Category: Coronaplague

If coronascientists can’t predict the future, why do we call their predictions scientific?

by philg

From yesterday’s post on Israel…

For comparison, how about the U.S. case count, plunging since January 1, 2021 despite no changes in policy or significant numbers of people vaccinated (from NYT):

And the plunging hospitalizations, which presumably should lead to a plunge in deaths (since the only thing worse than death is death without Medicare being billed for a hospital stay):

Given that Americans did not change their behavior or policies during the time period covered, coronascience that is actually “scientific” should have been able to predict this peak and subsequent downward trend, right?

Let’s look at what our nation’s greatest scientist (at age 80), Dr. Fauci, said to state-sponsored media just a month before the peak. “Fauci Warns Of ‘Surge Upon A Surge’ As COVID-19 Hospitalizations Hit Yet Another High” (NPR, November 29):

“We may see a surge upon a surge,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “We don’t want to frighten people, but that’s just the reality. We said that these things would happen as we got into the cold weather and as we began traveling, and they’ve happened.”

With the December holidays just around the corner and more people traveling, “it’s going to happen again,” Fauci said. “We’re getting into colder weather and an even larger holiday season.”

The December holidays happened. More people actually did travel: “U.S. air travel reached post-March peak on day before Christmas Eve, TSA data shows” (NBC). Positive tests (“cases”) are half what they were when these superspreading travel events occurred.

From the Official Magazine of Trump Hatred (New Yorker, November 12, 2020)… “The Pandemic’s Winter Surge is Here,” by “Dhruv Khullar, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, is a practicing physician and an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College”:

Unless we put mitigating measures in place, the coronavirus will spread, and sooner than we expect it will get out of control. The only way to avoid mass death is to move quickly and decisively, flattening the curve through masks, distance, testing, tracing, and lockdowns until a vaccine and therapies can avert the suffering caused by covid-19. Passivity is the enemy. The winter surge is here; we decide what happens next.

(Note that science-following humans are in charge of the virus: we decide what happens next.)

None of these things were done, except maybe in California and Maskachusetts, yet the surge that concerned the “scientist” dissipated, apparently due to factors unrelated to human actions.

Here’s Florida “case” curve, with a decline starting just as the snowbirds arrived for Christmas:

Florida is a state with no mask law:

Florida recommends but does not require face coverings for the general public. Several cities and large counties, including Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Hillsborough (which includes Tampa), have mask requirements, but local governments are barred from assessing fines and penalties for noncompliance under a Sept. 25 executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Floridians have rejected what the rest of us call science. Schools are open for in-person instruction (with some objections and lawsuits from science-following unionized teachers). Restaurants are open. Clubs are open. Offices are open. After-school sports for children are open and unmasked. People gather in large groups for social purposes. Even in supermarkets staffed by and catering to the elderly, workers and customers may be unmasked (CNBC). Here’s a January 2020 photograph from a club in Miami, in which people greeted each other with hugs and kisses:

If “scientists” failed yet again in their predictions, why are they still called “scientists”? What has distinguished astronomy from astrology, for example, is the superior predictive power of astronomy. Astronomy also gets better every year. Have we seen any improvement in the ability or people who claim to have scientific insight regarding coronavirus to predict epidemic statistics?

[My personal explanation for the plunge in U.S. “cases”: Back in October, Joe Biden promised that he would shut down the virus. What we’re seeing is simply President Biden delivering on his campaign promise a little earlier than expected (i.e., starting three weeks before taking power).]

