Fairfax County School Shutdown Karen thought process

by philg

A friend sent me this post from Joe the Shutdown Karen of Fairfax County:

To our fellow FCPS families, this is it gang, 5 days until the 2 days in school vs. 100% virtual decision. Let’s talk it out, in my traditional mammoth TL/DR form.

Full disclosure, we initially chose the 2 days option and are now having serious reservations. As I consider the positions and arguments I see in my feed, these are where my mind goes. Of note, when I started working on this piece at 12:19 PM today the COVID death tally in the United States stood at 133,420.

“My kids want to go back to school.”

I challenge that position. I believe what the kids desire is more abstract. I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.

“I want my child in school so they can socialize.”

This was the principle reason for our 2 days decision. As I think more on it though, what do we think ‘social’ will look like? There aren’t going to be any lunch table groups, any lockers, any recess games, any study halls, any sitting next to friends, any talking to people in the hallway, any dances. All of that is off the menu. So, when we say that we want the kids to benefit from the social experience, what are we deluding ourselves into thinking in-building socialization will actually look like in the Fall?

“My kid is going to be left behind.”

Left behind who? The entire country is grappling with the same issue, leaving all children in the same quagmire. Who exactly would they be behind? I believe the rhetorical answer to that is “They’ll be behind where they should be,” to which I’ll counter that “where they should be” is a fictional goal post that we as a society have taken as gospel because it maps to standardized tests which are used to grade schools and counties as they chase funding.

In other words, the public school Shutdown Karens imagine that rich kids in private school won’t be working and learning! (see https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/05/20/massachusetts-private-school-students-zoom-ahead/ for the educational gulf that has opened up in Maskachusetts between public and private school children; see nytimes for how low-income students of color are the Shutdown Karens’ biggest victims).

How do people in the third richest country in the United States deal with numbers?

FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302. 302 dead children are the Calvary Hill you’re erecting your argument on. So, let’s agree to do this: stop presenting this as a data point. If this is your argument, I challenge you to have courage equal to your conviction. Go ahead, plant a flag on the internet and say, “Only 302 children will die.” No one will. That’s the kind action on social media that gets you fired from your job. And I trust our social media enclave isn’t so careless and irresponsible with life that it would even, for even a millisecond, enter any of your minds to make such an argument.

Out of more than 8,000 people (average age 82 and 98 percent with “underlying conditions”) killed in thoroughly-plagued Massachusetts (population 7 million), exactly 0 have been under the age of 20 (dashboard). Yet the 1.1 million rich government workers, contractors, and lobbyists of Fairfax County are going to experience 302 extra deaths among children (equivalent to over 2,000 for an MA-sized population). (Of course, if they still believe the March dogma of Flatten the Curve, a 10-year school shutdown won’t have any effect on the infection/death rate among children; the same number of infections and deaths will simply be spread out.)

I’m kind of amazed at the lack of imagination and lack of expectations among the subjects of American government. Our theory used to be that the U.S. had liberty while the Chinese had competence. They had the Shanghai Metro while we had complete freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc. Our liberties are mostly gone, subject to the potentially arbitrary decisions of state governors (the perfect example of a “a government of men rather than a government of laws”) and of the mob (getting people fired from jobs if they don’t worship at the churches of BLM, #MeToo, and the Rainbow Flag). The Fourteenth Amendment is gone, with students being entitled to an education depending on their skin color. But nobody insists on receiving competent government in return. For example, if the Karens of Fairfax want their brats to be spaced farther apart in the schools, why can’t the schools rent more space? With retail going bankrupt and office buildings shut down, would it actually be hard for every school to double its physical size? The Chinese built a hospital for 5,000 people in 10 days. A U.S. school system can’t rent a bankrupt Sears store’s old space given six months to negotiate? And then drive to IKEA for some desks? Keep in mind that Fairfax is insanely rich by U.S. standards (thank you for paying your federal taxes!).

Related:

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PhD Computer Nerdism in 1969

by philg

“Syllabi and qualifying examinations for the Ph. D. in computer science at Stanford University” from 1969 (uncovered while doing a prior art search on a patent case):

What are the modern equivalents? A thorough knowledge of JavaScript?

