A Zound of Zombies

A Headless Body Production

Venue: An Undisclosed Living room
Event: Solitaire with a new game
Players: Phil Gardocki running the survivors, Doug, Wanda, Phil and Amy
Game System: Zombicide

The Forces:
Survivors: Doug, Wanda, Phil and Amy. Each with a unique skill.

Zombies: Walkers, Fatties and Runners.

"XX" marks a zombie killed in that location on that turn.

I was looking for a new game to spice up the Wednesday night line up, and Zombicide seemed to fit the bill. It is aesthetically interesting, and will improve with a bit of paint, easy to explain to a group of people, and can be played in under 3 hours. Guillotine Games's Zombicide seemed to fit the bill.

Each player runs from 1-4 "survivors" in one of 10 scenarios. Each Scenario will have a specific objective to win.

The game is co-operative and are playing against the game, not each other.

The Board

The board represents downtown Suburbia. Created out of 8 geomorphic panels. As a solitaire game, I run 4 characters of the 6 available.

This scenario is a bit complected. The arrows represent the overall tract our heroes must traverse to win this game. XX's represent doors that must be jimmied/destroyed/unlocked to succeed. Zombies will be spawning in every red zone, and sometimes from the sewers.

Since I have the PDF of the rules, here is the scenario description:

We killed a zombie that had been the mayor of this town. It was carrying a fax from the chief of police explaining how to reach a safe hideout, an old, underground facility that had been turned into a bunker, close to the police station. Apparently it contains an armory, food supplies, and even a shower. This bunker would be the perfect shelter for us. Its entrance, however, is controlled from a distance, and the district is swarming with zombies. This is a dangerous mission but well worth it.

What doesn’t kill you today just might tomorrow.

The crew is performing a number of tasks. Moving, door jimmying, searching for weapons.

Only Phil starts with an established weapon, a pistol. The others have distributed among themselves, another pistol, an ax, and a crowbar. Everything else must be searched for, and that takes action points. Each character gets 3 action points a turn.

 Zombies then attack, move then spawn, in that order.

The Zombies only lightly spawning. On one turn, only 1 showed up, and Phil, with his newly looted shot gun, and Doug with two pistols, were able to keep the zombie herd to a manageable size.

This was about to change, very fast.

As a characters kill count goes up, they "level up", acquiring more skills. But it comes at a price. The zombie spawn in higher numbers, and with more dangerous types. Fatty's, Runners and Abominations!

The second objective is achieved, and the bunker door's locked is picked. But with no less than 8 zombies are on the street in front of her, Wanda (green, upper left) dare not leave the building.

Doug is clearing the street in front of the bunker door. Phil is shooting into the zound of zombies climbing over the pimp mobile. Amy is pondering her life choices. She has zombies north, west and south, but the keys to the police car are in the ignition.

With sirens blazing, she drives south, missing 3 of 4 zombies in her path.

Now, surrounded by zombies, she pulls a desperate doughnut, smoking tires and heads back towards the bunker.

Surrounded by zombies, Amy's Drivers Ed training kicks in. Instinctively missing every pedestrian on the road.

Noise management is important in the game. Zombies that cannot see humans, will guide in on the loudest noise. And a rampaging police car generates a lot of noise.

All the zombies in front of Wanda's building head for the noise. Except for Fatty and friends, their priority is they can see their next meal.

With Doug in the building, the game is technically won. I am playing further to see how many of the crew I can save.

Amy has leveled up, and gets a free action. The first is putting the cop car into first gear...

With driving instinct borne out of absolute terror, Amy does another doughnut, splattering two zombies against the brown stone.

Amy shuts her eyes and accelerates to 30 miles per hour in 150 feet, she shudders at the sounds of three horrific bumps. First action, part 1.

Half opening on eye, and seeing the slack jawed Phil still standing, with three zombies behind him, she pulls what is now a well practiced maneuver, another doughnut, the noise of the siren covering up the disgusting squishings in her path.  First Action part 2.

