand total to date is one thing… but if you plot the number of deaths each day, its a much lower number and the graph will turn fast when the number turns…
I wouldn’t be so hard on the former anti-maskers who now recommend them. I bet this is an extremely difficult subject to study. Are the masks working because they really act as a barrier to the virus? or do they work because they remind the wearers not to touch their faces and to wash their hands? or do they work because they inhibit close human contact? It’s hard to flirt or start up a casual conversation with a mask on. I’ve also noticed that people with masks on don’t dawdle.
Look how long and with how many billions of dollars we’ve studied dieting and how much disagreement exists. I don’t think it’s because of nefarious reasons.
What I find interesting is the difficulty in coping with a situation where we have to make decisions of great consequence on little or no information, or bad information, or conflicting information. Until quite recently in human existence that was the norm. Maybe it’s comforting to think that bad people are behind bad decisions.
By the way you don’t need elastic for masks. Ribbon, twill tape, bias tape, even string works.
physicsguy — the answer to your question lies in human behavior, not in numbers. If you say there could be 100,000 – 200,000 deaths and it turns out that there are 25,000, you’re a hero; if you say there could be 25,000 deaths and there turn out to be 30,000, you’re a villain. Simple as that.
Richard – it’s the Micawber Effect of politics.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” – (Dickens)
You can see this same sort of psychological mind-trick at work in all sorts of contexts.
Doctors tell you it’s all over in 2 weeks; when you live another 10 years it’s a miracle. If they “gave you three months” and you die the next day, your widow sues.
Personal anecdote: my Dad was manager of a Five and Dime (old style variety store).
When we kids worked the candy counter, this was the rule: if the customer ordered a pound of candy, scoop out a reasonable amount and put it on the scale – then add enough to come up to a pound; never put in too much and then take some out.
We got pretty good as estimating weights of the different confections.
The other rule was we could eat all the jelly beans we wanted, but only one chocolate a day.