Another barn find… “The debugging system AIDS” (1970):

The object of the AIDS project has been to provide a debugging system for FORTRAN and assembly language code on the Control Data 6600 … The story of AIDS may be traced back to early 1965… AIDS, the All-purpose Interactive Debugging Sys-tem, is a main program with three input files… In evaluating the results of the AIDS project, it is necessary to ask two separate questions: Is such a powerful debugging system worthwhile? and Has this implementation been successful… Thus the fundamental question is, does AIDS save the programmer time in debugging?

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Coronaplague test data show that Florida successfully flattened the curve?

by philg

Florida is being described as a Covid-19 disaster zone, but I wonder if the state is being punished for its own success at the March 2020 dogma of Flatten the Curve. Here’s a chart of tests performed and percent positives from John Hopkins:

Florida’s governor ordered a shut down effective April 3. The state began reopening in May. Can we infer from the above data that Florida, with its dense linear city, was a natural plague center, but the dramatic suffering and efforts of citizens actually had a huge effect? From mid-April to mid-June, only a small percentage of Floridians who sought a plague test actually came up positive.

Let’s look at Massachusetts for contrast:

Essentially a textbook unmitigated infectious disease epidemic, right? How about New York?

So… Florida is being pilloried despite the fact that it actually might be one of the most successful examples of flattening the curve!

(Of course, just as noted by the former chief scientist of the European CDC, and just as promised by Flatten the Curve advocates here in the U.S., infections were merely delayed by this success, not prevented. So the current state of Covid-19 affairs in Florida is exactly what one would expect given the successful shutdown.)

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Donald Trump is a dictator and the U.S. is the worst place in the world for Coronaplague…

by philg

… however, according to M.I.T. and Harvard, it is essential for the welfare of foreigners that they stay here in the U.S. to be governed by Donald Trump and subjected to an unmitigated textbook-style coronaplague. See “Harvard and MIT sue Trump administration over online-only instruction for foreign students in the US” (CNN):

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday sued the Trump administration over its guidance not allowing foreign students to take online-only courses in the US this fall semester.

Harvard announced earlier this week that all course instruction will be delivered online, including for students living on campus. In a statement provided to CNN, the university said the guidance stands to affect approximately 5,000 international students.

“The order came down without notice—its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness. It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others,” Harvard University President Larry Bacow said.

The lawsuit also underscores the challenge posed to students: “Just weeks from the start of the fall semester, these students are largely unable to transfer to universities providing on-campus instruction, notwithstanding ICE’s suggestion that they might do so to avoid removal from the country.”

If Trump is as bad as these folks say and the U.S. is an example of spectacular incompetence in managing the only thing that matters to humanity anymore (coronaplague), why wouldn’t the best thing for foreign students be an airlift back to relative coronasafety and government competence in their respective home countries?

(This is especially critical as we are informed by U.S. media that the typical victim of Covid-19 is a previously healthy teenager.)

A recent photo from a Robinson R44 of the empty Harvard campus:

(credit: my friend Tony)

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Why is it still impossible to buy N95 masks?

by philg

Americans in many states and/or cities are required by law to wear “masks” of some sort, but compliance seems to be spotty and competence yet spottier. The “mask” devolves into a saliva-soaked face rag that leaves at least the nose exposed, for example.

What about people who want to protect themselves, not simply pretend to protect others? We’re in Month 4 of Shutdown here in Maskachusetts. Why can’t we buy masks that would actually provide some protection, i.e., a paper N95 mask? Drugstores seem to have ample supplies of surgical-type masks, but I haven’t seen N95 masks anywhere. From the Home Depot site:

This medical supply site seems to have them at $8 each. This site charges $1.80 per mask (real 3M brand), but says to expect a 2-3 month wait.

The health care industry is obviously using a lot more of these than before, but is it really that difficult to make an N95 mask? Or perhaps the process of obtaining certification for a new supplier is lengthy?

