Category: Coronapanic

Doom for the wicked Swedes is always three weeks away

by philg

Massachusetts Facebook friends were gleefully discussing the wave of death that is pummeling Sweden, over a link to “I Just Came Home to Sweden. I’m Horrified by the Coronavirus Response Here.” (Slate) As part of strategy to be defriended by everyone, I responded with

Maybe the Swedes would appreciate some advice … on the Massachusetts secret to managing Covid-19. I am sure that they are curious to know how we managed to achieve 2X the Swedish death rate while shutting down schools, offices, restaurants, and gyms (all places that Swedes are still going).

The Church of Shutdown members have a ready answer to this:

And in Sweden, the infection rate continues to grow, while in Massachusetts it is shrinking slowly. MA hasn’t done a great job, its biggest mistake being that it did nothing until the rate was high, but its future looks better than Sweden’s.

Me:

You’re proving my point about the Church of Shutdown. Our religion says that we should be rewarded for our social distancing. Instead, however, we see Swedes partying and Danes sending their children to reopened schools. At some later date, however, (“the afterlife”) everyone will get his/her/zir/their just reward. The Swedes will be killed for partying continuously. The Danes will be killed for abandoning the sacrament of school closure before Jan 2021. The righteous of Massachusetts will be spared both infection and death in this afterlife, though it may look dark for us right here and now.

Righteous:

No, in MA we have the opportunity to get the infection rate down to a level where testing and tracking can keep it under control. No need to wait for an afterlife. The IHME model gives June 22 as the date. There’s reason to hope our new mask order will accelerate this process.

This prompted me to look at the IHME prophecies. On April 12, in “Everything the gleeful journalists said would happen to Sweden has happened… to Massachusetts”, I wrote “The University of Washington right now says that doom is in store for Sweden. They’ll have 13,259 deaths through August 4, 2020. They’ll have 79 ICU beds and need 3,378(!).” and included a screen shot indicating that peak demand on Swedish health care would happen on May 3 (today!).

Are they, in fact, 3,300 ICU beds short? They have had a total of only about 2,000 critical care “sessions” total for 1,500 patients (official data). ICU occupancy has been steady at roughly 500 patients for the past few weeks.

What do the augurs of University of Washington now say?

Although nothing regarding Swedish policy has changed, despite hundreds of American newspaper articles telling the Swedish how wrong they actually are, the God of Shutdown is now coming for the Swedes on May 22, at which point those who failed to worship Him/Her/Zer/Them will be short 3,711 ICU beds.

Image may contain: text

After spreading without being constrained by the Miracle of Shutdown since mid-January in Sweden, Covid-19 will finally get organized to kill the unrighteous in Sweden in late May:

(Look at the error bars! They’re fairly confident that on May 23, Sweden will have between 11 deaths and… 2,789 deaths.

You’d have to be “anti-science” to deny that the number of Covid-19-tagged deaths in Sweden on May 23 will fall somewhere in between 11 and 2,789!)

Separately, how do we enter the Promised Land of “testing and tracking” that has been promised to the Church of Shutdown faithful? The 22 million undocumented will answer their phones and open their doors when the friendly government agent calls or shows up to ask a lot of questions about exactly where they’ve been? Healthy 20-year-olds will meekly submit to being stuck with needles and swabs? What’s in it for them? A resident of Massachusetts can terminate a 23.99-week-old pregnancy (political logic: had the pregnancy terminated in a birth at 22 weeks, for example, taxpayers via MassHealth would have paid $5 million or more, if necessary, to preserve the 22-week “child” rather than paying $1,000 to abort the 23.99-week-old “fetus”), why can’t a resident of Massachusetts say “my body, my choice” when the helpful government shows up with needles and swabs?