Related:

  • Did doom visit the Swedes yesterday as planned? (May 24: On May 3, in “Doom for the wicked Swedes is always three weeks away”, the IHME prophecy for Sweden was a peak in ICU usage on May 22 and a peak in deaths (494/day) on May 23. What actually happened? Yesterday’s WHO report showed 54 new deaths. The day before it was 40. In other words, the prophecy was off by a factor of 10. They were going to need nearly 4,400 ICU beds. The actual number in ICUs all around Sweden? About 340. In other words, the “scientists” were off by a factor of 13X.)
  • How is coronaplague down in Brazil? (and the rest of the IHME predictions) (August 5; the June 10 prediction of the “scientists” was off by 10X).
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If the vaccine works, why isn’t the plague over in Israel?

by philg

[February 11 update: Only five days later, some more data… “It works: 0 deaths, only 4 severe cases among 523,000 fully vaccinated Israelis” (Times of Israel, but no information in the article regarding how old and/or sick this population of 523,000 folks was (maybe the kinds of folks who are typically killed by COVID-19 are not part of this HMO)).]

Israel is mostly vaccinated at this point, yet the coronaplague is subsiding at only roughly the rate we’d expect for a country in lockdown. (Israel went into its third lockdown in December and, of course, the country is fully masked as well.)

Here are some charts:

Shouldn’t we expect a discontinuity in hospitalizations if the vaccine is working as advertised?

How about deaths, the most reliable statistic?

How do we explain these banal curves given the widespread use of the revolutionary plague-ending vaccine?

For comparison, how about the U.S. case count, plunging since January 1, 2021 despite no changes in policy or significant numbers of people vaccinated (from NYT):

And the plunging hospitalizations, which presumably should lead to a plunge in deaths (since the only thing worse than death is death without Medicare being billed for a hospital stay):

Related:

  • If COVID-19 vaccines weren’t tested on likely COVID-19 victims, how do we know that they will reduce COVID-19 deaths? (December 27, 2020)
  • NYT regarding Israel: “The new Israeli research looked at national health statistics for people 60 years and older, who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine first because of their high risk. Analyzing data from six weeks into the vaccination campaign, when the majority of people that age had been vaccinated, they found that the number of new Covid-19 cases dropped by 41 percent compared to three weeks earlier. That group also experienced a 31 percent drop in hospitalizations from the coronavirus, and a drop of 24 percent of those who became critically ill.” (i.e., despite a national lockdown, they had 76 percent as many “critically ill” among their newly vaccinated population compared to the no-lockdown no-vaccine situation).
  • Don’t share this on Facebook… “Facebook says it plans to remove posts with false vaccine claims.” (NYT, February 8): “Building trust and confidence in these vaccines is critical, so we’re launching the largest worldwide campaign to help public health organizations share accurate information about Covid-19 vaccines and encourage people to get vaccinated as vaccines become available to them,” Kang-Xing Jin, head of health at Facebook, said in a company blog post.
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Save lives by limiting cars to 35 mph?

by philg

Following up on Why do we care about COVID-19 deaths more than driving-related deaths? (March 26, 2020) … by shutting down for a year we’ve spent way more per life-year in our attempt to reduce coronaplague deaths than I ever could have imagined. If we infer from this how much saving a life-year is worth to us, it would be rational to limit cars and tracks, nearly all of which are electronically controlled, to 35 mph. Consider that most people who die in car accidents had many decades of life expectancy in front of them, unlike the typical 82-year-old victim of COVID-19.

An SUV-driving suburban Bostonite who runs his own law practice (representing workers’ compensation plaintiffs who aren’t typically expert computer users and who therefore prefer to meet in person): “I go to work every day at 80 miles per hour.”

Obviously setting the speed limit to 35 mph and relying on police enforcement wouldn’t work. For one thing, our heroic law enforcement officers don’t want to interact with potential COVID carriers (all who want to be vaccinated have been vaccinated, but many refused the experimental (“investigational”) vaccines and it is unknown whether the vaccines work against variants).

Most states have annual inspection requirements. How about insisting that engine control software be updated in order to get an inspection sticker? The update will prevent the car from exceeding 35 mph. New cars, obviously, can be limited via regulation.

How can Presidents Biden and Harris sell this to the American people? “You were happy to sit at home for a year when we told you it might save lives. You can wait an extra 10 minutes to get to Walmart.”

