The evolving science of herd immunity from coronaplague

by philg

Back in March, the best scientists, including one with a Ph.D. in physics who happens to run Germany (see “60% to 70% of the German population will be infected by the coronavirus, Merkel says”) believed that the majority of a population would have to become infected with coronaplague before herd immunity would would kick in.

“The progress of the COVID-19 epidemic in Sweden: an analysis” does a region-by-region analysis of Sweden, in which plague mitigation efforts among the non-elderly have been minimal, and concludes that when 6 percent test positive for antibodies, herd immunity may be reached among a population that is taking only voluntary precautions:

Notwithstanding that a month ago antibodies were only detected in 6.3% of the Swedish population, the declining death rate since mid-May strongly suggests that the herd immunity threshold had been surpassed in the three largest regions, and in Sweden as a whole, by the end of April. … The herd immunity threshold is likely lower at present than it would be if people were behaving completely normally; it may also be seasonally lower.

Here’s a June 30 article from Quanta, “The Tricky Math of Herd Immunity for COVID-19”:

But on a larger scale, heterogeneity typically lowers the herd immunity threshold. At first the virus infects people who are more susceptible and spreads quickly. But to keep spreading, the virus has to move on to people who are less susceptible. This makes it harder for the virus to spread, so the epidemic grows more slowly than you might have anticipated based on its initial rate of growth.

The above paragraph could have come from a 100-year-old epidemiology text. Thus, it is a example of one of the few bright spots in my coronaplague experience, i.e., seeing how Americans pitch the near-universal failure of “scientists” (except for the MD/PhDs who work for the Swedish government) to predict the likely trajectory and death rate of the epidemic as a success for “science”: Yes, we got everything wrong by a factor of 5-40X, but that just proves how quickly progress can be made in Science with sufficient funding and the right leadership in the White House.

Now that the plague has run its course (for at least Wave #1) here in Maskachusetts, my Facebook feed is packed with people congratulating themselves:

Tremendous achievement in Massachusetts. Not easy. And not free of tremendous costs. But it works and is saving lives ! [over “Mass. Reports 0 New Coronavirus Deaths — and Its Death Toll Drops in Data Cleanup”, regarding a day in which state workers apparently decided to take a mini vacation and not report any deaths]

(A self-proclaimed “data scientist” also posted this as evidence of a grand achievement. The next day, at which point the reported deaths were back to the trend, I ingenuously asked “What happened today? Were there zero deaths again?” He defriended me, thus contributing to my effort to be the most defriended person in the history of Facebook.)

Some data: the July 2 report from MA, population 7 million, with 51 reported deaths. From Texas, population 29 million, 44 reported deaths for the same day:

Florida, population 21 million, suffered 67 deaths on July 2, according to the failing New York Times:

So my friends here in Maskachusetts were celebrating the triumph of humans over a virus despite a death rate vastly higher than the states they explicitly describe as “disasters” and a death rate vastly higher than Belarus, for example, which did not bother to shut down schools, mass gatherings, or anything else. It is a little strange to me, since every year the influenza epidemic winds down and we don’t, every year, celebrate our success in making influenza go away. Example from the CDC of human triumph over the influenza virus:

The smart American humans wiped this virus out back in 2009 (thanks to excellent leadership from President Obama?)!

I wonder if the Facebook and media celebration of a zero-death data anomaly in Maskachusetts is a guide to how Americans will process their months (or years?) of shutdown when coronaplague does finally burn itself out. They will simply assert that the sacrifices that they made prevented the virus from killing millions of people, just as the Flagellants believed that they ended the Black Death. And then there will be a twist in which people will assert that things being taught in epidemiology skool back in the 1800s (e.g., Farr’s law) were newly discovered by heroic “scientists” in mid-2020.

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Robot overlords versus dog with upset tummy

by philg

We are told that we will soon be replaced by robots. An account of one of our future overlords cleaning the house…

So … one [of] my dogs had a BAD accident and then my Roomba went off at 4 am as scheduled. After cleaning up for 2 hours and tossing the disgusting Roomba, I need to replace it. It was 5 years old so I am sure there are new features out there. Any specific recs? I’m not married to the brand but I did love it. Until today.

