Coronavirus, the Ides of March (ish) Edition

Coronavirus, the Ides of March Edition
By the Numbers

There are many of these missives that I start the same day as I publish the last, because, things happen.

Then there are others where I go almost two weeks because there is nothing interesting to report.  So far the only interesting C-19 news is with sports.

Then there is the announcement that the Texas Rangers will open to a full stadium, but require masks. I am not a screamer about all things C-19, and when I think of the math, this is not so bad.

My current estimates of those with C-19 in Texas is about 128,000.  About .0045%.  So a full stadium of 40,000 would have 175 infected members.  Probably less, because if you are really sick, you are not going to the game anyway, so call it 150.  The spread rate “out of doors” vice “in doors” rate has never been quantified.  There are studies from China that put it extremely low, but anything from China is suspect.  But overall with factors like evaporation, a lot more air, and ultraviolet, the spread out of doors is much lower.

Indoors on average, 1 person can spread it to 4 others.  That is the factor that made this virus a threat.  Out doors?  Could be 10x less.  If we go with that, then 150 will spread to 60 which will take it home for may be 240 more.  But masking is going to be required for this event, so that will keep awareness up and reduce the spread by another 10x, so 150 spread to 6.  At that point we are in the statistical weeds.  There will be other collateral increases caused by the event, as a fair number of people go to the bars to watch the game.  Outside the stadium the Phillies play in there is an eating/drinking complex that is absolutely packed after the 7th inning of people leaving early to avoid the rush, but have one more for the road.  Some spread, but not “the sky is falling” super spreader event.

This is not the same as the Sturgis motorcycle rally back in November which was a super spreader event.  The open air interactions caused a few cases to be sure, but the rally ran for 10 days of nightly indoor interactions as well.  260,000 cases were attributed to that rally.

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The number of active cases continues to improve.  To just over 50,000 new cases daily.  I estimate that we dropped below 1.5 million active cases on Sunday.  About the same number of cases as around Oct 13.  

The mortality numbers are finally dropping to about 1,400 per day, down from a peak of over 4,000.  I earlier calculated that the mortality rate, if you catch C-19 today, was actually higher than previous months, and had no valid reason to explain it.  It turns out I was wrong due to an Apples to Oranges comparison.   
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Tim Porter, aka the MadAxeMan, pointed out to me the error in my calculations, using a current set of active case numbers against a lagging indicator of deaths.  So the deaths have a disproportionate effect when the active cases are dropping, as well as when the numbers are climbing.  We saw this in the spring when the number of cases grew, sometimes 40% per day, and the mortality rate dropped dramatically from 25% initially to around 8% by late spring.  

There were other effects in play then, not enough testing for one.  Improper handling of the elderly another.  

So to be clear, there was never a bump in the mortality rate.  It was my calculation error. If anything, it went down due to the most vulnerable group getting vaccinated.

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Which segways to my personal news.  I had my first VA visit on Monday, where I found out that they had just lowered their age requirement to 55.  I called on Tuesday, and got my first shot (Moderna) on Wed.  It was the most efficient vaccination operation I have seen since boot camp (80 men, 640 shots, 10 minutes).  From arrival on a square mile campus in Coatesville, PA to departure, 45 minutes.  Signage was excellent, interacted with 7 personnel.  15 minutes was waiting after the shot to monitor for anaphylactic shock.  

I never felt the needle.  At + 7 hours the injected shoulder began to ache.  At + 15 hours developed light fever which lasted about 3 hours.  2 days later the shoulder is still tender to the touch, but that is all.  Your results may vary
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Texas removed all C-19 restrictions on May 2nd.  So it is still too early into the Texas Experiment to tell how their restriction removal will go.  But Pennsylvania plans on going up to 75% open in two weeks, Which in practice is actually full open.  Who is going to count the difference between a full occupancy and 75%?

I am doing a separate calculation for Texas, because science is about writing things down, otherwise you are just mucking about.

Wk Ending In:    Average Daily New Cases for the week
1/11/2021         22927
1/18/2021         20734
1/25/2021         18815
2/1/2021          18267
2/8/2021          12487
2/15/2021          9410
2/22/2021          5012
3/1/2021           7113  <<week of restriction removal
3/8/2021           5413
3/15/2021          4437

Addresses To Vacant lots

The 2020 Election Lies You May Have Heard

Addresses to Vacant lots

Steven Blake Crowder is an American-Canadian conservative political commentator and comedian.

He published a video that shows vacant lots at voter addresses in Nevada and Michigan claiming they were on file as addresses for voters.  In some instances, host Crowder reported names and addresses that do not match Nevada voter records. In other instances, it appears the addresses on file with election officials contain typos or clerical errors. Neither instance is evidence of fraud or mass fraud on its face.

For example, he reports an address on Jackson Ave Las Vegas which is an empty lot in a commercial area of town but if you look on google maps there is a Jackson drive Henderson NV, which is a residential street, 

Another is an address that was 1732 Yale street which is an empty lot, but 1731 Yale street on the other side of the street is a large retirement home so it's pretty obvious that the address was mistyped.