A potential #resistance household in Key West:

And these two in Miami may need a long spell in the re-education camp:

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Why you can’t get vaccinated by your local dentist

by philg

A dentist friend (yes, even dentists need friends!) looked into becoming a COVID-19 vaccination center. She’s amply qualified to inject people (“so is a janitor,” says a med school professor friend). She earns her high income by serving a low-income high-risk population so it would make perfect sense for the parents of her patients to come in and get stuck.

What’s stopping her? “It costs $12,000 for the fridge and I don’t think I’d be able to get reimbursed for giving shots. I’m set up to bill for dental services and being able to bill for medical is a whole different procedure.”

(How is it possible to prosper when the patients are poor? Medicaid doesn’t pay quite as much as private dental insurance for any given procedure, but it is common for children on Medicaid to need $10,000+ in dental surgery due to candy+lack of brushing. An upper middle class child might yield a slightly higher payment for a cleaning, but that is the only revenue that can be obtained from treating the upper middle class child.)

Marketing to MassHealth (Medicaid) customers in Worcester, Maskachusetts, a city whose entire economy consists of mining poor people (medical, dental, criminal prosecution and divorce/custody/child support litigation in a magnificent brand new courthouse).

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Know Your Audience: the masked helicopter pilot

by philg

A post in a helicopter pilots’ group: “Pandemic times” over the following photo.

Nobody came up with my preferred reaction (“You have to say global pandemic”). Sampling of the responses:

  • That is utterly retarded……
  • Whenever I see an aircraft several thousand feet above me, my first thought is always “wonder if they’re being good commies and effing wearing their slave costumes way up there by themselves…”
  • I get free IFR time whenever I have to fly with a mask and glasses
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Coronavirus PPE from Berkeley

by philg

A Berkeley, California friend’s Facebook post:

given #B117 mutation, masked protection needs to be intensified
I’m doubling down, with cloth on top of N95 (thx Mitt Romney)
Also bought a little neck fan for blowing air – designed to cool off the wearer, when inverted it nudges incoming air away from my mouth
Stacking layers in my SafetyLasagna (which includes vitamin D in the AM, saline spray to line my nasal passages, then these crazy additions)

Above a photo, cropped for privacy:

Although this inventor is a Dr. just like Dr. Jill Biden, MD, his California friends are not impressed:

My understanding is that fans, while protective for the wearer, actually increase the risk to others by blowing exhaled virus farther. I would steer clear of anyone I saw in public with a fan near their face.

Your fans could harm others if you were unknowingly covid+

I have read that the masks with the valve are not appropriate as a virus barrier, but are intended to prevent dust inhalation–so they let your breath out but prevent particles from coming in. You have an N95 underneath, so not an issue here, but since this is an opportunity for community review of a safety plan, wondering if you have thoughts there. Stay healthy! #SafetyLasagna

We actually do know that fans increase projection of viral particles. If you are wearing a fan, you increase risk of transmission from you to others, but also from others to you, just by stirring up a lot of air near the face.

I told him that I thought it would be simpler to eat real lasagna until his BMI hits 40 and thus get higher priority for the vaccine. A friend from MIT with some mechanical engineering ability:

If he is going to bother at all, which is debatable, he should use a P-100 respirator and NIOSH approved goggles. If you are really that concerned, add a faceshield. Doubling two useless filters ain’t going to do it…. P-100 filters are 167 times more efficient than N-95 (which are 10-20 time better than surgical masks). You need an elastomeric/plastic seal on your face or you aren’t getting to the next level. Some N95s have such seals.

Readers: Who has seen some interesting PPE solutions lately? The LG PuriCare (N95-ish mask with fan assist), announced in August, doesn’t seem to be available in the U.S., but online retailers in Hong Kong show that it is in stock there for HK$1,180 ($150 in the currency that Jesus prefers everyone to use).

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Lockdown is our Vietnam War so it will end gradually?

by philg

A Facebook user posted “Canadian expert’s research finds lockdown harms are 10 times greater than benefits” (Toronto Sun) regarding an academic paper by Dr. Ari Joffe, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of Alberta (i.e., a colleague of Dr. Jill Biden, MD).