Full post, including comments

Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic

by philg

Professor Johan Giesecke, former chief scientist of the European CDC, and most of the rest of the 15 state epidemiologists in Sweden, started out from the position that Western government “lockdown” policies would have a minimal effect on the evil coronavirus’s ability to infiltrate a naive population (video). That’s been a primary motivation for Sweden’s decision not to bother tilting at the windmills (and “herd immunity” pops out as a side effect, but the Swedes would say that herds all around Western Europe will get there pretty soon too, if they haven’t already).

Were the Swedes correct in this assumption?

“Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident
impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic.” (medrxiv, April 24) chronicles Thomas Meunier’s attempt to find discontinuities in the growth of the coronavirus as a result of various Western policies. He’s a Ph.D. in physical oceanography (essentially applied physics), not a physician, and testing policies vary from country to country and from day to day, so he is looking only at the output numbers (daily deaths attributed to Covid-19).

Meunier’s conclusion is that the “home containment” policies tried by some of the worst-hit countries (“when lockdown doesn’t work, try more lockdown!”) had no effect compared to the more basic social distancing policies, such as adopted in the Netherlands. The virus was already burning itself out when peoples and governments went into full panic mode:

This observational study, using a generalized phenomenological method based on official daily deaths records only, shows that full lockdown policies of France, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom haven’t
had the expected effects in the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic. Our results show a general decay trend in the growth rates and reproduction numbers two to three weeks before the full lockdown policies would be expected to have visible effects.

What about the Swedish infidels? What happens when a country goes completely off the reservation? (as pilots like to say, “We don’t need Elizabeth Warren to tell us what a bad idea that is”)

results for Sweden suggest that taking no action at all may yield a more variable decay of the epidemic.

(The Swedes did, of course, ban gatherings of more than 50 people, and took some other medium-weight measures with the goal of preventing ICUs from being overwhelmed.)

In aviation, delay between input and output is one of the biggest challenges for a beginner pilot and leads to accidents even for experienced pilots via pilot-induced oscillation. Trying to hover a helicopter? A little forward cyclic doesn’t do anything for a second or so. Then the helicopter moves forward over the ground at an alarming rate. Pull back on the stick? The helicopter tilts back almost immediately, but keeps going forward. Instead of waiting, the beginner will…. pull back more! This keeps instructors busy and, every now and then, keeps helicopter factories busy building replacements (see “Teaching Hovering”). The same thing happens when trying to land a heavy jet. A little low? Thrust levers forward. Due to inertia plus a bit of spool-up time for the engines results in no big result for 5-10 seconds, at which point the airplane is above the glide slope. Thrust levers dramatically back! 5-10 seconds later… Well, you get the idea… (and then, at least in Toronto, the captain says “Nobody was born knowing how to fly a 53,000 lb. jet”)

I’m wondering if the same thing has gone on with human responses to coronavirus. Outputs (deaths) occur 2-4 weeks after inputs (exposure to the virus, changes in behavior). People are reacting this month to something that actually happened last month and may no longer be happening. (Will we look back on this and say it was like the tired mom of a sleepless two-month-old baby taking 31 birth control pills in hopes of undoing the damage?)

Related:

Full post, including comments

YouTube casting out the physician-heretics

by philg

I found a fun illustration of my theory that American attitudes toward coronaplague are primarily religious. Two physicians in California would ordinarily have been celebrated as heroic “frontline” workers. But then they made heretical statements in a YouTube video, e.g., that the death rate from Covid-19 was about the same as for a bad influenza (what the former chief scientist of the European CDC estimated as well) and that shutting down society and the economy was irrational.

YouTube cast out the heretics, which didn’t surprise me, but sampling the hour-long video (still available on the web site of the doctors’ local ABC broadcast(!) TV station), I was surprised at how mild-mannered the doctors are.

The efforts that elite Americans, such as the executives at Google/YouTube, are making to suppress heresy, all the while claiming that their religious beliefs are based on “science”, would be comical if not for the high stakes in terms of lives. Astronomers don’t spend a lot of effort trying to remove astrology videos from YouTube. People don’t feel that astronomy is threatened to the point that they post on Facebook #BelieveAstronomy and #RejectAstrology.

