COVID Near Term Future is Bleak at Best...

[whit3rd]

On Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 10:45:21 AM UTC-8, John Larkin wrote:

Mao and Stalin were experts on agriculture. Maduro is a great
economist.

Huh? Stalin\'s collectivization of agriculture caused circa 35 million
deaths by starvation, and was overseen by the charismatic but
unscientific Lysenko. Any claim of \'expert\' status ought to be
rejected.

 

[whit3rd]

On Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 2:08:01 PM UTC-8, gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:

On Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 7:55:31 AM UTC-5, Brent Locher wrote:

As I understand, in Finland the government cannot mandate the wearing of masks by anyone , even in stores and on public transportation. The Finns have recognized that there are certain lines that , if crossed, will lead to a tryranny that is just too great.

That\'s pretty funny, the idea that mandating a medical response to a medical situation is \"a tyranny too great\" is a real hoot. \"Give me liberty to infect others or give me death\". Maybe we should take you up on the idea.

True dat. Where do urban folk live in an unregulated-sewage-treatment legal void?
Does anyone think cholera is just a nuisance?

 

[Martin Brown]

On 03/12/2020 16:33, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:50:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/11/2020 18:40, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 29/11/20 17:09, John Larkin wrote:
What surprises me, this late in the epidemic, is how little other
effects (ie, non-social-behavior effects) have been studied and appear
in the press, even as simple correlations. All we hear is masks,
masks, masks.

You need to broaden your news sources

Over here the slogan is \"hands, face, space\", i.e.
\"wash your hands, cover your face & make space\".

Though this latest health slogan does sound more like a malfunctioning
Buzz Lightyear than a sensible health policy against Covid.

If you had to rank them in order of importance the they would be in the
opposite order. Maintaining your distance is the biggest single factor,
followed by not touching your face - especially eyes and nose.

Probably not. Indoors, the virus can float around long distances in
the air. Outdoors, it blows away rapidly.

Masks probably help much more indoors than outside. I will give you
that. Fine aerosol particles big enough to be an infective dose may be
able to stay aloft for a fair while but the majority by volume hit the
floor or table within a few seconds or minutes at most. Recirculating
aircon is your enemy in this particular game.

But again, virus growth is not totally determined by peoples social
behavior.

Transmission is though. Too many people ignoring the rules and doing
really stupid things results in rapid transmission. Given a sufficiently
unwise population the doubling time can be as short as three days.

The huge european second case spikes are mostly over. The leading
edges and the falling edges were both very fast. The US second (or
third) spike is softer, but it\'s a big country. The spikes seem to be
self-limiting.

They are only \"self limiting\" because every damn thing has been shut for
the past three weeks! We just unlocked yesterday amid much hand wringing
that only a tiny number of places are in tier 1, most are tier 2 and a
very large proportion of the north in tier 3 = no pubs or restaurants.

Before and after lockdown summarised on the PHE map here - but it is
even worse than it looks since the tiers \"after\" are much tougher.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55086621

People immediately went out shopping for Xmas tat and were not socially
distancing - unclear how it will pan out for Christmas. We have a 5 day
party season sanctioned by the government (probably unwisely).

UK\'s \"world beating\" Test & Trace has proved to be about as useful as a
chocolate fireguard. Run by a CEO best known for the mobile phone
provider with the worst customer service this isn\'t surprising...

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 3:33:52 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:50:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/11/2020 18:40, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 29/11/20 17:09, John Larkin wrote:
What surprises me, this late in the epidemic, is how little other
effects (ie, non-social-behavior effects) have been studied and appear
in the press, even as simple correlations. All we hear is masks,
masks, masks.

You need to broaden your news sources

Over here the slogan is \"hands, face, space\", i.e.
\"wash your hands, cover your face & make space\".

Though this latest health slogan does sound more like a malfunctioning
Buzz Lightyear than a sensible health policy against Covid.

If you had to rank them in order of importance the they would be in the
opposite order. Maintaining your distance is the biggest single factor,
followed by not touching your face - especially eyes and nose.
Probably not. Indoors, the virus can float around long distances in
the air. Outdoors, it blows away rapidly.

But again, virus growth is not totally determined by peoples social
behavior.

Who infects whom, and how many of them, does seem to be.