I’m not that interested in the paper because, even in March I expected that the shutdowns would kill far more people than they might save, What was interesting to me was the gloss added by the Facebooker:

Of course, we can’t actually do this reassessment because doing so would admit that the last year was madness. The lockdowns are like Vietnam, the political and media establishment have so much invested in them, only a gradual drawdown will be permitted, regardless of the “science.”

Readers: What do you think of this analogy? We decided that the Vietnam War was unwinnable in 1968, but we didn’t get out until 1975 (timeline).

MLK Memorial:

MLK’s thoughts from 1967:

I oppose the war in Viet Nam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. There can be no great disappointment where there is no great love … Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war we must spread the propaganda of peace.

Related:

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Department of Homeland Security is reading academic papers

by philg

A medical school professor friend was denied Global Entry at Logan Airport when returning to Boston from a Christmas holiday in his native European homeland (remember to listen to public health advice from the MD/PhDs regarding the covid-spreading potential of travel; don’t follow their examples!). His luggage was taken apart piece by piece, scrutinized, and repeatedly X-rayed. He presumed that the unprecedented (for him) examination was due to all of the European food that he’d packed. The agents explained, however, that he and another passenger on the same flight had been flagged due to having published journal papers on the subject of COVID-19. Someone at DHS had read these and flagged the two academics as potential carriers of forbidden “human biological samples” (Customs and Border Protection page).

My literary foray into the area of what the government might be monitoring (a few commenters seemed to think that I was serious):

We still have some of the brisket in the freezer…

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Sell COVID-brand cigarettes?

by philg

“Smokers in N.J. Are Eligible for Vaccine. No Proof Needed.” (New York Times):

Faced with soaring rates of coronavirus infection and more doses of vaccine in freezers than in arms, New Jersey officials made a calculated choice.

They opened the floodgates of vaccine eligibility on Thursday to about 4.5 million additional residents: those 65 and older and younger people with underlying health problems, including cancer, heart conditions and diabetes — diseases that can lead to severe complications from Covid-19.

As part of the expansion, New Jersey also became only the second state in the country to open vaccinations to another high-risk group — smokers. As is true for all Covid-19 vaccinations in New Jersey, no documentation of an underlying health condition is required.

Could we make a few $$ by selling COVID-brand cigarettes to folks in New Jersey who want to buy their first pack ever and check the “smoker” box when getting a vaccine?

Readers: What should the package look like? A picture of Dr. Fauci on the front and Dr. Jill Biden, MD on the back?

From a state fair in New Jersey, 1995:

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Why didn’t coronapanic and shutdown push virtual reality over the hump?

by philg

In Virtual reality and augmented reality: the technologies of the future (March 2019) I asked

Is it fair to say that “VR/AR is the technology of the future, and always will be”?

The future arrived in March 2020, with governments around the world making it illegal to interact face to face, illegal to travel, etc. If VR were ever going to catch on, shouldn’t coronapanic and associated lockdowns have been the catalyst?

If there were complete VR experiences at most of the world’s art museums, I would buy a VR headset right now, but museum web sites don’t seem to offer more than conventional image galleries. Maybe there are a handful of museum experiences available, but certainly it is not like the freedom that we had in the physical world when the physical world (beyond South Dakota and Sweden) included freedom.

VR could also be great for mass (virtual) gatherings. Wander around in VR and form small conversation groups (but maybe this wouldn’t be as good as Zoom because you’d have to interact with avatars unless you wanted to see pictures of people with VR goggles attached to their heads.

Who has tried the Oculus Quest 2? One of my cousins loves this, but maybe that is because he has been locked into his house with wife and two (mostly grown) children (i.e., perhaps coronapanic did push him into the VR fold). No cumbersome cables (and therefore limited to two hours of battery-based usage). No need to configure a PC. No privacy issues because it is tied to Facebook, which already knows everything about you.

Related:

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