Coronavirus, the Late August Edition

 Coronavirus, the Late August Edition

       By the Numbers 

The FDA has granted full approval for the Pfizer vaccine. One less excuse for the refusenicks.

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The number of daily new cases and the total number of active cases continues to grow.  My earlier prediction that we would hit 2 million active cases by Aug 18 was exceeded by 5 days. 

The rate of increase is leveling off.  We currently have an estimated active case count of 2.7 million.  The average number of daily new cases last 7 days was 120,600, increasing by just 1.05% per day, compared to late July when it was between 10-15% per day, but we haven't plateaued yet.

If it wasn't for children being sent back to school I would say curve was about to level out around 3 million, followed by a sharp drop sometime the first week of September.  This fire has burned very bright, and against an ever reducing pile of fuel. There are only so many unvaccinated left, and by the end of August, the vaccination rate nation wide should hit 77%. 

But the politicos are insisting on sending children back to school.  And regardless of how well protected they are, this churn of the population cannot reduce the amount of Covid cases, so it can only increase it.  

A week after school opens, there will be cases among the children, which will have already passed onto their families.  A week later we will be back on virtual learning.  The systems are set up already, so this time around it shouldn't have even been a question.

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On Variants.  All Covid is effectively the Delta variant  now.  It was 51% of the cases in June, 83% at the end of July, and is well over 95% now.

Lambda is concentrated in LA and Houston areas and represents about 1% the total cases in those areas.  Any articles you read regarding Lambda's mortality rate, infectiousness, and ability to "breakthrough" vaccines is hyperbole right now.  I noticed the word "may" distributed liberally in those articles.  

We don't really know.  

But, if Lambda was more infectious, lethal, or vaccine avoiding compared to Delta, I think we would have a better hint of it by now.  

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The articles about breakthrough rates and Delta and vaccination loss of efficacy were across the board. But now I am seeing a consensus with the major medical services.

I have had to rewrite this section 4 times in 9 days due to the deluge of newly  uncovered information.

Rather than posting various reports I'll just cut to the (current) finals.

The effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines among front-line workers declined to 66% after the delta variant became dominant.  The formal report, dated Aug 18 from the CDC is here.

This is pretty much in alignment with Israel's health ministry regarding  putting Delta  at 64%.

Now take this with a grain of salt.  Assuming front-line workers are properly protected, but they are also exposed 8 or more hours a day.   Time of exposure is also a factor.  15 minutes in the grocery store is not really a problem.

Since May, there has been 41,000+ deaths in the USA due to Covid.  The CDC's counts of total breakthrough deaths at 1,829.  This puts the vaccination to unvaccinated ratio at around 19-1 for hospitalizations and death.  I have seen over a dozen reports from individual hospitals all saying the same thing. 

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The topic of booster shots evolved quickly in the last 2 weeks.  What you heard in beginning of the month may not apply now.

By mid September, all American adults will be eligible for a booster if their last vaccine was 8 months ago, or if they are immunocompromised.

It is recommended your booster be the same brand as your vaccine, but it is not mandatory.   There is some chatter that mixed vaccines is better.  

At this time, the booster will be exactly the same vaccine as you received earlier.  Work is being done on tuning them for "Delta", but that is still a work in progress.

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As mask requirements are being heavily suggested or required again, the mask-deniers are back in force.  Beware being presented with studies with false headlines.  I just got one with the headline broadly proclaiming masks don't work, when in the summary the study proclaims they do work.  Followed by a long line of comments of "I knew it!" from people that didn't read the article.   This particular study was not even about testing if masks work or not, but about some masks work better than others.  

And proper fit is important.  

So nothing new here.

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There is a good article on myths being put out by refusenicks, mask-deniers and other "it ain't so crowd" put out by the Boston University.  ... here...

On Battery Life

On Battery Life

By the Numbers.

We no longer can live without our devices of convenience.  All of which require frequent charging of their batteries to remain active.  Over time the batteries grow weaker and eventually fail.  And most times this leads to replacing the device.  Whether that is preplanned obsolescence or adopting the latest and greatest technology is your call.

There are steps that can be done extend the battery life of your favorite device.  Put another way, avoiding things that are damaging the battery.

My formal training is with electronics and as such, I have worked on a variety of electronic/electrical equipment, including battery chargers.  Most recently with a company called Lithium Battery in Plymouth Meeting, PA.  They make specialized batteries for things like submersibles.  Over the years I have observed numerous behaviors about batteries and evolved strategies on mitigating them.

Here are some thoughts you may want to consider.  Some of these are easy to implement, others border on being a pain in the ass.  They are not "all or nothing".  Just decide on the ones you wish to follow. 

