Coronavirus

[bkp_duke]

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

View attachment 536091

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.

I strongly argue against the accuracy of this for CA.

LA alone had 600 new cases yesterday.

 

[TEG]

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?

Made me think of this:
A Florida Man Tried And Failed To Profit Off Coronavirus Shutdown Websites And Troll Conservatives
Some stories suggesting that the anti-quarantine "LIBERATE" movement is being pushed along by entities wanting to sell hats and T-shirts and promote gun sales...
These are the people behind the anti-quarantine protest events that Facebook is shutting down
"Anything for a buck, eh?"

 

[SMAlset]

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.

also you have to wonder what the counts are including as sources. If only hospital counts, like has been done here in places, then can see huge under counting there as I’m sure many, not unlike here, don’t get to the hospital to die to be counted. I don’t know anything about India’s health care system and who is able to participate but I assume a large portion of cities and villages don’t have the means for hospital care.

Quartz had some good points in their article today about the population in India being younger. Why India shouldn’t mimic the West in the fight against coronavirus

 

[Daniel in SD]

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.

Why do you need to trust the data? Can you provide a real world example of the problem you're thinking of with regards to contact tracing?
Does this app really open up bluetooth security holes that are not already there?

 

[linux-works]

allowing a packet radio system to accept any/all packets from untrusted sources requires *really* good and time-tested code (and an architecture behind it). even the ip-stack, as old and reliable as it pretty much is, still gets hacked and we continue to patch it, as we find the bugs.

opening a radio up for reception opens you to many bad vectors. its safer not to do that, and yes, you lose some 'luxuries'. security is always a compromise that users have to choose where, in the spectrum, they feel comfortable.

with something like 'regular linux', when bugs are found, patches are usually released quickly and the 'regular linux' (desktop, server, even embedded) can pull from upstream and get the fixes installed. android, which is sort-of loosely based on linux (long story, not for here) does not have that architecture and so end-users simply cannot stay up to date, as much as they may want. they are 100% entirely dependant on others to do the patch incorporation and release and the reality is, that just does not happen (enough). you can't 'apt get update' on phones, not really. not as a regular user. and so, your phone is likely very very out of date, security wise, if its android based (with some exceptions, but they are not the rule).

I've seen cars 'rooted' simply by sending packets to something and that triggering a bunch of other things that got that guy root. I trust phones much less than cars (lol).

sorry for the long reply. its something I do for my day job and I kind of take it seriously.

 

[JRP3]

why does our society tolerate human waste such as this?

Because they're in charge.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

@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.

View attachment 536088

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.

You do realize that jhm's point still stands, right? Your product is still _vapor_ware! You need to rebrand it and target a different niche. Market it as a enema assistant or something.

 

[FoverM]

I strongly argue against the accuracy of this for CA.

LA alone had 600 new cases yesterday.

CA's numbers are strange and have been for a long time ... but they have been below 10% since 04/13 (13 days). I dumped their data and here are the results:

Do we trust the recent high days more than we trust the low days around 04/10? I don't know. Where did this recent batch of positives come from? I note that on 04/22, according to the covidtracking.com data, over 165,000 test results were added. That number is usually between 10,000 and 20,000. Something changed in the reporting.

I get the data from covidtracking.com. My CSV file for CA is attached.

 

[bkp_duke]

CA's numbers are strange and have been for a long time ... but they have been below 10% since 04/13 (13 days). I dumped their data and here are the results:

View attachment 536111
Do we trust the recent high days more than we trust the low days around 04/10? I don't know. Where did this recent batch of positives come from? I note that on 04/22, according to the covidtracking.com data, over 165,000 test results were added. That number is usually between 10,000 and 20,000. Something changed in the reporting.

I get the data from covidtracking.com. My CSV file for CA is attached.

CA is so large it should probably be looked at by zip code or something much smaller. LA county is on the upswing for sure. SD county has been stable for the past week or so. No idea about the bay area.

 

[Daniel in SD]

allowing a packet radio system to accept any/all packets from untrusted sources requires *really* good and time-tested code (and an architecture behind it). even the ip-stack, as old and reliable as it pretty much is, still gets hacked and we continue to patch it, as we find the bugs.

opening a radio up for reception opens you to many bad vectors. its safer not to do that, and yes, you lose some 'luxuries'. security is always a compromise that users have to choose where, in the spectrum, they feel comfortable.

with something like 'regular linux', when bugs are found, patches are usually released quickly and the 'regular linux' (desktop, server, even embedded) can pull from upstream and get the fixes installed. android, which is sort-of loosely based on linux (long story, not for here) does not have that architecture and so end-users simply cannot stay up to date, as much as they may want. they are 100% entirely dependant on others to do the patch incorporation and release and the reality is, that just does not happen (enough). you can't 'apt get update' on phones, not really. not as a regular user. and so, your phone is likely very very out of date, security wise, if its android based (with some exceptions, but they are not the rule).