Note, a car runs over everything in the zone on a 4+. To pull this off, Amy had to miss Phil twice.

With that handful of kills, Amy hit the 3rd level in the game. Taking the Zombie spawn level to "Ut Oh"

Amy departs the car, fires once at walker crawling out of a man hole, then races for the bunker.

Before the zound of zombies arrive at that cross road on the left, Wanda, who is on roller skates, was able leave her hiding spot, race down the now cleared streets, and jump through the closing bunker door. Just ahead of the next spawn event.

Coronavirus, Late July Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Late July Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, have been creeping upward to around  1,100,000.  The estimated under count is unknown.  But could still range from 3 to 10 times the number of officially infected. 

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid is also climbing.  To about 38,000 for this week, up from 27,000 last report, 10,000 in April. The peak was 150,000 in January.

Vaccines weaken, but still do very well:

In Pennsylvania, over the first 5 months of this year, the ratio of hospitalized patients with COVID, vaccinated to unvaccinated was 19 to 81.  The overall population ratio is 84% vaccinated with at least one shot, to 16% unvaccinated.

Multiply that out, if you are vaccinated, even minimally so, you are 24 times less likely to be hospitalized with COVID, as the unvaccinated.

It has been noted that among the vaccinated and hospitalized group, that most of them have not had a recent booster.  See PA Gov PostVaccination Data for this year.

This is reinforced by a recent report from the CDC which states in this year, for those over 50, 94% of the deaths with Covid are unvaccinated.   See Here...

Ninja Sub Variant:

The press needs descriptive keywords, but haven't settled on one for Covid-19 Variant BA.5.  Ninja and Deltacron are battling it out for market share.  Apparently BA.5 is even more able to dodge antibodies, and more infectious still, to the point where the R number seems no longer relevant to report.  Unlike other Omicron's, BA.5's symptoms are more like Delta, in that it settles deeper in the lungs.  Making it more dangerous than Omicron.  

Similar to the common cold, the Omicron's do not provoke a long term immune response from the body, so reinfection rate with the Omicrons is higher than previous variants.

BA.5 is now the dominant variant in the US. Possibly the world.  Japan has hit their peak, ever, number of Covid cases this week with this variant.

Long Covid

A study of Long Covid cases shows that the odds of getting Long Covid double with each reinfection.  There are already many cases of reinfections of BA5 alone. 

Reinfection Causing More Long Covid:

There was a very large study was done comparing a pool of 5.7 million US veterans and against a control group of 5.4 million civilians that had not had COVID yet. 

To quote the study, "The exact increase in risk from reinfection depends on the particular disorder in question—and whether you’ve been vaccinated and boosted. Broadly speaking, however, the likelihood of heart and clotting problems, fatigue and lung damage roughly doubles each time you catch COVID".

See Here...

Update, Expiration date, Government Issued Tests:

In my last posting I mentioned that the newest set of tests I received from the government had an expiration date of Aug, 2022.  It turns out this was just a labeling problem on the box.  The box said 8/22, but the packaging in the box were labeled April, 2024. 

New Vaccination Tech on the Horizon.

I heard this on a podcast put out by Skeptics Guide to the Universe*, aka "SGU", episode 887, and verified by an article by the Lancet.  Nano particles have been developed to deliver up to 60 different vaccines at one time.  It is described as a "cage" that the active ingredients are attached to.  I am envisioning a styrofoam block that a florist uses for displays.  

The idea is to supply a range of vaccines vice just 1 to 3, like is done with the flu, in order to cover all the bases for a rapidly evolving virus, or one, like the flu, we don't know which one will come to dominate this season.

Tested in mice, where the control group had 100% fatality to exposure to a version of C-19.  Another group was inoculated with this nano particle with 5 different variants, one of the variants was the variant the mice were infected with.  The mice all lived.  

Most significantly, a third group was inoculated a cage with 5 different variants, and then infected with 2 different variants.  None of the variants or infections were exact matches,  IE, it was a scattershot approach, but this group had a high survival rate.

Tests have since been performed on primates to good effect.    Human trials have been started.