Batteries will get weaker over time.  This is unavoidable as batteries store energy chemically, and over time the chemicals dispersed in the structure, or the structure is weakened and breaks down.  As the chemicals are stored in a cellular  pattern, individual cells break and become useless, but the remaining cells is holding charges, and so the battery gets weaker, but doesn't fail.

#1)  Don't leave your device on the charger over night.  

Chargers are, by and large, built by the lowest bidder, and as such, are probably very cheap, and cheaply built.  Leaving the device on the charger over night will cause the battery to over charge by a very small amount, for a long period of time.  Overcharging will cause the battery to weaken sooner.

The truth is, battery chargers do not "Know" when the battery is charged.  Cheap ones from the dollar store will just pump full power until bad things happen.  More advanced ones, like what comes with your cell phone has some ways of monitoring the situation, by temperature and power storage estimates, and will reduce the charge to a trickle when the battery is thought to be near fully charged.  This greatly extends the life of the battery, but is not perfect either.  

One way to tell if this is happening is when you take your phone off the charger first thing in the morning. Is it warm to the touch? If so, it was over charging the battery.

Anecdotal story:  I was issued a new company laptop way back when.  And I used it to entertain my son on a long drive.   I didn't have the ability to charge the laptop from the car.  I put in a DVD of a movie and took off.  The DVD ran the whole movie and just about died when we arrived at our destination.

Next year, same trip, same laptop.  The battery died half way to the destination.  The backup battery also ran flat before arriving.  One of the differences is that laptop was on a charger 24x7 for a year.  

Anecdotal story:  In 2017, I received a company laptop, a Microsoft Surface.  Which I basically used as desktop.  At home, it rarely left the cradle, but I also spent half my time on the road, so it wasn't on a charger 24x7.  About a year later, the batteries expanded (swelled, bulged), causing the case to round and rock.  But those batteries were now compromised and at risk of fire and explosion.  I called Microsoft, and even though the unit was out of warranty, they replaced the unit and copied over the drive for free.  While waiting for the work to complete, I found out that they had a warehouse full of these compromised units.  This is a major problem for Microsoft.  Over the next year, all four of the units we bought in 2017 failed in a like manner.  

I did Google search on this problem, I see units still being reported with battery "Swells", but many of the victims are reporting older models, and so are in the range of when our units were purchased.  I also found a reference just last year of firmware changes to prevent overcharging in Surface units.  My thought is that Surface batteries are still a problem, and I would not recommend buying one.

#2)  Don't charge your device to 100%

As you get closer to the battery capacity, the battery will also be damaged by a very-very small amount.  And over the years this adds up to a degradation of the charge.  For my phone, I only take the charge to 80% and then remove it from the charger.  It seems to work well.  My phone is now 4 years old and the the battery effectiveness is still rated at 80%.

I realize this tactic is in the range of "Pain-in-the-ass".  And I don't have a measured difference between taking it to 80%, and taking it to 100% before removal.  Once again, it's your call.

Now the companies know all this and do their best.  When your device is at 100%, it is not really at full charge.  It's at 80%(ish)  They set it that way to protect the phone from fully charged damage.  So when I remove the phone at 80%, it's closer to 64% of the real charge.  And for my needs, that is good enough.

And example of an excellent charging system is the Toyota Prius.  When introduced in 1997, there was a fear that they would be replacing their battery packs at 5 years, costing $3,500 (1997) and creating an environmental problem disposing of 110 pounds of lead acid batteries.  

And that didn't happen.  After 5 years, Prius's batteries were at about 80% effectiveness, more than sufficient to provide hybrid assist when needed.  Toyota accomplished this by really babying their batteries.  They spent significant R&D on the charging system.  In the end, they keep the charge on the batteries between 40-60%.  We know this because hypermiling enthusiasts modified Prius's to accept full charge in their efforts to get more MPG out of them.  And it worked, but we have no stats on how long the batteries lasted.

#3) Run on battery if you are using an external display.

The display is the major consumer of power of a laptop or phone, by a lot.  If you are using an outboard display/keyboard/mouse etc... then the battery will run all day long with normal usage.  Charge the laptop to about 80%, then unplug it.  

#4) Don't leave your device in the car.  

The trunk is OK, but the passenger compartment gets very hot, shortening the life of the battery.  I had a Garmin GPS unit on the dash board for about 10 years, it's last 5 years the battery was just enough to boot up and die.  In the end, the batteries were so dead, that even being on a power cord, it wouldn't boot up. 

Your car battery also suffers in the summer heat.  That is when it suffers the most damage. You only notice the problem in the winter because a cold engine needs more current than a warm engine to start.