I've seen cars 'rooted' simply by sending packets to something and that triggering a bunch of other things that got that guy root. I trust phones much less than cars (lol).

sorry for the long reply. its something I do for my day job and I kind of take it seriously.

I guess I'd have to know more about how bluetooth works and whether these vulnerabilities are already there by default (disclosure: I'm an EE who designs RF chips so I know very little about the software stack). I do know that many apps I already have installed on my phone can receive data from untrusted sources. Theoretically anyone could send me a text message which could root my phone if the text message app and OS have the right vulnerabilities. I view a short range radio as being inherently safer than the internet since someone actually has to be close to you to take advantage of vulnerabilities. It sounds like you just think people shouldn't be using Android phones at all (which is a totally different question! I use iOS ).

 

[JRP3]

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator, told NBC News' "Meet the Press" Sunday that while the coronavirus trends give her “great hope” for slow re-openings over the next few months, many of the social distancing measures that have upended American life will be a constant fixture through the summer.

And, while President Donald Trump and many governors press to re-open the economy, Birx said the U.S. needs a “breakthrough” on coronavirus testing to help screen Americans and get a more accurate picture of the virus’ spread.

Birx: U.S. needs a 'breakthrough' on antigen testing to aid in re-opening

 

[TEG]

CA is so large it should probably be looked at by zip code or something much smaller. LA county is on the upswing for sure. SD county has been stable for the past week or so. No idea about the bay area.

Thousands of Californians flock to open beaches despite Gov. Newsom's pleas for them to stay home | Daily Mail Online
Thousands pack Orange County beaches for second-straight day as SoCal heat wave continues
Tens of thousands flock to Orange County beaches as heat wave lingers over SoCal amid COVID-19 pandemic

 

[FoverM]

CA is so large it should probably be looked at by zip code or something much smaller. LA county is on the upswing for sure. SD county has been stable for the past week or so. No idea about the bay area.

Here's LA County (from JHU):

You can see how it rolled over around 13 days ago but then the latest reporting caused a new bump up.

 

[SageBrush]

They tested 1,143 people. The Koreans aren't messing around, that's how they're now only getting case from overseas.

Internal cases have been below 10 a day for a while. Today one was registered.

The KCDC report from today talks about a case from Apr 23. They tracked down 480 (!) possible contacts from a 2 day jaunt to a neighboring city that included visits to bars and nightclubs. That says something about the scope of their approach, and why they continue to test thousands a day in order to catch a handful.

 

[FoverM]

CA is so large it should probably be looked at by zip code or something much smaller. LA county is on the upswing for sure. SD county has been stable for the past week or so. No idea about the bay area.

Here are LA County Total deaths:

The doubling time has gone from around 4 days to around 7-8 days.

Edit: Total deaths, not daily

 

[bkp_duke]

Here are LA County daily deaths:

View attachment 536122
The doubling time has gone from around 4 days to around 7-8 days.

You should have seen the beaches yesterday. Expect that doubling time to go back to 4 days real quick. 40,000 people on Huntington beach alone yesterday.

 

[SageBrush]

we retained a completely psychotic Proctologist on our Scientific Advisory Board

It's a matter of expertise.

I learned this in Medical School from a fellow one year ahead of me who was an undisputed genius, but a little eccentric. He had pretty much committed Harrison's Internal Medicine to memory, but felt overwhelmed by the mountain of medical knowledge he felt obliged to still learn in order to feel competent. His solution was to specialize. Gastroenterology interested him but it was clearly too vast for one person to adequately cover, so he took an anatomical approach and limited his field of study to proctology. Soon enough though, it became apparent to him that the field was too broad to cover and still have time left to practice so he narrowed further and finally concluded that Geriatric Proctology was the ticket to a happy life and career.

 

[deonb]

You should have seen the beaches yesterday. Expect that doubling time to go back to 4 days real quick. 40,000 people on Huntington beach alone yesterday.

Is that a lot? Huntington beach is 10 miles long. Or did they all congregate in one spot?

 

[bkp_duke]

Is that a lot? Huntington beach is 10 miles long. Or did they all congregate in one spot?

Coronavirus: Visitors Flock To Huntington Beach During Weekend Heat Wave

Closer than I would feel comfortable being around people, even if they are wearing masks (not all were).

 

[Norbert]

Birx: U.S. needs a 'breakthrough' on antigen testing to aid in re-opening

I don't know why she is so busy projecting hope and excuses, when it seems that people are losing the sense of urgency when it comes to mitigation such as wearing masks outside. The only thing that will improve our chances of opening up sooner (in a good way) is better mitigation.