Omicron Specific Vaccine Update.

Up to now the only vaccine available has been created on the original C-19, the boosters are just a half power version of the same vaccine.  Since then C-19 has evolved to a number of iterations, much faster than our process to update the vaccines.  

Everyone is working on a Omicron specific vaccine, and both Phizer an Moderna are in Phase 2 out of 3 trials.  The Pfizer site is stating that the vaccine effectiveness is good against the current BA3/5 versions of Omicron, with more data forthcoming.

The hope is these will be available this fall.

----------------------------------------------------

* I heartily recommend putting the SGU on your pod cast list.  They do a great job of providing up to date information on current science related news, and debunking current crap about UFO's, Covid/Vaccine deniers etc...

Coronavirus, Late June Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Late June Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, have been oscillating, between 900,000 and 1,000,000.  The estimated under count ranges from 3 to 20 times that number currently infected with the more benign Omicron sub variants.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid is climbing.  27,000 for this week, up from 24,000 the week of memorial day, and a low point of 10,200 on Mar 23.

Government Issued Tests:

I ordered the next set of tests from the US Government and found their expiration dates to be August of 2022.  Thinking that was odd, I looked up the original set I ordered and they were dated April, 2023.  My wife is traveling, and the required tests for that are specifically listed, and she had to order them special, and they're expiration dates are 2023.  

What are the current numbers really?

To compare to seasonal flu, 2010-2011.  21 million cases, 32,000 deaths, 1 person in 650 died that had symptomatic symptoms of flu.

Covid, from day one, almost 2.5 years now, 89 million cases, 1,040,000 deaths.  1 person in 85 died that had symptoms.  

From Mar-June 2022, 1 person died in 356 that  reported symptoms.  It is considered that the number of cases is under-counted by 2/3rds or more, putting Covid deaths per cases around the level of season flu.

Comparing unvaccinated vice vaccinated.  In Mar, 2022 when Omicron was approaching 100% the number of cases.  For Pennsylvania, the number hospitalized Covid patients are 33 unvaccinated to 11 vaccinated.   Death rates in the same time period is 2.3 unvaccinated  to 1 vaccinated.  

Since the flu numbers include vaccinated and unvaccinated as well,  we can assume that the 1 in 650 deaths of flu also would be much lower for the vaccinated in that group as well.  

More on the current numbers:

In the UK, a group of people were tested, none of which had a positive covid test, were tested, and 95% had the Covid antibodies.  Meaning they had it, but it wasn't serious enough to warrant any attention.  To some, that means fatalism has set in, "its only a matter of time".  But so is death.  And we avoid that whenever possible.  

Repeat Omicrons:

Omicron has only been around for 8 months, and already some have caught it 3 times.  It seems an infection with Omicron produces a far weaker immune response, which seems to wane quickly, compared with infections with previous variants.   See here...

It has been noted that vaccinated people do not reinfect as easily as unvaccinated.  And recently boosted people less likely as well.  but there are no hard numbers to support this.

Heavy reading on the subject by the Lancet.

 

 

Coronavirus, Mid June Edition, 2022

 Coronavirus, Mid June Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases dropped during the Memorial day holiday weekend, and the week following, probably due to accounting rather than reality, then started climbing about 5% per day the week following.  The current estimate is around 900,000.

More in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid is climbing as well.  24,000 for this week, up from 21,000 the week before, and 17,000 mid May.

Moderna Omicron Vaccine:

Moderna is seeking approval for it's Omicron specific booster.  Preliminary data released by the company showed that its omicron-targeting coronavirus booster candidate produced 1.75 times as many neutralizing antibodies against the version of omicron that circulated over the winter, known as BA.1, compared with its existing vaccine.

However, Omicron is up to version BA.4 and BA.5, representing 13% of all cases currently.  We don't have numbers on how effective the new booster will act against those versions.   

The updated booster should be available in the fall.

Paxlovid Rebound:

Paxlovid is an anti viral drug that has become one of the dominant weapons for fighting a covid infection.  Taken immediately after a positive test, it greatly reduces hospitalizations and deaths from covid.

