Coronavirus

[winfield100]

I have been following this for awhile.
I’m a bit worried about the statistics coming or not, out of the Indian subcontinent,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia. How are their numbers so low?

I seem to remember vague numbers from 1918 pandemic of over 10 million from Indian subcontinent and vaguely estimated 4 million from Indonesia.

Are we actually in just the beginning?
We have climate change
We have droughts and famines
Still have earthquakes
Rebellions & civil wars
Migrations of people fleeing all the above “sea people’s”
(No “mountains falling from the skies” so far)

 

[MD70]

I have been following this for awhile.
I’m a bit worried about the statistics coming or not, out of the Indian subcontinent,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia. How are their numbers so low?

I seem to remember vague numbers from 1918 pandemic of over 10 million from Indian subcontinent and vaguely estimated 4 million from Indonesia.

Are we actually in just the beginning?
We have climate change
We have droughts and famines
Still have earthquakes
Rebellions & civil wars
Migrations of people fleeing all the above “sea people’s”
(No “mountains falling from the skies” so far)

The virus is just getting started in the Indian subcontinent. Initial numbers were low because probably less international travel. Also the regions testing capacity is much lower so the true death rate won’t be known.

 

[dhanson865]

OK this one needs some setup: IHME projection from Mar 25th vs actual numbers since then. I do believe we are still going up and to the right when the projected curve says down to the right.

 

[dfwatt]

"The Great Recession produced, famously, a phenomenon of decreases in life expectancy in the United States for the first time since World War II. A very large-scale economic collapse - that produces bad health outcomes. That, I think, is firmly established fact." - Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

What are facts, really? Now, I am not an expert, so I don't know whether the above statement is true. Cursory Google searches suggest that this is not a true statement (but it seems like it would be difficult to determine until decades later what the effect was...not sure how life expectancy is exactly measured...obviously there would be reduced mortality in the short-term for various reasons...).

How Antibody Tests Can Inform Public Policies To Mitigate Coronavirus Pandemic

Broadly speaking, he sounded reasonable in the interview until that statement.

I'm not sure what to think of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya's reputation. He used to be at the Hoover Institute. He definitely seems to be leveraging this whole thing to his advantage, in terms of visibility, though. I guess it helps to have a contrary opinion.

Those statements, the cooked statistics and now the extremely contrary subject recruitment approaches demonstrate incontrovertibly that this guy is an ideologue, who fancies himself to be some kind of conservative crusader, and not a real scientist. Drops in life expectancy since the Great Recession are not due to economic stress (at least not as indexed by Wall Street) they are largely due to the opiate crisis and an increasing number of suicides. In terms of what the alarming increase in suicides is about, including increasing suicide among doctors of all people, that's a complex subject.

I believe there is a deep hopelessness in Rural America and no doubt that's part of the deep vulnerability to opiate addiction, and to suicide. That hopelessness also part of what Trump is pitching to and of course an equally deep anger. Large sections of Rural America have been shut out of the so-called American dream. No doubt economic stress more broadly defined (not Wall Street indices) has something to do with that hopelessness for sure, but the Improvement in the economy has not for the most part been paralleled by reduction in opiate deaths or suicides, possibly because that recovery has hidden 'dead zones'. It would not be an overly dramatic statement to suggest that the polarization in this country is not really about Democrat vs Republican it's more a deep divide between the urban areas which have generally prospered in the last 20-30 years and the rural areas which have generally been devastated by the progressive and deepening erosion of US manufacturing core. Some urban areas of course have been deeply impacted by that such as Detroit. But the collapse of manufacturing in the United States has hit the rural areas hard.

Why no president has proposed mass (and subsidized) retraining of the disenfranchised and abandoned Manufacturing Blue Collar sectors is beyond me. Trades, Construction, renewable energy Tech, computer and internet skills. And then with a real infrastructure rebuild combined with the transition towards an accelerated timetable to sustainable energy and transportation you could put all those people to work in higher-paying jobs. Would end I believe the current profound polarization in this country in a way that no other intervention would

 

[JRP3]

Every American should wear a face mask to defeat Covid-19 - STAT

View attachment 535992

I'm not sure China should be considered in the no face mask group.

 

[JRP3]

OK this one needs some setup: IHME projection from Mar 25th vs actual numbers since then. I do believe we are still going up and to the right when the projected curve says down to the right.

All I see are IMG tags.

 

[dhanson865]

All I see are IMG tags.

yeah the orginal URL wouldn't work for some reason so I used https://i.imgur.com/0d52zHw.png instead. Not sure why Imgur without the png extension wouldn't work.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Australia releases bluetooth based COVID-19 contact tracing app, COVIDsafe.
Phone stores encrypted contact information that other users within range transmit. When a user is diagnosed with COVID-19 they upload that encrypted contact information to the health authorities. App will be open source.
COVIDSafe: New app to slow the spread of coronavirus | Prime Minister of Australia
This isn't really anonymous like the Google/Apple project. On the other hand phones themselves aren't anonymous.
Personally, I think businesses should be forced to require their customers to use a contact tracing app before entering.