But bare in mind that this is not a statistic sample he is providing.  In theory, just those of registered democrats.  So unless he is willing to do the same analysis on registered republicans, this is just cherry-picking the data.  Remember there are over 200 million of registered voters.  So even if we have 1 in a million errors in addressees, there are going to be 200 bad addresses. 

And the error rate is very likely higher that 1 in a million. 

And speaking of cherry-picking the data, here is other claimed addresses by Crowder that are questionably due to his error or simple clerical error.

N	Crowder claim	What was found	Classification
1	Vacant lot at 579 Jackson Avenue	Voter's registration shows Jackson Drive, is registered Independent	Crowder's error
2	Vacant lot at 1009 South 17th St	Voter actually lives at 1009 North 17th St	Clerical error, not fraud
3	221 N Bruce St doesn't exist between 219 & 223	Voter actually lives at 221 S Bruce St, is registered republican	Clerical error, not fraud
4	Empty grass at 215 S Casino Center Blvd	Voter actually lives at 915 S Casino Center Blvd	Clerical error, not fraud
5	Vacant lot at 1732 Yale St	Voter actually lives at 1731 Yale St	Clerical error, not fraud
6	Vacant lot at 7801 Gomer Rd	Voter's registration shows 7745 Gomer Rd	Crowder's error
7	Vacant lot at 2175 W Agate Ave	Voter actually lives at 2675 W Agate	Clerical error, not fraud
8	Vacant lot at 5512 Doe Ave	Voter actually lives at 5512 Doe Springs Pl, is registered Non Partisan	Clerical error, not fraud
9	Highway at 353 West Bonneville Ave	Voter lives at new apartment at 353 East Bonneville Ave	Clerical error, not fraud

 

Remember, he is also a comedian, made famous with his "Change my Mind" memes.

Other Lies you may have heard:

Addresses to Vacant Lots

Pennsylvania's Million Vote Dump

Nationwide More Ballots Than Voters

Stuffing the Ballot Box Video

Poll Worker Changing Votes Video

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Votes Changed in Frankfort Germany

PA County with More Ballots Than Voters 

More Votes than Voters in Detroit

More Votes than Voters in Atlanta 

 

 

 

 

 

Coronavirus, Early March 2021

 

  Coronavirus, Early March 2021

By the Numbers

The number of active cases continues to improve. I estimate that we dropped below 2 million earlier this week. About the same number of cases as on November 8. And we were mortified then.

The mortality numbers are holding around 2,500 per day. So the actual mortality rate, if you catch C-19 today is worse than it was about 3 months ago. About 1.1% vice .8%. I can find no reason for this growth.  My working theory is that it has to do with exhaustion of the medical personnel.

New versions of the virus continue to grow and it is expected the UK version; “Kent” will be the dominant version of the virus by mid March. Kent is about 50% more infectious, but no deadlier than the common version. Current Vaccines are effective against “Kent”, but less effective against the “South Africa” version.

Over 50 million Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine including over half of all Americans, ages 65 and older.

Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine has final approval. It is a one shot and done vaccine and does not require extreme cold storage. Everything I read about it has it as effective as the previous vaccinations, including dealing with the new variations.

About 3.5 million doses shipped on Monday.

It is deemed effective 28 days after the shot.

The Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine has NOT been approved for children under 18.

On Texas, I'll try to keep this as apolitical as possible:

The governor of Texas announce that masks will no longer be required, and all C-19 restrictions will be lifted.  When he announced this, he also mentioned that the enforcement of masks wasn’t being done anyway. And looking at the numbers he seems to be right. Texas averaged 7,000 new cases a day for the last 7 days, and 5,000 new cases per day for the previous 2 weeks. Down from a peak of 27,000 on Jan 12.

Ben Franklin once said, "Let the experiment be made!"

By that he meant, if reasonable people aren't sure if something is right or not, let one state do one thing, another state another, then compare notes.

So Texas is volunteering to be Guinea pigs to see their C-19 numbers go up, or down.

While the antimaskers note there is nothing preventing you from wearing a mask, but there is already been reports of haranguing reasonable people to “Take it off!”

We are mostly herd animals and we take our cues from the leadership and pop culture. We want to be independent, strong and unique, just like everyone else 😊

Take the story of Veronica Lake. In WWII, she was a famous actress with long flowing blond hair. And women emulated her by the millions. However this was just in time when women started integrating into the heavy industry production and countless thousands were injured and killed when their hair got caught into the machinery. The answer was a plea to Veronica to change her hair style, and she did. And the women that emulated her followed.

Reprinted from previous:

If you live in Pennsylvania, to find out if you are eligible for the vaccine, the website is: https://covidportal.health.pa.gov/s/Your-Turn

For everyone else, you’ll have to look up your own state.  Every state is different.