In 1-2% of the cases, patients that finish the course, and sometimes even test negative for covid, suddenly get ill from covid, with high viral loads in evidence.

But this phenomenon has been noted in the last 6 months, even before Paxlovid became available in quantity.   

A study comparing Paxlovid against non Paxlovid patients has shown nearly the same percentage chance of a rebound.  At this time the cause of the rebound, in either Paxlovid or not, is not known.

It was also noted however, that the rebound cases do not reach the level regarded as a "severe" illness.

Coronavirus, Mid May Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Mid May Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases has been rising by 2-3% per day. By my calculation, 850,000 have Covid, but my numbers are based on the reported number of cases, which is widely acknowledged as under counted.  How much depends on the report.  From 3 times to 17 times.  

But we do know how many are hospitalized, and how many died of Covid.  Currently the number hospitalized is 14,000 with 1,700 in the ICU.  This is up from a low on April 7 at 10,500 hospitalized and also with 1,700 in the ICU.  The peak was on Jan 20, at 150,000 hospitalized and 26,000 in the ICU.

Deaths peaked in the end of January at around 3,500 per day, and are down to around 200 per day now.

More cases, but less severe.  I'm not reporting anything new here.

Son of Son of Omicron:

64% of the new cases in the USA are the sub variant of the original Omicron variant, and 36% are the sub variant's sub variant.  BA.2.12.1 (Omicron is B.1.1.529, "Stealth" Omicron is BA.2) is even more infectious than it's parents and grand parents, which in turn, were more infectious than Delta.  Get a program, you can't keep the players straight without a program.

Omicron sub variants 4 and 5 are reported taking hold in the south.  Again, more infectious, but less lethal.

That's it.  I won't waste any more of your time.

Coronavirus, Late April Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Late April Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases has been rising slowly now, by about 1% per day. 85% of the new cases in the USA are the sub variant of the original Omicron variant.

I based new cases identified, we are hovering around 500,000 total cases currently with the virus. 11,000 are hospitalized, up from 10,150 a week ago, down from 12,800 a month ago.

Paxlovid 

This is just a summary, for more information see the article from Yale Medicine.

Paxlovid is an anti-viral therapy of 3 pills.  The clinical trial has demonstrated an 80% reduction in the risk of hospitalization and death.  

What you need to know:  Paxlovid will be available at around 20,000 pharmacies.  If you test positive for Covid, they will issue you an impromptu prescription for an immediate treatment.  So no second step going to your doctor, then a third back to the pharmacy. 

Bring a list of the medications you are currently taking.  There is a list of drugs Paxlovid interacts with that needs to be cleared first.

What is nice to know:  It is actually 2 different drugs.  One, nirmatrelvir, prevents replication of the Covid protein, the other, ritonavir,  shuts down the nirmatrelvir processing in the liver, so nirmatrelvir will have a longer time to work.

How under counted are the number of cases?

I have heard or read the the under count of actual cases range from 7% the actual number (yes 1/14th) to 30% the actual number.  A wide variation and both are far from accurate.  Most watchers are now switching from number of cases to "Trends".  Is number of cases going up or down? And estimating from there.  There are a couple of ways of estimating the under-count.  One is testing the waste water stream for markers.  Others involve polling.

The reason for the under count is simple enough. The current dominant variant is milder, and so fewer patients require hospitalization, and many just suffer through without an official test, or take a home test and not report it.  

Watchers of the pandemic are monitoring the hospitalizations from Covid.  I never tracked that, so I have no history conveniently available.   However, everywhere I look say the numbers are way down.  

Europe's numbers from "Stealth Omicron" are coming down.  The surge it caused in Europe seems to have passed by the US.  I have been hearing for about 7 weeks now that we are usually 4 weeks behind Europe.  Justifications (IE Excuses) seem to be because our unvaccinated community was ravaged by Delta/Early Omicron, that just about everyone in the US is either vaccinated or recently exposed.  But I think this applies to most of Europe as well.  Their vaccination rate was better than the US, 76% have 2 doses vice 67%, and Stealth Omicron surged there.  I think it is simply that their health systems are managing their numbers better. 