Our manual vacuum cleaner doesn’t seem so bad after reading this.

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How was the mask compliance at July 4 gatherings?

by philg

My Facebook feed has been dominated for about two months by friends who have faith in the perfectibility of human beings. Americans are on the cusp of wearing masks consistently and correctly, but need a slight push in the form of additional education regarding (a) the seriousness of coronavirus, (b) the deadliness of Covid-19 to people of all ages, (c) the discomfort of being intubated (see meme below), (d) the efficacy of masks in stopping coronaplague in its tracks.

The same people previously asserted that nearly half of Americans were dumb as bricks, gulled by a demagogue into voting against their own interests.

Implicitly, therefore, the idea is that stupid people, provided with a few Facebook updates regarding the merits of masks, will make a science-informed decision to mask up, wash hands after every time that they touch their homemade mask (a.k.a. “face rag”), and change masks or clean masks frequently.

Can we test this assumption by observing the behavior of people who are already reasonably well-informed regarding the oxymoron of “medical science”? Late last month, for example, I attended a birthday party for an MD/PhD. It was pitched via email as a “small and socially distanced” backyard event. Most of the guests were also MD/PhDs, age 50-65. Everyone showed up wearing a mask and settled in 6’ apart. The menu: potato chips, cupcakes, s’mores, scotch, and cigars. After 30 minutes, the gathering had grown and people were more like 3’ apart, nearly all unmasked on an uncharacteristically windless evening.

Readers: What have you observed in backyard BBQs and similar July 4-style events?

(Also, Happy Treason Day to friends and readers in the U.K.!)

Related:

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Why won’t the NFL play the Black national anthem before every game?

by philg

“NFL to play Black national anthem ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing’ before ‘Star Spangled Banner’ at Week 1 games” (CBS):

“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” a song also known as the Black national anthem, will be performed live or played prior to “The Star Spangled Banner” at each of the NFL’s Week 1 games in 2020, according to the Associated Press, which adds that the league is also considering memorializing victims of police brutality with helmet decals or jersey patches. These moves are seen as part of the league’s collaborative work with its players to raise awareness of systemic racism and police brutality.

Why is it only for Week 1? If this is the right thing to do, shouldn’t it be also for Week 2 and every subsequent week?

Who will be the first to be deplatformed by suggesting that the NFL start every game with a quote from the second greatest president (after FDR)?

…there is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in the military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.” –President John F. Kennedy’s News Conference of March 21, 1962

How could we update the lyrics of “The Star Spangled-Banner” for coronapanic?

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?		O say can you see, by the screen’s early light,
What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose HD and 4K through the capacious pipe,
O’er the FiOS we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the phone screen’s red glare, Facebook alerts in the air,
Gave proof through the night that Don Trump was still there;
O say do essential marijuana stores,
O’er all of Maskachusetts stay open today?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.		*** could use some help here ***
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.		*** could use some help here ***
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave		O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Inside their loved homes until the end of time.
Blest with op’oids and booze, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise Instacart that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then cower we must, until our minivan does rust,
And this be our motto: ‘In Fauci’s our trust.’
And our school teacher’s union by Zoom shall wave,
O’er part of Monday morning and also on Thursday

Related:

  • Francis Scott Key: [he] purchased his first slave in 1800 or 1801 and owned six slaves in 1820. … Key is known to have publicly criticized slavery’s cruelties. (i.e., he is like our neighbors who drive pavement-melting SUVs from their 6,000 square-foot fully climate-controlled houses while publicly criticizing climate change!)
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History lessons from the musical Hamilton

by philg

The price of a ticket to Hamilton finally came down to something I was willing to pay: $0 (already subscribing to Disney+).

So far I’ve learned that taxes in the American colonies were sky-high and King George was arbitrarily murderous.