Running battery saving modes.

There are many settings to help extend the length of the charge.  In essence, they all reduce performance and energy usage, but come up to full power when the device is in use. 

Which ones you should use is situational to you.  How mobile are you?  If mobile, and away from  convenient charging, then use them all.  Dim the screen a bit, slow the processor, set sleep for 5 minutes.  

If you are on a docking station. Turn them all off.  I find them really annoying to have my screen dim after a minute of reading.  But again, this is situational, you have to be the judge, and the settings are available to you.

;) Except for iPhone auto dimming.   Auto dimming is controlled by  4 of the settings, in different locations on the phone that are available to you, but one is not.  So don't bother.  It's going to auto-dim on you whether you want it to or not.  Consider it a feature. ;)

 

Coronavirus, the Mid August Edition 2

 Coronavirus, the Mid August Edition

       By the Numbers 

Often these missives start immediately after publishing the last, and numbers edited and new articles added over time.  This one was no exception.  However there has been so much news on the Covid front that the the overall theme and cadence of its unpublished predecessor is no longer supporting the ad Hominem like alterations.  So first, back to the basics.

On Wed., Aug 11th, we had 144,635 new cases, for an estimated total of 1,690,000 active cases.  The nationwide growth rate is averaging 38% increase for the week, the week before was 37%, and the week before was around 21%.  The last time we had that many new cases, and growing, was November 11th, 2020.  One major difference is then, the weekly growth rate was 5% per week.

There is no sugar coating this, it's horrible.    In June, the average was 12,500 new cases a day, and an active case estimate of 270,000. 

So what went wrong?  Most of  country opened up before the vaccination plans were completed.  Vaccinated people celebrated and went on their lives, while the unvaccinated decided they were safe by virtue of of the arms of the vaccinated.  I'm being kind here.  I have seen their "echo chambers", and I lack the words to describe it.

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If you are Immunocompromised, then soon, a Covid "booster" shot will be available for you.  Dr. Fauci announced on 8/5 that approval for the boosters is in the works.

Priorities will be for the Immunocompromised and health care workers.  Among the 5,000+ known "breakthrough" cases, 44% are  with Immunocompromised people.  

Take a note on those numbers.  So far, there are only 5,000(ish) known "Breakthrough" cases, out of 3 million since May.  Those would be cases where the symptoms were severe enough that the person sought treatment.  Surely there are more, but they never reached the level of needing to seek help.  If you just look at the headlines you would think every other case was a breakthrough.

And the headlines will imply booster shots will be required for everyone.  So far, for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the 6 month measurements show about only a 3% degradation in efficacy.  The articles regarding the J&J, is across the board in the 6 month efficacy tests.  Some say it increases in efficacy, others report a steep drop.  So a booster there may be in order there.  

There is a study being publish in Yale's Axios that puts the degradation in effectiveness much lower for Pfizer Moderna, especially against the Delta variant.  But that study has not yet been peer reviewed and contradicts other studies.  Stay tuned.

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Last month I reported the numbers posted by the CDC about "breakthrough" infections of fully vaccinated people in May.  They were small, totaling around 5,000 cases, constituting .15% of the hospitalizations and .8% of the deaths associated with Covid. 

The numbers were so small, the CDC decide to discontinue counting them.  That decision has been called into question and served as propaganda fodder for the refusenicks.  However, many states have continued counting and the problem of "breakthroughs" is growing and accelerating.  It is the states that do the actual counting anyway, the CDC is just accruing data sent by the states.  But without a single source, we have to go with a number of sources/articles/reports.

First, let me say, if you are vaccinated, the news is not as bad as the refusenick propaganda would have you believe.  Here are some numbers:

In Israel a 14 week study followed 1,500 healthcare workers looking for breakthrough cases. 39 became infected or 2.6%.  67% had mild symptoms, 33% were asymptomatic.  None were hospitalized.

See: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/07/israeli-study-finds-26-covid-breakthrough-infection-rate

Cape Cod had a super spreader event in July.  469 cases of Covid, 346 were fully vaccinated.  Of the 346, about 1/3 was Delta, 1/3 Alpha, 1/3 unknown.  5 were hospitalized, none died.  Also noted in the article is that the source is the CDC, so they seem back in the game on counting breakthroughs.

See:  https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm

Iceland is having a surge of Covid, despite being one of the most vaccinated countries in the world (96% at least partial) The counts are small by US Standards, from the 10's in June and July to about 100 cases a day in August.  But no deaths since May.

See: https://qz.com/2044284/icelands-rising-covid-19-cases-demonstrate-vaccine-efficacy/

The example of the fleeing Texas legislature.   All vaccinated, 1 had it, 5 more got it.  2 had symptoms.