Is the total cases relevant?

Not so much any more.  I think the hospitalization rate is more important.  Society as a whole has 12 stepped it's way to acceptance.  The current version of Covid is 3 times deadlier and 6 times more infectious than the common flu.  Alpha was over 100 times deadlier and 2 times as infectious.  We as a whole now regard the deaths from here on as acceptable losses.  An impromptu poll has taken place when it was announced that the federal judge, Kathryn Kimbal Mizelle,  tossed out the mask mandate.  Her reasoning was, the CDC, whose mission is to "protect America from health, safety and security threats", over reached to protect America from a health threat.  But if you sweep the crowd videos, about 3/4 of the people were cheering, 1/4th was disgusted.

Alabama is Back!:

This is not really important except to my fellow counters.  For about 18 months, the state of Alabama stopped reporting its numbers for "Total Recovered" and "Active Cases".  They are now reporting those cases again.  1,204,517 and 73,062 out of a population of 4,903,000.  Alabama was one of the reasons why I stopped using the Active Cases number reported to the CDC and went to an algorithm to calculate the active cases rather than rely on what the states were reporting.  

Alabama was not alone among the states to do this.  They were just the most obvious, because I sort alphabetically and their numbers are at the top of the list.  Most states lost track of recovered patients.  Who goes back to the doctor to report they are well now?  For anything?  A number of states went to an algorithm like mine, others simply would do a reassessment of the total cases and overnight, those numbers would drop 50% or more.  Florida was the worse offender, and at one time Florida had 20% of all the active cases in the country, because they never updated their "Recovered" numbers.  Truly, it was Florida that forced me to deviate from reporting the CDC numbers directly.  And updated with a calculated number instead. There is nothing evil or conspiratorial about this.  It's just bureaucracy trying to keep up with reality.  

Though Florida's death counts continue to use a back dated version of the numbers, which makes the today's deaths smaller, while backdating the deaths in the past. 

For the variants, up to and including Delta, I used the formula of adding up the previous 3 weeks of cases, and then added 6% for ICU cases, and reported that as the number of "Active Cases".  For Omicron, I have adjusted the calculation to 2 weeks + 3%.    And Omicron still had over 10 million cases at one point.  Alpha peaked at 5.2 million the year before.

I was working with Delaware Health and Human Services (DHHS) last year and got a peek at what it takes to change reporting to the CDC.  The departmental politics to change anything is daunting.  We are not talking Rep. v Dem politics, just control issues of which department does what.  I was assigned a project to upgrade their Sexual Transmitted Disease program to the CDC because Delawares program was using a database called "Foxpro", which was no longer going to be supported by Microsoft.  My job was to totally replace the program.  

While I was gathering requirements, I found out the CDC built the program I was replacing, and built a replacement program, and had already established a process to upgrade, and this process had already been executed in over 25 states.  So the choice for DHHS was adopt the CDC program, which was cheaper, well vetted, will have regular updates.  Or a program that will not be as full featured, not work as well, no vetted and would not have regular updates, but would have the features they control, and not beholden to to some federal organization.  

They decided to lay me off while they discussed this.  The fact there was a discussion is disconcerting.  They had a budget for programmers, but not one for upgrades.  Bureaucracy. 

And FYI, by my calculations, Alabama should have about 2,900 active cases, not 73,000.

Coronavirus, Early April Edition, 2022

Coronavirus, Early April Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

The Numbers: 

Nationwide, the estimated number of cases has been dropping very slowly now, by about .5%. The drop in new cases of the version Omicron being almost matched by the rise of the "Stealth Omicron" variant.

I based new cases identified, we are hovering around 370,000 total cases currently with the virus. 16,100 are hospitalized, the lowest number since 7/2020.