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Priority for Students of Color in returning to public K-12 school

by philg

From the Educrats in Washington State: Reopening Washington
Schools 2020 District Planning Guide. The phrase “students of color” occurs six times.

Good news for Rachel Dolezal: white students will be home driving parents crazy while “students of color” will enjoy in-person instruction and socializing with other students.

If that isn’t specific enough, “Prioritize face-to-face service for students that are most impacted by the loss of in-person services, including: … Students of color”

(“intersectionality” is involved, which presumably is a positive for the job market for PhDs in comparative victimhood)

I wonder if this is another good example of what Sweden has gained by just giving the finger to the coronavirus. Sweden isn’t pitting families of different skin colors against each other in competing for scarce slots in public schools.

Also, is this another example of a Constitutional right that Americans have lost due to the governor-declared emergencies? The Fourteenth Amendment was used to require school integration because of the Equal Protection Clause. How can states re-segregate their schools in light of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of this clause?

Related:

  • “N.Y.C. Schools, Nation’s Largest District, Will Not Fully Reopen in Fall” (NYT): Classroom attendance in September will be limited to only one to three days a week in an effort to continue to curb the outbreak, the mayor said. … The decision to opt for only a partial reopening, which is most likely the only way to accommodate students in school buildings while maintaining social distancing, may hinder hundreds of thousands of parents from returning to their pre-pandemic work lives, undermining the recovery of the sputtering local economy. [Wouldn’t the parents be better off moving to a state with (a) fully open schools, and (b) good Internet connectivity?]
  • “Research Shows Students Falling Months Behind During Virus Disruptions” (NYT): “When all of the impacts are taken into account, the average student could fall seven months behind academically, while black and Hispanic students could experience even greater learning losses, equivalent to 10 months for black children and nine months for Latinos, according to an analysis from McKinsey & Company, the consulting group.”
  • https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/06/18/coronashutdown-versus-un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/ (the UN says that children have the right to go to school, with no exceptions for a powerful teachers union or a state full of Shutdown Karens)
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(Corona)State of Maine

by philg

I just talked to a friend to see how badly he was suffering in Month 4 of quarantine at his oceanfront estate in Maine (see “Your lockdown may vary”). How was society up there doing?

Our politicians say all the same things as politicians in Massachusetts. Compliance and enforcement are non-existent. So everyone is happy. Real estate prices are up 20 percent over last year with people fleeing New York and Massachusetts.

What about schools for the fall? The local public schools have not made any announcements and are not promising anything.

Nobody wears a mask, despite the governor’s orders?

You can predict the mask situation by the demographic of the store. If it is a hardware or auto parts store, nobody working or shopping there will be wearing a mask. If it is a high-end bakery, everyone will be masked.

(People love to compare Sweden to nearby Norway and Finland and draw conclusions about the dramatic effects of government policy. Maine, despite having a reasonable-sized city (Portland), has only 1/20th the plague death rate of Maskachusetts (stats). Yet nobody tries to compare government policy in Maine versus Massachusetts and use any difference as an explanation for the difference in death rate.)

Portland from the Robinson R44 last year:

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Shutdown Karens throw rocks at Sweden

by philg

“Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale” (NYT, today):

Its decision to carry on in the face of the pandemic has yielded a surge of deaths without sparing its economy from damage — a red flag as the United States and Britain move to lift lockdowns.

This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.

“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”

The elevated death toll resulting from Sweden’s approach has been clear for many weeks. What is only now emerging is how Sweden, despite letting its economy run unimpeded, has still suffered business-destroying, prosperity-diminishing damage, and at nearly the same magnitude of its neighbors.

Elevated death toll? Compared to what? The New York Times never lets on that IHME forecasts roughly the same death rate from Covid-19 for the U.S. and Sweden through October 1. They also don’t compare Sweden’s death rate to the U.K.’s (in Month 4 of shutdown?), Belgium, or Spain!

How do we know that the Church of Shutdown is a religion? The parishioners at the New York Times look at the graph of daily deaths in the US, the UK, and Sweden, smoothed over 7 days for reporting, and adjusted for population. The Religion of Shutdown tells them that it is obvious from these apparently similar curves which of these countries should be considered a “cautionary tale”.