Related:

Full post, including comments

Have we figured out whether coronavirus is significantly spread via contaminated surfaces?

by philg

“NYC subways will close overnight for coronavirus cleanings” (New York Post):

New York’s 24/7 subway system will shutter nightly from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. to facilitate coronavirus cleaning, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday in a historic move.

“You never had a challenge of disinfecting every train every 24 hours,” said Cuomo in an Albany press briefing, a problem he earlier this week directed the MTA to solve. “It can best be done by stopping train service from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. every night.”

The “massive undertaking” is expected to impact 10,000 riders nightly, according to Cuomo, who said buses, vans and for-hire vehicles will be provided to pick up the slack.

“You do have essential workers who are using our trains and subways, and they will have transportation during that period of time,” Cuomo vowed.

The larger push to clean up the subway system has been made for those workers, who Cuomo said deserve better than dangerous, unsanitary trips to and from the front lines.

“It is our obligation as human beings to reciprocate, and make sure we’re doing everything we can,” he said.

Fine words, of course, from a guy who will probably not be working at 2:00 am with a bottle of Formula 409. But is there any evidence that touching surfaces previously touched by the plague-infected is a significant source of transmission? Is it touching door handles and subway poles that have turned New York into Wuhan-on-the-Hudson or is it sharing air, while actually together inside the subway and buses, that is primarily responsible?

For those of us who don’t live in a plague center (Boston and New York are the only ones left in the U.S.?), should we be touching everything with a cloth, OCD-style, or not worrying too much if we’re not in a crowded space?

Full post, including comments

Is the face mask the Church of Shutdown’s hijab?

by philg

Our town, which has a 2-acre zoning minimum, has imposed a rule requiring the “Use of Face Coverings”, starting today. People cannot be out of their yards without a mask:

Roads, sidewalks, bicycle paths, and trails: Walkers, joggers, cyclists, inline skaters, and skiers must wear face coverings when approaching or overtaking other persons. When no other person is nearby, the face covering may be worn under the chin in a position from which it can be quickly pulled up over the nose and mouth when needed. When approaching or overtaking another person, both parties must move off the path to the side to establish at least six feet of separation.

Most of the roads don’t have sidewalks, so this means people who are separated by the width of a two-lane road have to be masked. “Skiers” are mentioned, so it seems that the Church of Shutdown is preparing for a full year of worship.

Given that no effective masks are available for purchase in Massachusetts, the good news is that one can comply with this rule by wearing “scarf or bandana.” But aren’t those essentially useless against tiny particles of virus escaping into the air? If we can agree that bandanas and scarves are not adequate functional substitutes for surgical masks, is it fair to consider them religious symbols, i.e., the Church of Shutdown’s hijabs?

(Of course, it may also be impossible to buy a bandana:

Can the police arrest and/or fine people for failure to possess what cannot be purchased?)

Readers: What kind of evidence is there that a suburban street or sidewalk with a handful of walkers per hour, or a trail in the woods where people pass each other every 10 minutes (for example), will make any difference to whether a Covid-19 outbreak is sustained? (Separately, in what American suburb has a Covid-19 outbreak ever been sustained, despite up to two months of pre-shutdown spreading? For example, have we heard of a case of someone traveling from a St. Louis suburb to New York City for a Broadway show in February and then returning home to infect neighbors on the other sides of the white picket fences? The NYT map below doesn’t suggest that the fabled exponential growth has occurred anywhere in the U.S. other than a few cities.)