Who else is watching? Now that we’ve seen it, does it seem like it would have been worth $2,000/seat to see in the theater? (If we assume that the streaming Hamilton is as good as the live one, comparable to the assumption that our state and local overlords would have us believe regarding K-12 schools, everything else on Disney+ is essentially free until everyone in our family is dead. The cost of four tickets to Hamilton on Broadway, back in the year 2019, would pay for at least 50 years of Disney+?)

Also… Happy Treason Day!

An NBER paper:

There is no doubt that the colonies paid very low taxes. For example, in 1763, on average, a citizen in Britain paid 26 shillings per year in taxes, while a citizen in New England paid just 1 shilling per year (see, for example, Ferguson 2004). Along the same line, Walton and Shepherd (1979) present an index of per capita tax burden for 1765: Great Britain 100, Ireland 26, Massachusetts 4, Connecticut 2, New York 3, Pennsylvania 4, Maryland 4, and Virginia 2. Moreover, after the Seven Years War, the British Parliament tried and failed to impose new taxes on the American colonies …

The third wave was the Townshend Acts of 1767, which were customs duties on British products imported into the colonies. The measures were intended to raise 1% of colonial income, a relatively small economic burden. Moreover, they met the criteria that only external trade should be taxed.

I’ve seen some other sources that calculated the tax burden for American colonists at 2 percent of income, lower than the most efficient countries today, such as Singapore (14 percent). For reference, the U.K. collects about 33 percent of income in taxes today while the U.S. is at 27 percent (but we spend 38 percent!).

Regarding the other history lesson, did King George ever actually order any colonist killed, like Admiral General Aladeen in The Dictator did?

Fallingwater, more or less on the Proclamation Line, west of which the colonists could not steal land from the Native Americans without rebelling against England:

Correction from Joseph Boyle: The British actually did steal more land (via “treaty”) in the years between 1763 and 1776. The Purchase Line of 1768 reflects this theft. (This correction notwithstanding, the British did seem to be more inclined toward honoring treaties and less inclined toward slaveholding than were the colonists.)

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More Americans will die from all of the coronaguns than from actual coronaplague?

by philg

“Gun sales are off the charts” (Fortune):

U.S. consumers are rushing to buy guns as the Covid-19 pandemic and protests over police brutality combine with U.S. presidential politics to fuel unprecedented demand.

Firearm background checks compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a proxy for gun purchases, jumped to a record in June as street demonstrations spread around the U.S. That extended a surge that began in March as the coronavirus prompted lockdowns across the country.

James Hillin, owner of Full Armor Firearms in Texas, said the store’s gun sales have increased 75% since January, and that 95% of those were by new gun owners.“They’re scared,” Hillin said before cutting a brief interview short to attend to waiting customers. “They want to protect themselves.”

I wonder if, in the long run, more American life-years will be lost as a result of this increase in gun ownership sparked by coronapanic lockdowns and the subsequent riots by those who’d been locked down. (This is not to say that I am against Americans exercising their Second Amendment freedoms, which might be one of the few Constitutional rights that is left!) Keep in mind that the typical person who dies from a gunshot would is much younger than the typical person (80+) who dies from/with Covid-19.

From Back Bay (Boston) the other day…

(What does it mean to “attend” high school in a country where no teachers are willing to work?)

Older posts on the side-effect deaths from coronapanic:

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What if Thomas Edison were alive today?

by philg

Edison by Edmund Morris, gives us some hints as to how Thomas Edison might have dealt with our society’s challenges today. (Below, Edison’s workshop, transported to Michigan by Henry Ford and now part of Greenfield Village.)

Although he was an early enthusiast for aviation, trying to build a helicopter in the 1880s, Edison (1847-1931) actually lived (and continued to work hard and effectively) through the period of the most rapid advances in aviation. He seems not to have contributed anything significant to the development of flying machines.