“They literally gained nothing,” says the economist quoted in the article? This is a perfect illustration of the old adage that an economist is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. How about this for a partial list:

  • Swedish children gained three months of education while American children were imprisoned in crummy apartments. Swedish children gained three months of playing with friends on playgrounds while American children were watching TV.
  • Swedish adults gained four months of work experience while Americans are now in Month 4 of cashing government checks, drinking alcohol, and smoking marijuana from the “essential” marijuana stores.
  • Swedish adults gained four months of time at the gym while Americans gained four months of being sedentary except for trips to the fridge every 15 minutes.
  • Swedes of all ages gained four months of socializing with other humans. That’s valuable if your goal as a human is something more than staring at a screen.
  • Swedes of all ages gained not having to watch people come out of lockdown to riot, loot, and burn their cities.
  • Swedes of all ages gained the advantage of a society in which fewer people hate each other. With no mask law, people can’t hate each other for mask rule interpretation. Without a belief that government policy will determine the outcome of a viral epidemic, the Swedes can’t hate those who voted for a different political party.

The article includes a portrait of the unmasked unrepentant infidels (from the perspective of the Church of Shutdown):

Photos like these will be the modern Rake’s Progress?

With the same death rate plus all of the educational, developmental, inequality, unemployment, and social ills of six months of lockdown (or partial lockdown), if Sweden is a “cautionary tale” what is the U.S.?

Some stats…

Sweden reported 0 Covid-19 deaths on Sunday and Monday to the WHO and 13 today. That averages to 4 Covid-19 deaths in a country of 10 million people. Here in the success story of Maskachusetts (population 7 million), there are roughly 15 deaths per day on a steady basis (July 7 report). Massachusetts will exceed 8,000 total deaths by tomorrow. Sweden is at 5,433 (i.e., less than half the total death rate, adjusted for population).

Swedish ICUs are emptying out:

This data nerd says that Stockholm reached “herd immunity” quite some time ago (though, remember that herd immunity was not a goal of the Swedish policy, but only a byproduct). Given how people tweaked their behavior, e.g., trying to stand farther apart and avoiding mass gatherings, the herd immunity threshold, he claims, is when roughly 6-10 percent of the population comes up positive on the antibody tests (remember that not everyone is susceptible to begin with).

Related:

  • “Big differences in mortality in spring 2020 based on country of birth”: People born in Somalia, Syria and Iraq, who are likely to be weakly established in Sweden, had a marked increase in mortality compared to people born in Sweden, the EU, the Nordic countries or North America in the spring of 2020 (Figure 2). A similar picture, but offset in time, is seen even if Stockholm County is excluded (not shown). In the age group 40–64 years, in March – May 2020, 122 deaths occurred in immigrant groups that are likely to be weakly established in Sweden, compared with an average of 38.5 in 2016–2019, a death rate of 220 percent. In the same age group, 1 percent lower mortality was seen among people born in Sweden, the EU, the Nordic countries or North America. Among those over the age of 65, there was the same excess mortality in the group with probable weak establishment (220 percent), but also some mortality (19 percent) among those born in Sweden, the EU, the Nordic countries or North America. (From Google Translate; the gist is that Sweden’s numbers may look uglier than some neighbors’ because Sweden has more low-skill migrants and these migrants have off-the-charts Covid-19 mortality.)
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The (settled) science of coronaplague

by philg

From Massachusetts General Hospital (“the Massive Genital” to some of my physician friends), a 50-page summary of what is known regarding Covid-19 risks and mitigation in schools. A fwe excerpts:

Based on early data, schools do not appear to have played a major role in COVID-19 transmission. Based on data at this time, transmission from students to staff and from students to other students (especially younger students) appears to be rare, and will likely be even more rare with appropriate risk mitigation strategies.