The huge european second case spikes are mostly over. The leading
edges and the falling edges were both very fast.

The government reactions were pretty fast - they now know what works, and are reconciled to the economic consequences (which are no worse than those produced by most of the population getting frightened into much the same behavior, which takes longer to slow down the epidemic, and doesn\'t do it as well because the less frightened tend to be super-spreaders).

> The US second (or third) spike is softer, but it\'s a big country. The spikes seem to be self-limiting.

When they frighten enough people into being cautious. The problem is the incautious idiots who don\'t change their behavior, and keep on having big public demonstrations to assert their right to spread the virus, or get re-elected, or whatever.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[John Doe]

The least electronics oriented, most active troll in this group...

--
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

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Subject: Re: COVID Near Term Future is Bleak at Best
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On Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 1:14:13 PM UTC+11, John Robertson wrote:
On 2020/11/28 5:59 p.m., Rick C wrote:
I recall how 9 months ago many were in pretty much complete denial of t
he seriousness of this disease. Predictions included forecasts of a quarter million US deaths by the end of this year and we managed to pull that off well ahead of schedule. The number of people maimed by this disease is much higher than that and ever growing at increasing rates.

So how many still deny that this is a very serious disease and needs to
be addressed as such? I get that many in the world and in particular in the US are not bright enough to understand the numbers and often believe those with ulterior motives. But in this group it is hard to say people can\'t understand the nature of exponential growth and how rapidly the disease gets out of hand when we stop taking protective measures.

So is this group still populated by so many denialists? Or have people
learned from others\' mistakes?

What a bunch of people are forgetting is a large part of the reason for

lockdowns, masks, etc. is not to infringe on their liberty, but to keep

hospitals from being overwhelmed by cases.

That is pretty much how it goes - folks either respect the disease and
wear masks and practice social distancing or the health care system
breaks down in their area...

Places like Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan illustrate the fact that if you take the disease seriously enough - and that does seem to mean vigorous contact tracing and pre-empltive isolation of people who might have got infected for 14 days from the date of the contact with somebody now known to be infectious - you can eliminate it from your community, and deal with new infections coming in from outside - quarantine breakdown - before they infect more than few people.

It makes a mess of your economy for a couple of months, but it save quite a few lives and can let you re-open your economy relatively early. The US and most of Europe is going to need a vaccine before it can do this. It looks as if I\'m going to be able to spend Christmas Day with my brothers extended family - five kids, five partners, about a dozen grand-kids and a bunch of in-laws.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 1:25:37 AM UTC-5, John Doe wrote:
> The least electronics oriented, most active troll in this group...

Yes, you are. Anyone else is a distant second.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 11/30/2020 11:22 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:38:28 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/11/2020 16:06, John Larkin wrote:

Finland is #107 on the list of per-capita deaths, at 71 PPM. Belguim
is #1, at 1418. Do people wear masks in Belguim?

They didn\'t in the past. Rule breaking is a national sport in Belgium
though. What is much harder to explain is why Switzerland also went
through the roof at about the same time (and Spain slightly earlier).

The big, sharp second spikes are hard to explain. Could there be
anything going on here but masks, masks, or masks?




Switzerland should be in the German class of healthcare and operational
efficiency so I am not sure why they went so far off the rails.

Best guess seems to be a more infective strain that originated in Spain
and returned to the rest of Europe with holiday makers. I do wonder if
the shorter daylight hours plays any part in this. The exponential rise
began at approximately the equinox in all cases apart from Spain.

Sweden is #24, 660, masking voluntary.

San Francisco is a very dense city with an anamolously low (for the
USA) covid death rate, about 180 PPM. Maybe a third of people walking
outdoors don\'t mask.

Only about 30% of people outdoors in the UK wear masks and that is
probably because they can\'t be bothered taking them off and putting them
on again each time they go into a shop.

The dynamics of this infection may not be much affected by masking.

The experience in the Far East strongly suggests that it makes quite a
big difference (that and that the people *trust* their governments and
do exactly what is asked of them). Japan Sumo has audiences again -
socially distanced and a fraction of capacity but it is a start.

Their curve on this metric (which I agree is the right one is almost at
baseline).