My wife's company's upper staff, all vaccinated.  5 caught it, 2 had mild symptoms.

The spread of the virus in the US has been described as a "Pandemic of the unvaccinated"  And in hospitals around the country the doctors will say it is true.  I have read 3 or 4 articles, which I did not log, from hospitals in Los Angeles, Georgia and Texas where the hospitalized are described as 95+% unvaccinated. And this seems to still be true.

This is all evidence that the vaccine is protecting its patients, and very well, but it is also clear that the vaccinated are getting and spreading Covid, we are just not paying the ultimate price for it.

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The fear of Covid seems to have hit some of the refusenicks.  Vaccinations have been up for a couple of weeks.  Almost 800,000 a day from a low of 400,000.  The peak was about 3.5 million a day.  

There is no clear vector to follow here.  The groups are clusters and not homogeneous within a cluster.  

As the unvaccinated are disproportionately feeling this 5th surge of the virus, by almost 2-1, so to will the effects of getting more vaccinated improve the situation with those groups.  

By that I mean, as an example if there are 102,000 new cases in the USA, it will feel like 204,000 if you are in the unvaccinated clusters.  Last year there were only 23 worse days than yesterday.  So in those areas, it is going to get much worse. 

Even in Pennsylvania, after hovering at 140 new cases a day throughout June, yesterday was over 2,000, last week the growth of it concentrated in 6 counties.  This week, 50 out of 67 counties had reported over 40% growth. In New Jersey, just one county has half the new cases. 

This is not a tragedy.  Tragedies are accidental and just happen.  This is an Atrocity!  A man made event.

Once again the Disinformation Dozen are in the news as they are a main source of antivax hysteria.  A later study has shown that since April, 73% of social media misinformation on vaccines derives from one of these 12 people.

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The refusenicks have been fed the lie that this surge is due to undocumented immigrants being flown around the country.  At first it was 200,000 of them.  But as that number is not sufficiently scary  sounding, so now it's 2 million.   Meanwhile they deliberately reduce the numbers of refusenicks for statistical purposes to validate their world view.  One claimed only 18% (54 million) of "US Citizens" remain unvaccinated.  My calculations put it closer to 100 million.  48 million under 12 and can't, 46 million and won't, and about 6 million that are just late to the party.

And to over sell this lie, they claim that due to this immigrant surge, measles, mumps and whooping cough are also surging. Another lie they are being fed.  And its easily disproved. I looked them all up and none of them are surging, actually they are at an all time low.  Measles is at 2 (not 2 thousand, not 2 hundred, just 2) this year, down from over a 1,000 in 2017, and then that was mostly in American Samoa thanks again to the Disinformation Dozen.  Mumps are down also in the US, from about 3,500 cases around 2016 just 52 this year.  But a quick google will not show that, because mumps is increasing in the UK, and that is bubbling to the top of the results.  You also have to dig deeper for Whooping Cough, because of Finland's current outbreak is driving those articles to the top as well.

On Aug 5, Dr Fauci also counts the number of eligible but unvaccinated Americans at 100 million.  It's nice to get validation.  

So blaming 200 thousand or even 2 million immigrants for this surge is patently ridiculous.  Its an attempt to distract the conversation from the real problem.

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We hit 70% partially or fully vaccinated on July 28.  Which means we are now tracking to 70% fully vaccinated by Aug 28, partially vaccinated  around  77% the same date.  

70% has been bandied about as the herd immunity level, but that was always just a hopeful wish.  There is no fixed number, and immunologists regard herd immunity as between 70 and 80%.  So 70% was always on the low end.  And if you are talking Flu, with an R rating of 1.8, that is a lower case 'ok', and still kills 10's of thousands a year.  

But Delta's R rating of 5?  No one knows.  I'll throw a dart and say 85% (281 million) vaccinated is going to be required.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lies Continue

    The 2020 Election Lies You May Have Heard
The Lies Continue

The election is over.  The results long in the can and ratified, and yet, new lies are being created whole cloth out of nothing.

August 5, 2021, Mike Lindell (CEO "My Pillow") made the claim that he has evidence that China hacked the presidential election in 2020 and changed votes.

Including Clark County, Wisconsin.  

To be fair, he is claiming every state was hacked by the Chinese, but lets focus on Clark County for this one.

He claims that China hacked and changed 24,000 votes of Clark County's Dominion voting machines, and 45 actually won by 5,000 votes.

 There are a few problems with this.  

1)  Clark county only has 17,000 registered voters.

2) 15,000 of them voted.