 

[bkp_duke]

Those statements, the cooked statistics and now the extremely contrary subject recruitment approaches demonstrate incontrovertibly that this guy is an ideologue, who fancies himself to be some kind of conservative crusader, and not a real scientist. Drops in life expectancy since the Great Recession are not due to economic stress (at least not as indexed by Wall Street) they are largely due to the opiate crisis and an increasing number of suicides. In terms of what the alarming increase in suicides is about, including increasing suicide among doctors of all people, that's a complex subject.

I believe there is a deep hopelessness in Rural America and no doubt that's part of the deep vulnerability to opiate addiction, and to suicide. That hopelessness also part of what Trump is pitching to and of course an equally deep anger. Large sections of Rural America have been shut out of the so-called American dream. No doubt economic stress more broadly defined (not Wall Street indices) has something to do with that hopelessness for sure, but the Improvements in the economy has not for the most part been paralleled by reduction in opiate deaths or suicides, possibly because that recovery has hidden 'dead zones'. It would not be an overly dramatic statement to suggest that the polarization in this country is not really about Democrat vs Republican it's more a deep divide between the urban areas which have generally prospered in the last 20-30 years and the rural areas which have generally been devastated by the progressive and deepening erosion of US manufacturing core. Some urban areas of course have been deeply impacted by that such as Detroit. But the collapse of manufacturing in the United States has hit the rural areas hard.

Why no president has proposed mass (and subsidized) retraining of the disenfranchised and abandoned Manufacturing Blue Collar sectors is beyond me. Trades, Construction, renewable energy Tech, computer and internet skills. And then with a real infrastructure rebuild combined with the transition towards an accelerated timetable to sustainable energy and transportation you could put all those people to work in higher-paying jobs. Would end I believe the current profound polarization in this country in a way that no other intervention would

dfwatt for President

Nuff said.

 

[dfwatt]

dfwatt for President

Nuff said.

Thanks much for the kind comments. However I think I'm in a better position with my continuing scientific development of breakthrough products (like Idiot Spray and Moron Spray?), especially since there's now real competition on the Forum from JHM and his Solabag product. Sales of his product have dropkicked my Yahoo Bunghole Steam Gun. So I've got to get back to work! There's a new product announcement coming out soon! Stay tuned!

Plus I'm terrible at politics. Way too honest and blunt. But thanks again for the gracious remarks ..... There's a good chance that that the combined efforts of a bunch of hard-working and hard blogging folks here could bring a scientifically informed understanding of not just covid-19 but perhaps a bunch of other important issues to TMC.

 

[linux-works]

something to note, about our corrupt system:

Republican fundraiser looks to cash in on coronavirus

“After this email, I will be unreachable,” he wrote. “I wish you the best of luck in politics and life.”

what a scumbag!

will there be any punishment for vultures like this who SEEK to profit from the pain and suffering of others?

why does our society tolerate human waste such as this?

 

[EVNow]

Washington Post Deaths reported per 100k population, most recent

View attachment 536013

East vs West.

 

[EVNow]

something to note, about our corrupt system:

Republican fundraiser looks to cash in on coronavirus

“After this email, I will be unreachable,” he wrote. “I wish you the best of luck in politics and life.”

what a scumbag!

will there be any punishment for vultures like this who SEEK to profit from the pain and suffering of others?

why does our society tolerate human waste such as this?

Have you heard of Iraq war and all the politicians /businesses who profit from it ?

Our system is so corrupt, officially they wouldn't even count how many people are getting killed.

 

[linux-works]

Australia releases bluetooth based COVID-19 contact tracing app, COVIDsafe.
Phone stores encrypted contact information that other users within range transmit. When a user is diagnosed with COVID-19 they upload that encrypted contact information to the health authorities. App will be open source.
COVIDSafe: New app to slow the spread of coronavirus | Prime Minister of Australia
This isn't really anonymous like the Google/Apple project. On the other hand phones themselves aren't anonymous.
Personally, I think businesses should be forced to require their customers to use a contact tracing app before entering.

problem is, many 'phones' do NOT get updates, bluetooth has horrible security and its broken (and unfixable) on many phones.

trusting your phone for anything is madness (those of us who have done some security work before know this). this is a pretty bad idea since the data won't be trustable; not really. you first have to secure the platform; and we can't do that. idiots^Husers insist on installing every freaking app they can and most are over-priv'd and steal your data or worse.

the whole idea is half-baked, at best.

ios/apple - maybe. they have a semi-sane update strategy; but android is the wild west and its impossible to ensure updated phones across the wild-west vendors (samsung, etc).

bad idea. I know what they are trying to do, but how they do it - it won't work. data will have lots of bad data and once the bad guys show interest, even more data accuracy will be polluted.

bluetooth is a risky vector for phones. asking EVERYONE to install something (is it going to be auditable at the source level? I suspect not) is just ignorant of the reality of 'mobile phones' today.