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=GBR~DEU~BEL~CHE~ITA~ESP~JPN&region=World&casesMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc

Most european countries are just getting over a gigantic second
infection pulse, which have generally been shorter in time and less
deadly that the first one. Belguim\'s second case rate peaked at over
14x the first one, and it\'s likely that mask wearing was more common
during the second peak.

That just means that the peak could have been even higher. Belgium had a
very bad result on the first wave too and with a pretty extreme
lockdown. By comparison neighbouring Netherlands had more relaxed rules
and still did better overall. It isn\'t at all obvious why.

It is true that the second peak hasn\'t been as fatal but that is largely
because at least in the UK many of the people being infected right now
are teenagers and twenty somethings at universities. They have a much
much lower case fatality percentage. Sending the universities back is
responsible for the very steep UK rise 3rd-11th October. Great idea to
have people from the hotspots criss cross the country and have freshers
parties at their new location NOT!

The UK blip peaking at 17th Nov was almost certainly caused by last
chance pre-lockdown partying the week prior to lockdown coming into
force. If you have a sub group determined to do stupid things then
control is virtually impossible. There are £10k fines for some Covid
offences now but it makes almost no difference to people\'s behaviour.

Maybe there are some other effects than masking.

The extent to which individuals think it is OK for *them* to break the
rules would be my first guess as a explanation.

Again, all the explanations are about social behavior. Moralism, not
biology. Sinners are being punished.

\"Long ago, a storm was heading toward the city of Quin\'lat. The people
sought protection within the walls, all except one man who remained
outside. Kahless the Unforgettable went to him and asked what he was
doing. \'I am not afraid,\' he said. \'I will not hide my face behind stone
and mortar. I will stand before the wind and make it respect me!\'

Kahless honored his choice and went inside. The next day, the storm
came; and the man was killed. Kahless remarked: \'The wind does not
respect a fool.\'\"

 

[Martin Brown]

On 05/12/2020 07:53, bitrex wrote:

On 11/30/2020 11:22 AM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:38:28 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/11/2020 16:06, John Larkin wrote:

Maybe there are some other effects than masking.

The extent to which individuals think it is OK for *them* to break the
rules would be my first guess as a explanation.

Again, all the explanations are about social behavior. Moralism, not
biology. Sinners are being punished.


\"Long ago, a storm was heading toward the city of Quin\'lat. The people
sought protection within the walls, all except one man who remained
outside. Kahless the Unforgettable went to him and asked what he was
doing. \'I am not afraid,\' he said. \'I will not hide my face behind stone
and mortar. I will stand before the wind and make it respect me!\'

Kahless honored his choice and went inside. The next day, the storm
came; and the man was killed. Kahless remarked: \'The wind does not
respect a fool.\'\"

Klingons (and fools) prefer death with honour to social distancing...

Now pass me the bloodwine!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 05/12/20 07:53, bitrex wrote:

On 11/30/2020 11:22 AM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:38:28 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/11/2020 16:06, John Larkin wrote:

Finland is #107 on the list of per-capita deaths, at 71 PPM. Belguim
is #1, at 1418. Do people wear masks in Belguim?

They didn\'t in the past. Rule breaking is a national sport in Belgium
though. What is much harder to explain is why Switzerland also went
through the roof at about the same time (and Spain slightly earlier).

The big, sharp second spikes are hard to explain. Could there be
anything going on here but masks, masks, or masks?




Switzerland should be in the German class of healthcare and operational
efficiency so I am not sure why they went so far off the rails.

Best guess seems to be a more infective strain that originated in Spain
and returned to the rest of Europe with holiday makers. I do wonder if
the shorter daylight hours plays any part in this. The exponential rise
began at approximately the equinox in all cases apart from Spain.

Sweden is #24, 660, masking voluntary.

San Francisco is a very dense city with an anamolously low (for the
USA) covid death rate, about 180 PPM. Maybe a third of people walking
outdoors don\'t mask.

Only about 30% of people outdoors in the UK wear masks and that is
probably because they can\'t be bothered taking them off and putting them
on again each time they go into a shop.

The dynamics of this infection may not be much affected by masking.

The experience in the Far East strongly suggests that it makes quite a
big difference (that and that the people *trust* their governments and
do exactly what is asked of them). Japan Sumo has audiences again -
socially distanced and a fraction of capacity but it is a start.