3) Clark county doesn't use any machines.  They are still using paper ballots.  If you look at the data they provided the state on who won the municipal elections, it arrived as handwritten note, later scanned as a PDF file.

4)  45 actually did win the county by 5,000 votes.

What proof Mike has provided has been looked at by 6 cyber experts who state there is no evidence of anything there, let alone switching votes.

But after his proof has been repudiated, twice now, he has doubled down and stated he will broadcast the actual proof on a later date, along with discount coupons for "My Pillows"

 The CNN article, which is more complete than what I have provided, can be found here. 

I have seen Mike Lindell's commercial for his Cyber Security expo, and I have to say he does not look good.  I expected a raving loon version of his my pillow advertisements.  But no, he looks exhausted and trapped.  My impression is he painted himself into this corner, and doesn't know how to get out.  

He has bet his honor and his company on this nonsense, and has doubled down on his bet, where he is showing a 2.  It's called the "sunk cost fallacy".  He has invested so much, the only way out is to put more into it and pray.

But that is a fallacy.  What he as spent is gone.  He needs to stop digging the hole deeper so he can climb out and do damage control.  

Additional:

I went to view his Cyber Security Expo.  And it was not held.  Mike is claiming his servers were hacked.  So as of yet, he still has not presented any evidence he claims to have. 

Other lies you may have heard:

The Final Word

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, the Late July Edition

 Coronavirus, the Late July Edition

       By the Numbers 

The over all numbers.  The number of new cases has risen dramatically.   From a low average of around 12,200 per day to over 67,000.  From an estimated 265,000 total cases (6/26) to over 720,000 (7/27). 

We should have anticipated this.  The average held steady all of June in the 12,200 new cases per day.  Since there was no further decline, then a new surge was a certainly.

And while nationally, this surge is upsetting, it is surging within the unvaccinated communities.  Not the vaccinated.  So within those communities, it is effectively double the impact.

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Lets go over a virus's Reproduction rating (hereafter referred to as the R rating).  The R rating is the number of people a virus will infect from a single infected person. The normal rating is referred to is the number in an unprotected population.  This number will change depending on the environment of the virus, like quarantine or vaccination percentage, environment, or natural herd immunity.

It is the R rating that got the medical systems of the world in an uproar about Covid last year. 

The Alpha variant had a rating of 4, so every infected person was going to infect 4 others. For the sake of comparison the regular flu is a 2, the Spanish flu of 1918 was a 1.8, and the C-19 Delta variant is a 5.

OK, blah, blah, blah, numbers, what does it mean?

Refer to the chart below

Virus  weeks later............
         0    1     2      3       4
Flu      1    2     4      8      16
Alpha    1    4    16     64     256
Delta    1    5    25    125     625

In an unrestricted environment, these are the number of infected people you will have starting at 1 person at the end of 4 weeks.  The difference between the flu's R rating of 2 and Alpha's R rating of 4 is 16 times.  This was THE main  reason for the economic shutdown last year.

This is the potential growth of the virus, until something changes.  With the flu it tends to end when the weather improves.  And is mitigated by the most vulnerable getting flu shots, about 160 million in the USA in 2018.  So the flu will not expand by it's natural rating of 2-1 but by closer to 1-1 in a normal season.

Now look at the difference between Alpha and Delta at 4 weeks.  This more than double the number of cases over 4 weeks.

And if you are one of those who think this is total bullshit, and there are a lot of you, remember, at one time there was just 1 person that had C-19 in the USA.  He arrived that arrived in Washington State on Jan 21, 2020 having traveled to a number of provinces including Wuhan.  I started logging the number of active cases on Feb 2, by then there were 13 known, with quite a bit more unknown cases in the USA.  Then the number of cases started tracking somewhere between the Alpha and Delta progression rates. 

Number of known infected starting at 

1/21/2020 and the weeks following:
           0    1     2      3       4
USA Corona 1    x    35     75     541

Of course the data is far from complete.  But the progression of known cases was still very dramatic. Note also, testing was done very poorly then, and these were just the cases we knew about.

Put this in perspective, In 2019 Influenza vaccinations, about 160 million, prevented an estimated 7.52 million illnesses, 3.69 million medical visits, 105,000 hospitalizations, and 6,300 deaths due to influenza.

Note 7.5 million illnesses and 6,300 deaths.  That's .084%.  C-19 is about .9% fatal and has about 2.7% long term disabling affects.  That's 10 times as deadly, and in the end of 4 weeks, 39 times more infectious than the flu.

During this 5th surge, Los Angeles hospitals are reporting 99% of the C-19 victims have not had the vaccine.  The Delta variant has found a home in the half of the population that refuse to get it. I have seen similar reports from Louisiana, Georgia and Pennsylvania. 