Related:

  • “The case for reopening America’s parks” (Vox): Another Chinese study looking at 318 outbreaks featuring three or more Covid-19 cases adding up to 1,245 total confirmed cases across more than 100 cities found just one instance of outdoor transmission.
  • Governor’s state-wide order on face masks: This applies to both indoor and outdoor spaces. … A face covering can include anything that covers your nose and mouth, including dust masks, scarves and bandanas. … make sure you wash the cloth mask regularly. Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer after touching the mask. [i.e., use the hand sanitizer that you can’t buy after touching the bandana that you can’t buy]
Full post, including comments

How productive are you during this coronplague shutdown?

by philg

Happy International Workers’ Day, comrades!

How productive are you and your co-workers now that everyone has gone to work-from-home?

In my small survey of for-profit enterprises that are still up and running, but dispersed, popular answers are in the 75-80 percent range. (Massachusetts public schools, however, are down closer to 10 percent.)

One manager at a “Big Tech” firm said that he expected productivity to fall as new projects were undertaken, but that 75-80 percent was a good number for the current work. He’s in Silicon Valley where hardly anyone has children. A manager at a “Big Tech” coding plantation here in Cambridge, also said that her team was at 80 percent. “Really?” I asked. “What about the people with children.” Her response: “Oh, they’re useless.”

Readers: What are you experiencing? If companies can truly work at 80 percent without an (expensive) office, can this be boosted up to the point where office space can be cut out? And if remote work does become popular, why will people want to stay in high-tax high-cost mediocre-weather states such as Massachusetts, New York (#1 in overall state and local tax burden), and New Jersey? Why not sell the $1 million 2,000 square-foot house in MA and work from home in a $1 million 6,000 square-foot house in Texas or Florida, while paying nothing in state income tax?

Related:

Full post, including comments

American health care workers rage against preferences for the H-1Bers

by philg

A friend is a physician in a moderately coronaplagued city here in the Northeast. She’s in a private discussion group for hospital workers. Since they actually do have some Covid-19 patients, they’re not in as bad financial shape as physicians, nurses, and other health care workers nationwide. However, they are having their hours, shifts, and pay cut…. except for the workers on H-1B visas.

Ordinarily, these folks are at least moderately pro-immigration. A caravan of Hondurans that crosses the border should be eligible for Medicaid soon enough, and certainly any children born to those Hondurans while they’re in the U.S. will be Medicaid-eligible. Medicaid will turn the “migrants” into “customers”.

Having their hours cut while the H-1B workers soldier on full-time at full pay, however, is apparently an unanticipated and bitter pill to swallow.

Where is the solidarity for International Workers’ Day?

(Personally, I think the rule makes sense. The H-1B workers do not have the flexibility to quit and work for another employer. So an employer of one of these indentured migrant servants shouldn’t have the right to cut hours and pay.)

Related:

Full post, including comments

Order that Oshkosh 2020 T-shirt now

by philg

EAA Airventure (“Oshkosh”) is canceled (press release).

Is it time to buy the Oshkosh 2020 T-shirts? Unlike with Tokyo 2020, they won’t rename next year’s event, I don’t think.

Ordinarily I don’t like T-shirts that feature airplanes I am not qualified to fly, but if the event is fictional maybe it is not so bad to implicitly claim fictional flying skills, e.g., with this P-40 Oshkosh 2020 shirt:

Or use a magic marker to update “Cleared Direct” to “Cleared to Cower in Place”?

Admittedly, Covid-19 is targeting the general aviation demographic. Of the 316 people killed by the evil virus in Wisconsin, the largest cluster is among those 90+:

Ninety is unfortunately close to the median age of single-engine piston aircraft pilots and perhaps younger than the expected age at completion of a homebuilt project…

Related:

Full post, including comments

Will the post-plague world be a better place for rich people?

by philg

A year ago I went to Disney World with a rich friend (post). He paid up $8,000 for two days of a VIP guide who enabled us to cut the lines. It still wasn’t that nice, however, due to the Times Square-ish crowds everywhere when we weren’t on a ride. I proposed the idea of a “crowd hater day” at each park each week where the ticket price would be 2X so that there would be some breathing room.