Their curve on this metric (which I agree is the right one is almost at
baseline).

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=GBR~DEU~BEL~CHE~ITA~ESP~JPN&region=World&casesMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc


Most european countries are just getting over a gigantic second
infection pulse, which have generally been shorter in time and less
deadly that the first one. Belguim\'s second case rate peaked at over
14x the first one, and it\'s likely that mask wearing was more common
during the second peak.

That just means that the peak could have been even higher. Belgium had a
very bad result on the first wave too and with a pretty extreme
lockdown. By comparison neighbouring Netherlands had more relaxed rules
and still did better overall. It isn\'t at all obvious why.

It is true that the second peak hasn\'t been as fatal but that is largely
because at least in the UK many of the people being infected right now
are teenagers and twenty somethings at universities. They have a much
much lower case fatality percentage. Sending the universities back is
responsible for the very steep UK rise 3rd-11th October. Great idea to
have people from the hotspots criss cross the country and have freshers
parties at their new location NOT!

The UK blip peaking at 17th Nov was almost certainly caused by last
chance pre-lockdown partying the week prior to lockdown coming into
force. If you have a sub group determined to do stupid things then
control is virtually impossible. There are £10k fines for some Covid
offences now but it makes almost no difference to people\'s behaviour.

Maybe there are some other effects than masking.

The extent to which individuals think it is OK for *them* to break the
rules would be my first guess as a explanation.

Again, all the explanations are about social behavior. Moralism, not
biology. Sinners are being punished.


\"Long ago, a storm was heading toward the city of Quin\'lat. The people sought
protection within the walls, all except one man who remained outside. Kahless
the Unforgettable went to him and asked what he was doing. \'I am not afraid,\' he
said. \'I will not hide my face behind stone and mortar. I will stand before the
wind and make it respect me!\'

Kahless honored his choice and went inside. The next day, the storm came; and
the man was killed. Kahless remarked: \'The wind does not respect a fool.\'\"

Ah. A modern retelling of the King Knut/Canute/Knútr/Knut fable.

When covid is less of a problem, I ought to go and visit his bones\'
resting place; I haven\'t been there in over 4 decades, and it is
a beautiful area.

 

[server]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:50:36 +0000, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/11/2020 18:40, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 29/11/20 17:09, John Larkin wrote:
What surprises me, this late in the epidemic, is how little other
effects (ie, non-social-behavior effects) have been studied and appear
in the press, even as simple correlations. All we hear is masks,
masks, masks.

You need to broaden your news sources

Over here the slogan is \"hands, face, space\", i.e.
\"wash your hands, cover your face & make space\".

Though this latest health slogan does sound more like a malfunctioning
Buzz Lightyear than a sensible health policy against Covid.

If you had to rank them in order of importance the they would be in the
opposite order. Maintaining your distance is the biggest single factor,
followed by not touching your face - especially eyes and nose.

Probably not. Indoors, the virus can float around long distances in
the air. Outdoors, it blows away rapidly.

But again, virus growth is not totally determined by peoples social
behavior.

The huge european second case spikes are mostly over. The leading
edges and the falling edges were both very fast. The US second (or
third) spike is softer, but it\'s a big country. The spikes seem to be
self-limiting.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The best designs are necessarily accidental.

 

[Rick C]

Both the death rate and the infection rate in the US are at all time highs. Seems we are not willing to let the deaths of a few hundred or even thousands of people to get in the way of celebrating our holidays. Right now the result of the Thanksgiving holiday is resulting in thousands per day of additional people getting infected with COVID-19. The death rate is already increasing rapidly and about the time we are thinking of going to visit friends and family for the Christmas holiday the death rate will be ramping up big time from the Thanksgiving holiday. This will be followed by a new surge of death about time of the Superbowl. Between the Superbowl and Mardi Gras we can expect yet another surge... you get the idea.

What are the chances we will finally take this disease seriously and actually deal with it in a manner that will prevent the hundreds of thousands of new deaths before we get an effective vaccine?

It is just so pathetic that we didn\'t nip this in the bud and take the sort of actions that were required when we had the opportunity. It\'s even more pathetic that we can\'t get people to even believe this disease is real.

The US is a pathetic country.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209