This is how it affects all of us.  

    1) It is causing an increased load on the medical system. 

    2) C-19 hospitalizations are being paid for by the federal government.  So each one of these refuse-nicks are now free loaders on the system.

    3) This also allows for more churn and opportunity for the next big variant. The current Greek letter designate is Lambda, aka "Peru".  At this time it is unknown if the variant Lambda is more infectious or more dangerous.

    4) The Delta variant kills you faster.  Where Alpha's often took 4-6 weeks to succumb, Delta takes 1-2 weeks.  So the refuse-niks won't be on the medical dole as long.

    5) If workers feel unsafe, they will not work.  Which is why there are shortages.  Dockworkers, truckers, ware houses, all are understaffed. 

So, for what ever reason the vaccine refuse-nicks claim, they certainly cannot claim patriotism, or compassion for their fellow man.  And if they do get the virus, it is pretty certain, they will be passing it on to their family and closest friends.

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Much political hay has been made over 5 members of the Texas Legislature's Democratic party catching Covid during their flight to Washington DC, but here are a few facts.

 

They were all vaccinated. The vaccination does not prevent you getting Covid, but does reduce the symptoms significantly. And the person is infectious for a shorter period of time.

 

Only 2 had any symptoms, and 3 were asymptomatic.

 

Per the CDC, out of 157 million people vaccinated by July 6, only 5,186 hospitalized or fatal breakthrough cases have been reported to the CDC, and more than 1,500 of those were asymptomatic.

 

So while this is unfortunate optics, it is not a reason to be a refusenick on the vaccine.

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The following is not based in fact, but derived anecdotal commentary from medical professionals.  The Delta variant may be deadlier, but there is a study or two that says it's not, But it does work faster.  Where Alpha cases often took 4-6 weeks to succumb, Delta takes 1-2 weeks.

Also there is much commentary about Delta patients are trending younger.  My opinion that is not because Delta is targeting the young.  My opinion is that the elderly have either been vaccinated (72-84%) or culled from the herd.  So if the 65 and older crowd is no longer available, so of course the currently infected are going to trend younger.

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Long term efficacy of the 2 shot vaccines, Moderna and GSK seems to be holding.  Of course we only have a couple of months data so far from the original test groups, and December/January early adopters.  But at 6 months, the vaccine seems to have only degraded about 3% from 95 in 6 months.  Giving hope that a booster would not be required against currently known variants.

The Chinese vaccine, has been reported to be totally ineffective after 6 months.  That does not effect the USA and Europe, but woe betide the rest of the world.

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The J&J single shot seems to be not as effective against the Delta variant.  One report I saw stated it was only 56% effective.  Just one so far.  From Jerusalem.  Normally I would give the Israeli's more credit, but  have seen some contrary information from them regarding the pandemic.

But do not panic over this.  Even at 56%, it still reduces symptoms substantially.  

But please, if you are concerned, or are showing any of the major symptoms (fever, shortness of breath, fatigue, body aches) mask up and see your doctor.  

Remember, I am just some guy on the internet.  I'm trying to do good, but I am not a medical professional.

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From an on line conversation.  "Variants are never as deadly as the original."

"Have you heard of the Spanish flu?"

 

 

Civilian Space Programs

 Civilian Space Programs

By the Numbers

Beck, Bezos, Branson and Musk (in alphabetical order).  These men have created amazing technological machines for advancing mankind into space.  

There have been much criticism of the narcissistic nature of their endeavors, or complaints about how the money could have been better spent on <place your favorite charity here>, but lets give these men their due.  They had the focus and drive spanning decades to make these achievements.  Something you or I couldn't do if we had a hundred years.

And you know it.  It may take a maniacal narcissist to make these accomplishments.  Could you say the same thing about Ford, Edison, or Siemens?  

Lets look at the effort.

Beck (again in alphabetical order) is the CEO of Rocket Lab.  You probably haven't heard of him or his company. They are based in New Zealand.  Rocket Labs goal is to create rockets that are not  manufactured, but printed.  Everything except the electronics.  Which is Commercial of the Self (COTS). Founded in 2006, their first launch was in 2017.  They have had 17 launches with only 3 failures, and a price tag of around 100 million.  Their total expenditures so far seems to be about 250 million.  As such, they are the cheapest way right now to put hardware into space.   They are currently capitalized at around 4 billion, and are looking to build new facilities in the USA.  

Rocket Lab's 3D printed "Electron" Rocket

Rocket Lab may be the dark horse in this race.  The reuse of their boosters is still unproven, but planned, but the production costs are also very low, and they are already doing practical work.