One thing that I learned from the book is that Edison loved huge projects and was not afraid of doing things at scale. He put about $2 million and years of work into trying to mine iron ore in New Jersey and then mill it profitably. From the early 1890s:

A party of inspectors sent by Engineering and Mining Journal toured the plant early in the fall. Although some sections were idled for refurbishment and Edison was coy about showing any of his new machines, they could see that he already excelled at quarrying and magnetic separation, if not yet in the difficult processes of crushing and refinement. They were particularly impressed with his cableway system, every suspended “skip” delivering four tons of rock to the crushers at only twelve cents a load. But they predicted that in view of the low iron content of local ore, Edison would still have to spend a fortune and deploy “the utmost resources of engineering skill” to compete with Mesabi ore at 64 percent iron. “With his surpassing genius [and] capacity for taking infinite pains, it cannot be doubted that he will ultimately achieve success.”

In July Edison learned that his mining venture had so far cost him $850,000, including some $100,000 that could not be accounted for. A profit-killing amount of money was being lavished on labor that simply loaded and unloaded rock at either end of the conveyors. The jaw crushers took too long to do their work and often broke down, necessitating expensive repairs. The magnetic separators, plagued by screening problems, were concentrating only 47 percent iron—far less than the 66 or 70 percent he needed to match the richness of Great Lakes ore. He was still digesting this information when a stockhouse under construction at Ogden collapsed, killing five men and injuring twelve. Lawsuits alleging negligence were filed by bereaved families.106 A newspaper clipping he carried in his wallet read, “Thomas Edison is a happy and healthy man. He does not worry.” As usual he countered the pull of bad news by pushing forward harder. Rather than continue to “improve” Ogden with ad hoc adjustments, he increased the capital of its parent company to $1.25 million, then shut the plant for a tear-down rebuild that would expand it enormously and make it a showpiece of automated design. No sooner had a new separator house gone up than he decided it needed some screening towers, and should be constructed all over again.

Given what we now know about the ore near Lake Superior (ore in the water of Tahquamenon Falls, below, from Travels with Samantha), the idea seems laughable today and, indeed, it was a complete failure. Nonetheless, it was amazing how many problems Edison was able to solve.

My theory about what he would be working on today, therefore, is geoengineering. He would take complaints about a warming planet as inspiration to work in the lab and then build infrastructure on the scale of the largest mines and power plants.

How about coronaplague? Edison did like to jump into solving problems that society perceived as urgent. But what kind of machine would be useful for fighting the plague? Big shade structures to move activities outdoors? Edison did put a lot of effort into “tornado-proof concrete houses”:

Last May’s catastrophic earthquake in San Francisco revived an idea he had had when the cement mill was first ready to roll. He saw low-cost, molded concrete houses replacing the fragile wooden boxes in which most Americans lived—houses that contractors would mix from cement (with a colloidal additive for grit suspension) and spill on the spot into prefabricated forms. A three-story house could be poured in six hours and set in less than a week.

He had to admit that the individual kits, consisting of nickel-plated cast iron parts, would be expensive, at around $25,000 apiece. But they would pay for themselves in frequency of use and universality of detail, molding mantelpieces, banisters, dormer windows, conduits for wiring, “and even bathtubs.” Having made the investment, a contractor could pour a new house every four days. Each could be sold for $500 or $600, enabling millions of low-income Americans to become homeowners for the first time, with no need to worry about earthquakes, hurricanes, or fire. “I will see this innovation a commonplace fact,” Edison promised, “even though I am in my sixtieth year.”

What about a wearable device that would deflect the evil coronavirus away from a person’s mouth and nose, but without obstructing breathing the way that a mask does?

Where would Edison have stood on this year’s Presidential campaign? “Edison had always been a loyal Republican,” writes Morris, but quotes Edison explaining why he voted for Teddy Roosevelt whose statue was just toppled in Manhattan: “I’m a Progressive, because I’m young at sixty-five,” he said. “And this is a young man’s movement. There are a lot of people who die in the head before they are fifty. They’re the ones who get shocked if you propose anything that wasn’t going when they were boys.” Morris says that “Edison had come to despise government bureaucrats, seeing them as a blight on democracy,” but perhaps Edison’s Progressive streak would have led him to support Bernie nonetheless!

On the third hand, Edison would probably not have been able to hold a job in the present-day U.S.:

Relations between him and [son] Charles warmed to the extent they could resume their old exchange of “negro jokes.”