Every aspect of our Disney experience was ideal for spreading coronavirus. Even with the VIP guide we were jammed into crowds periodically. Dining was a mob scene. Shopping was mobbed.

I wonder if the parks will reopen with a capacity set by the tyrannical government at some level that seems unlikely to set off the next epidemic. If so, the most logical method for rationing the remaining tickets will be price. And Disney will have to raise the prices to get a similar level of revenue (since their overall expenses will be similar). So the parks will actually become a lot nicer for anyone who can afford $300/person for a ticket.

How about restaurants? If they have to cut capacity to 25 or 50 percent, as some of the reopened ones in various states are being ordered to do, again it seems as though though they’ll have to raise prices. So rich people will experience a negligible (to them) price penalty and a huge bonus in terms of peace and quiet for conversation, reduced waiting times for a table, etc. (Coincidentally, just as this post went live, a former student posted to Facebook a picture of herself eating wagyu steak in a Taipei restaurant’s private room. Their party of 4 was nicely spread out at a table that, in former times, would have easily held 8-12. As with most MIT students, she was born with an off-the-charts intellectual ability and then she has worked hard for 20 years. (She’s not “white” nor does she identify as “male” so you can’t say this is due to “white male privilege”!))

Getting to Disney? I am dreaming that airlines won’t ever be able to sell the middle seats anymore! As long as they bump prices by 50 percent, though, they can still have the same revenue with somewhat richer customers. Spirit prices are essentially $0 from the perspective of a rich American. It shouldn’t be a problem to pay 1.5 * $0.

Readers: What do you think? If everything has to be de-crowded and prices consequently raised, isn’t that actually a good thing from the perspective of the richest 5-10 percent of Americans?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Number of new Covid-19 cases are (finally) on the decline worldwide?

by philg

On March 26, I asked “Number of new COVID-19 cases worldwide is declining now?” (updated every few days with data and comments) Within just a couple of days, the answer seemed to be “no”.

I’m wondering if we can finally say that coronavirus has flattened its own curve when viewed from a planetary perspective. Today’s comment:

Sweden 695 new cases/81 deaths; Denmark 153/7; Massachusetts 1,963/252. With 3,405 deaths so far in Massachusetts versus 2,355 in Sweden, the Massachusetts death rate (adjusted for population size), halfway through our second month of lockdown, is 2X Sweden’s. India has experienced only 31,332 cases and 1,007 deaths, despite the vast population and impracticality of a true lockdown.

With roughly the same number of “new cases” worldwide as at the beginning of the month, despite what must be an increased testing capacity, I am prepared to guess that the number of new cases is actually declining. Deaths in today’s report were 5,376. Deaths reported on April 1 were 4,193. (If my guesses continue to prove wrong, this will qualify me for a job as an epidemiologist at the University of Washington’s Bill Gates-funded Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation!)

Readers: What do you think? Given the almost-flat new-case count, despite radically increased testing capacity, and the almost-flat death count, despite the time interval between infection and death, is it fair to say that the human race has reached at least some sort of steady state situation with coronavirus? Or can we even say that coronavirus is declining?

Also, how do we explain India? The population did not have natural immunity. Only a small percentage of the population has the practical means to isolate themselves the way that an American suburbanite could.

Related/Unrelated… Some young folks meet in the Target parking lot in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:

They invited us to join them and it was a nice conversation until the roof of the Toyota Avalon crew car collapsed…

A separate question to which I don’t have a good answer is “Why do all of these young people comply?” In theory, they have a First Amendment right to assemble. Maybe some of them will be persuaded by the media and/or by sentiment that they have to sacrifice their social lives in order to protect hypothetical elderly Americans (82 is the average age of a Covid-19 fatality in Massachusetts, with more than 98 percent having an “underlying condition”). But why would most of them or nearly all of them do that? And unless we can keep almost all of our social young people locked down, containing coronavirus is hopeless, right? There has never been a situation in which old people have had long-term success telling young people what to do, has there?

Full post, including comments