Bezos launched Blue Origin in the year 2000.  Other than it's existence and intention, not much was known about it until 2015.  That is a long time to invest outside the limelight.  How much money was spent is uncertain as well.  Bezos said he was "investing" a billion dollars a year into the company.  Lets take him at his word and he was spending that from 2015 onward.  I am sure it was quite a bit less in the earlier days.  But if you calculate using some descending sliding from 2015 to 2000, I can see 11 billion dollars having been spent.  

The "New Shepard" reusable rocket.  And yes, Jeff Bezos is compensating for something.

Probably a few billion less, Bezos didn't have all that much money in the early 2000's :) *  But he probably could have scrapped together 10-20 million to start this pie in the sky dream.

And he stuck with it.  I am sure he thought he would be riding into space in 5 years.  Any reasonable person would think that.  And it didn't happen, but year after year, the he continued to invest into this project.  So 2 decades and 11 billion dollars later, he finally rode his rocket, "New Shepard",  into space.  

Branson registered Virgin Galactic in 1999, but didn't launch the company until 2004.  At that point he had been managing companies for over 20 years.  So his efforts were more orientated by the realities of accounting, then dreams of the technology.  As such, he picked a design that looked most economical.  And possibly influenced by the TV show, "UFO", which had a similar system for putting space shuttles into orbit.  Drop a rocket from a mother ship.  The US air-force had done the same thing in the 50's with their X-15's being dropped by B-52s.  He probably also expected to fly into space in about 5 years.  

IMHO, the most elegant solution flying.  Branson's SpaceShipTwo being carried aloft by WhiteKnightTwo

And, like Bezos, found out first hand that the term "rocket scientist" was not just a word.   Years went by, but he had the drive and determination to see it through.  17 years and by my estimate**, 2 billion dollars later, he rode SpaceShipTwo into sub orbit.

Musk founded SpaceEx in 2001.  But his goal was to expand the practical nature of space travel.  I know from personal experience that they had a system for monitoring trash trucks from space.  Using satellite up-links to determine optimal routes and assessing when the truck needed to be emptied.

The company only had 170 employees in 2004, but this was before they started producing their own rockets.  Musks determination was to drive the cost of access to space down through reusable boosters and Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) products.

The company expanded to 3,500 by 2010, and peaked around 9,700 in 2019.  Estimated costs for all of SpaceX so far is around 6 billion dollars.

SpaceX's Starship launches into the sky.  The picture does not provide the proper scale at 160 feet tall, and can carry over 100 tons of cargo.

So what do we have?  Rocket Lab's printable rockets ("Electron") have proven themselves for light loads, in low orbits, at the lowest cost. They recovered their last booster, and plan on establishing reusability.  Driving their costs lower still.  A larger, 3D printed rocket ("Neutron") is currently being designed.

Bezo's rocket seems to be just a single purpose, a joyride for the rich.  We know that reusable rockets can be up-scaled, as Musk's "Spaceship" has demonstrated.  But will Bezos's ego and deep pockets allow that?  Blue Origin is working on a new reusable rocket, named "New Glenn", to take satellites into orbit.   So the tech demonstrated by Blue Origin is being carried forward to do useful work.  Also the fuel being burned is environmentally clean, as the only fuel is hydrogen, and the exhaust is water.****

Branson's design has so much potential.  But the system seems to be self limiting.  The maximum size of his rocket is determined by the size of the mothership aircraft, "White Knight Two".  Both will have to be up sized to do practical work.  And aircraft do not up size so easily.  Doubling the wing span would involve increasing the weight squared.  And White Knight Two is already at the limits of it's state of the art materials.  As joyrides go, The Virgin Galactic craft doesn't get as high, or experience zero gee as long as Bezos.  But I suspect it's refurbishing cost is lower, because the rocket is overall smaller, and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo carries 8 passengers, vice Blue Origin's  4.

But Branson didn't spend nearly the amount of money Bezos did, and won their private space race.

It looks like Musk's SpaceX is going to be the dominant civilian space company.  Rather than shooting for the panache goal of space tourism, he was working on infrastructure from practical engineering point of view.  He already has reusable boosters, put satellites into orbit and has sent both automated supply ships and then astronauts to the International Space Station.  His "Starship", can put over a 100 tons into orbit.   Literally, you could put both Bezos and  Branson's rockets inside of Starship, and still pack a dozen Tesla's for the ride.

And Musk has already shot a Tesla automobile towards Mars***.  

How do we evaluate these men?  They have their flaws but have accomplished great things.  

        Ego         Risk     Charisma       Humor

Beck     1           1           1            4

Bezos    2           2           2            1

Branson  4           3           4            2

Musk     3           4           3            3

Evaluated as rating between themselves.   