 

[EVNow]

bluetooth is a risky vector for phones. asking EVERYONE to install something (is it going to be auditable at the source level? I suspect not) is just ignorant of the reality of 'mobile phones' today.

I agree with everything - except one thing.

Manually tracing contacts is not practical above a certain level. It involves the same kind of privacy issues. Ofcourse it should be open source and auditable. (or done by Google/Apple as they are trying to).

 

[TEG]

I'm not sure China should be considered in the no face mask group.

Yeah, that was not my annotation, and an old chart from March to illustrate the point.
China soon after "turned the corner" and dropped dramatically.

Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Free to read

 

[dfwatt]

Yahoo Bunghole Steam Gun has nothing on SolaBag. We've got the power of the Sun and disinfecting UV waves. You've got vaporware. And if you ever built it, it would run on climate destroying fossil fuels. No way SolaBag is gonna let Bunghole Steam get all up in our market. This is our niche. Go cool your jets somewhere else.

@jhm Proving conclusively that competition is good for Product Development, I've decided to respond to your challenge and the undeniable Excellence of your Solabag product with my own upgrade. This is now the solar powered, completely green, and fully Ecological Yahoo Bunghole Steam Gun.

Note that this is powered by a Tesla powerwall.

This is an admittedly well-worn prototype. Wear and tear on this has been high in part because we retained a completely psychotic Proctologist on our Scientific Advisory Board who insisted on using this on everyone on his block. (The two foot long entry section of the wand has everyone mystified as this is clearly not scientifically or anatomically ideal.) Also we were not sure that we needed 1500 PSI but he insisted that this was a minimum. In any case, his reckless approach to phase 1 trials of this product has resulted in my mailbox being filled with threats and literally two dozen restraining orders.

 

[Daniel in SD]

problem is, many 'phones' do NOT get updates, bluetooth has horrible security and its broken (and unfixable) on many phones.

trusting your phone for anything is madness (those of us who have done some security work before know this). this is a pretty bad idea since the data won't be trustable; not really. you first have to secure the platform; and we can't do that. idiots^Husers insist on installing every freaking app they can and most are over-priv'd and steal your data or worse.

the whole idea is half-baked, at best.

ios/apple - maybe. they have a semi-sane update strategy; but android is the wild west and its impossible to ensure updated phones across the wild-west vendors (samsung, etc).

bad idea. I know what they are trying to do, but how they do it - it won't work. data will have lots of bad data and once the bad guys show interest, even more data accuracy will be polluted.

bluetooth is a risky vector for phones. asking EVERYONE to install something (is it going to be auditable at the source level? I suspect not) is just ignorant of the reality of 'mobile phones' today.

I have no idea what you're saying. Most people, including myself, already have bluetooth enabled on their phones.
The Australia app will be open source, though apparently the source code is not yet released.
With the Australia app it does sound like someone could upload a bunch of "bad data" and send authorities on a wild goose chase. I doubt that will be a problem and of course it's easily fixed. With the Apple/Google API that's not possible.

 

[FoverM]

Here's my first attempt to show which states are past their peak daily rate of cases (not deaths):

Red is bad, green is good. I chose 7 days as the dividing/neutral line because that would be my criteria for calling the peak.

MA has actually been below 10% for 12 days but their reporting of cases is "chunky". For example, its Apr 25 number was 15.9% while the previous day was 0%.

NE and IA percents go in waves above and below 10%, so it's difficult to get a handle on them.

 

[linux-works]

what I'm saying is that, before you can trust data on a platform, you have to trust the platform.

android is untrustable, for many reasons.

also, when you are doing a PAIRING, that's one kind of bt comms. this isn't pairing, its likely BLE advertising and beaconing and even the ble (low energy) stack has security holes that will not, ever, be patched by most vendors. most phones do not get regular updates.

putting an rf system into promiscuous mode is risky. I won't get more technical than that, but I don't trust android's design to ever be secure enough to do serious data gathering work like this.

of course, no one who has ties to android wants to address the elephant in the room.

I just want to caution people before trusting yet another app to be installed on their phones. I understand that this has good intentions, but between the good intentions and the actual implementations that hit your phones; I think a lot is not being considered or just plain ignored, outright.

what I wish would happen: raised conciousness toward how bad android is so that we can finally improve it (take it from google since they have shown they can't be trusted with something this important). but I see no signs of anything android ever improving in security - since many of security issues go against the 'data collection ecosystem' that Father Google insists on.