The Next Booster Shot:

On 3/29, the CDC announced its recommendations for the next booster shot. If you are over 50, or have immunocompromised conditions, and the last booster shot was at least 4 months ago, you are eligible for the next booster shot, either one of the mRNA's or Johnson and Johnson.

How effective is the booster shot?:

From statistics published in the Lancet Regional Health.    These percentages are taken from patients already hospitalized with Covid, and so does not take into account that you are less likely to be hospitalized with Covid if you are vaccinated.

Fully vaccinated and boosted:  Mortality rate 7.1%

Fully vaccinated, no booster:  Mortality rate 10.3%

Unvaccinated:  Mortality rate 12.8%

Are We There Yet?:

We are into the 3rd year of this pandemic, and plague fatigue is sitting end with even the most ardent followers. I wanted to close down this bi-weekly reporting last July, and then Delta hit. Based on the timeline for the Spanish Flu, we are almost there.

Timeline “Spanish” Flu
1/1918

Believed first cases of Spanish Flu in the US
3/1918
First known case of Flu in the US

First Wave: 3/1918 to 8/1918
Not a significant increase in the number of deaths. 75,000 for the season in the US as opposed to 63,000 in 1915.

Second Wave: 8/1918 to 1/1919
The deadliest wave, 330,000 deaths in the US.

Third Wave: 1/1919 – 6/1919
128,000 deaths in the US

Fourth Wave: 12/1919 – 4/1920
150,000 deaths in the US.

2 years, 3 months

Timeline Covid
12/2019 

First cases in China.
1/2020  

First case in the US
First Wave: 3/2020 to 8/2020
158,000 deaths in the US

Second Wave: 8/2020 to 2/2021
The deadliest wave, 292,000 deaths in the US

Third Wave: 7/2021 to 11/2021
“Delta” 156,000 deaths in the US

Fourth Wave: 12/2021 to present
“Omicron” 222,000 deaths in the US.
2 years 5 months

A lot of notable similarities. The waves mimicking their duration's, or just human nature for categorizing them. Second wave was the deadliest. We adapt, and third wave less deadly, we get fatigue of dealing with the pandemic and the fourth is deadlier. The fourth wave of the Spanish Flu, like Omicron, had mutated with a lower mortality rate, but more infectious.

As a historical FYI, the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain. It may have mutated first in the US, as the first known case was an Army Cook in Kansas. Maybe he was experimenting with bat stew.

There was a war on, and the flu was affecting operations in France, so there was censorship in the press in all the warring nations. But Spain was neutral, and reported her cases freely, and so Spain got the blame for being ground zero for the plague.

More Evidence On Pandemic Fatigue:

We passed a million deaths from the plague last week, and I the only headline I saw about it was this week, and the article mentioned we were nearing a million dead.  And since we crossed before the Oscars, so it wasn't the slap event either driving it from the headlines.

How much anti-vax  propaganda was Russian generated?:

It has been well known, for over 5 years at least, that the Russians have set up organizations to create conflict within the western world using social media.  It didn't matter the topic.  If you were of one political alignment, they had bots to point flaws in the other.  Any disagreement was being magnified.  But how much was honest disagreement, and how much was Russian bots and agents, "stirring the pot"?

Since a lot of the internet traffic emanating in Russia has been cut off, we have been getting a substantial quieting of arguments.

For instance, NPR's forums and twitter accounts are now nearly devoid of anti vax come backs on articles on vaccine effectiveness.

I have noticed also a quieting on local forums along a similar vein.  Anti vax supporters are virtually gone.  

Also political attacks and snarkieness.  From both sides.

Another anecdotal story of a "bot holiday" of Russian supplied invective.  A Dr. Fisman, an ardent vaccine supporter, when he comments on Covid would get many angry replies to any tweet, including a test tweet stating simply, "Kids are Remarkable".  Now receives none since Feb 28.

But it is not entirely due to being Russian internet traffic being blocked, the Russian bot farms are also redirecting to war propaganda.  Since the invasion of Ukraine, 650,000 twitter accounts were created, spawning over 5 million pro Russian tweets.  About 7% of the totals for this time period.