(conclusion after reading the above: let’s keep schools closed anyway! #AbundanceOfCaution)

#MasksWork:

There are few data about mask use, specifically in schools. The available data about masks usually come from a combination of studies on COVID, SARS, and MERS. There are no data about the combined effectiveness of masks plus face shields plus physical distancing

HEPA filters like those mandated by Governor/Hero Cuomo will save us:

Low-efficiency filters (e.g., less than MERV 8 according to ASHRAE Standard 52.2 or less than ePM2.5 20% according to ISO 16890-1:2016) are very unlikely to make a difference. Of note, high-efficiency filters may be counter-productive since frequent filter changes are needed and a high-pressure drop filter can also diminish the amount of air supplied into the environment, making the filter less effective

I.e., American schools will never get organized to change the HEPA filters often enough.

Also.. don’t ride the bus and don’t sing on the bus!

And, in the ongoing debate about whether to follow advice from Dr. Donald J. Trump, M.D. … “Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, and Combination in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19” (International Journal of Infectious Diseases):

According to a protocol-based treatment algorithm, among hospitalized patients, use of hydroxychloroquine alone and in combination with azithromycin was associated with a significant reduction in-hospital mortality compared to not receiving hydroxychloroquine.

How do experts characterize a falling death curve?

The United States is in an acceleration phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently there is no known effective therapy or vaccine for treatment of SARS-CoV-2, highlighting urgency around identifying effective therapies.

Here’s the acceleration (nytimes):

Results?

Of 2,541 patients, with a median total hospitalization time of 6 days (IQR: 4-10 days), median age was 64 years (IQR:53-76 years), 51% male, 56% African American, with median time to follow-up of 28.5 days (IQR:3-53). Overall in-hospital mortality was 18.1% (95% CI:16.6%-19.7%); by treatment: hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin, 157/783 (20.1% [95% CI: 17.3%-23.0%]), hydroxychloroquine alone, 162/1202 (13.5% [95% CI: 11.6%-15.5%]), azithromycin alone, 33/147 (22.4% [95% CI: 16.0%-30.1%]), and neither drug, 108/409 (26.4% [95% CI: 22.2%-31.0%])​. … Hydroxychloroquine provided a 66% hazard ratio reduction, and hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin 71% compared to neither treatment (p < 0.001).

Maybe we have to dig into the paper for adjustments, but it looks as though a higher percentage of those on hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin died (20.1 percent) compared to those only on hydroxychloroquine (13.5 percent).

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Test and trace revisited

by philg

Back in May, I asked “The government can’t find the 22 million undocumented, but it will find and track every coronafected human inside the U.S.?”

And what about those 22 million soon-to-be-Americans whose documentation is not quite in order. Do they answer the phone and open the door to the friendly government testing and tracing agents? Do they supply a biological sample so their DNA can be extracted and parked in a database? Do they give the government agent a list of all places visited, with dates and times, and the names of everyone else who was there?

According to the reader comments on “Why won’t the Europeans let in Americans who test negative for coronavirus?” we have no reliable test for determining coronavirus infection.

Putting these together… “New York county issues subpoenas to people refusing to talk to contact tracers” (The Hill):

“We are not receiving the necessary cooperation when we contact those who are positive for COVID-19 or those who had been at some of these gatherings,” Rupert said. “My staff has been told that a person does not wish to or have to speak to my disease investigators. They hang up, they deny being at the party, even though we have found their name from another party attendee, or a parent provides us with the information.”

“Many do not answer their cell phones and do not call back,” she added. “Sometimes parents answer for their adult children and promise that they have been home consistently, when they have not been. This must stop.”

“Unfortunately I am now forced by these circumstances to send subpoenas to the individuals who are required to cooperate with us,” Rupert said. “Failure to comply will be costly: $2,000 per day.”

He said he will not “have the health of our county compromised because of ignorance, stupidity, or obstinance.”

Like our health care system, the court system is designed to deal intensively with one case at a time, not with thousands or millions of similar cases. How is a litigation approach to contact tracing going to work?

Below, the Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles and, across the street, the usual California homeless encampment (residents of which receive heaps of thoughts and prayers from those driving by in their brand-new Teslas!). From a February expert witness trip.

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