Wikipedia points out that Edison married a subordinate whom we would today call “underage”:

On December 25, 1871, at the age of 24, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855–1884), whom he had met two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops.

Mary likely died, only 28 years old, in the modern American manner. The author quotes from a contemporary source:

At the request of Mr. Edison she took a trip to Florida last winter. Instead of obtaining relief she fell victim to gastritis, due to the peculiar atmosphere or perhaps the long acquaintance with morphine. She returned to Menlo Park in a more troubled condition. Her pain intensified, and at times she was almost frantic. Morphia was the only remedy, and naturally she tried to increase the quantity prescribed by the doctors. From the careless word dropped by [a] friend of the family it was more than intimated that an overdose of morphine swallowed in a moment of frenzy caused by pain greater than she could bear brought on her untimely death. The doctor in attendance said she died of congestion of the brain. When a reporter put the question to him he positively asserted that it was the immediate cause, but about the more remote causes he preferred to remain silent.

(1.5 years later, Edison was 39 and married Mina, age 20.)

What about shutting down schools, society, and the economy for three months so as to end up with the same death rate from Covid-19 as Sweden?

as Edison lay dying [in 1931, age 84], it was suggested to President Hoover that the entire electrical system of the United States should be shut off for one minute on the night of his interment. But Hoover realized that such a gesture would immobilize the nation and quite possibly kill countless people.

Readers: Fun speculation for today… suppose that Thomas Edison were alive today, age 40, and had $1 billion available to invest. What problem would he attack?

More: Read Edison by Edmund Morris.

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Get rid of exercise in the name of public health (Sweden did okay, though)

by philg

What’s the best strategy for dealing with a virus that attacks the obese and out of shape? Stay home for three months right next to the fridge.

“In Fight Against COVID-19, Physical Activity Falls Off a Cliff — Drastic change in worldwide daily step counts since March” (MedPage Today):

In the first 10 days after the World Health Organization’s March 11 declaration that COVID-19 was officially a global pandemic, smartphone users worldwide showed a 5.5% decrease in mean daily steps (287 fewer steps).

In the first 30 days, mean daily steps dropped 27.3% (1,432 fewer steps), reported the group led by Geoffrey Tison, MD, MPH, of the University of California San Francisco. Their paper was published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

For example, people in Italy had a 48.7% maximal decrease in daily steps, whereas those in Sweden showed only a 6.9% maximal reduction in steps. The difference may have stemmed from government responses, as Italy issued a lockdown on March 9, whereas Sweden has yet to implement such a measure.

(I like the last part. There is still hope among the righteous for saving Swedish souls by converting them to the Church of Shutdown.)

“This is an interesting natural experiment that has health implications for global and regional populations, and especially those with underlying chronic health conditions who are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality and who may depend on routine physical activity as a preventive measure,” according to Messiah.

i.e., it will be interesting for a “scientist” (named “Messiah”! As someone who evaluates coronaplague “science” from a comparative religion point of view, this is my dream fulfilled!) to watch fat people die.

From the Newport Jazz Festival, 2005 (canceled until a hardier breed of Americans can be produced?):

Related:

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Get rid of public restrooms in the name of public health?

by philg

One of the things that Western do-gooders scolded India for was its lack of public restrooms, a hazard to public health. What was the first thing that we did in response to coronaplague? Close our public restrooms!

At the Cape Cod National Seashore in May, for example, the beach was open but the restrooms were closed. From the web site:

DeCordova Art Museum and Sculpture Park: park open by reservation; restrooms closed.

Our town, soon to build the most expensive school building, per student, ever constructed in the United States:

(They have $110 million for a building for 440 town-resident students, but can’t figure out how to keep an outdoor pool’s restrooms clean/safe? Why are porta-potties better? Because only one person will go in at a time?)

Speaking of the pool… “Face coverings should NOT be worn in the water” and “Patrons should not bring water (or land) toys of any kind with them to the facility, as they increase the risk of contact transmission.” (but didn’t we decide that the “science was settled” and people were not getting coronaplague from surface contamination?)

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