All of them have drive and ambition beyond normal men.  All of them have put at least 15 years into these rockets.  All are willing to accept great risks.

For ego, I am giving Branson the highest rating.  For over 20 years before Virgin Galactic, he had run numerous companies, and was a noted dare devil.   Flying around the world in a balloon was one of his feats.  Musk over Bezos because Musk has been setting up a number of futuristic projects for his brand.  Beck at the bottom, because he does not seem to have the desire to be famous.

For risk.  All these men are risk takers.  They have all invested many years and treasure into these projects.  Far beyond what Wall Street investors are willing to take.  Two of them put their lives on the line flying in their machines.  But I put Musk first.  You only have to look at this montage of crashes SpaceX experienced to know that his mantra is "Failure is not an option, it is a requirement".  Also, of these four, his businesses are the most kept afloat by the faith of his investors that he will succeed.  If he fails somewhere, that faith would collapse all his enterprises.  Economically, he has put the most at risk.

Because of his daredevil nature, I am giving Branson second place.  But if Virgin Galactic fails, it would not affect his other businesses.  I am putting Bezos next, after all, he took his brother on the first manned flight of his rocket.  It could have been a very bad day for Mama Bezos.  But personal risk aside, Bezos has nothing really at stake here.  If he doubled his investment, and doubled again, and lost it all, it would just be a footnote on his tax forms.

Beck also has his company on the line, but Rocket Lab is already a successful business.  Even if it should fail, he has clearly shown himself to be an extremely competent CEO, with long range vision.

For charisma.  Defiantly Branson, he was the face of daring business enterprises for decades before this.  Musk an obvious next.  No one has accused Bezos of excessive charisma, but I'll give him the 3rd place due to the relative anonymity of Beck.

For humor.  Hands down Beck.   Just look at Rocket Lab's mission names.  From "It's a test", "Look Ma, No Hands", "They go up so Fast",  and the last one, number 17, "Running Out of Toes".  Musk is next, he did a cameo on Big Bang Theory, probably signed off on the crash montage mentioned before, and as a test weight for his rockets, launched one of his Tesla cars towards Mars, while playing "Major Tom" to the space suited crash dummy.  

Ground control to Major Tom.

 

*He was  worth only around 1.5 billion in 2001, most of it tied up in Amazon stock.

**AKA a broad ass guess based on 873 current employees

*** Yes, I know, he missed that target. 

**** I know, most hydrogen is derived from cracking natural gas, so that part is not clean, but as solar/wind/fusion comes on line, electrolysis will be the method to break apart water and then it will be clean.

Coronavirus, the Mid July Edition

 Coronavirus, the Mid July Edition

       By the Numbers 

There is only one piece of news worth noting.  The Delta Variant of Covid has taken root in the largely unvaccinated portions of the country.

The rapid retreat of Covid due to vaccinations and social distancing was nothing short of a miracle of medical science.  From a peak of over 301,000 new cases a day on Jan 8, to an average of 12,200 per day for all of June.  And with that drop, states have been rescinding all the rules.  In Pennsylvania there was the caveat you can go mask-less if you are vaccinated.  But everyone was going mask-less, vaccinated or not.  

The unvaccinated are relying on the the vaccinated to keep them safe.  They are wrong to do so.  On July 16th, the new case count was 36,700, tripling last weeks daily count and accelerating.  In PA, the average was down to 140 per day, was now over 500 on Thursday.  In the same time period, Texas was 1,200 per day, and was 3,600. 

About 49% of the population is fully vaccinated, and some percentage partially so.  Not enough to put the brakes on Covid.  States are closing down their vaccination sites due to a lack of interest.  From a couple of million doses a day to 400,000 or so nation wide.  

Back in May, I reported what happened in the Seychelles Islands.  This is as close to a controlled experiment as you can get with humans.  Totally isolated, with a population of 98,000, 62% vaccinated.  They removed restrictions and within 6 days had a 1,068 new cases among the unvaccinated.  In the USA, this would be like 320,000.  

And now the USA has replicated the Seychelles Experiment.  Science! 

The Reproductive number, which is the evaluation of how many people an infected person will infect normally, for flu is 2, for Covid Alpha, it was 4, for Delta it is a 5.  Delta became the dominant variant in the USA this month.  

Delta is more infectious, and by some accounts more lethal.  I have seen headlines of people dying faster.  But I have also seen evaluations that it is not more lethal.  So the jury is still out. 

But if you have been vaccinated, your concerns are minimal.  It works just fine against Delta. In May only 150, or .8%, of the Covid deaths were among the vaccinated.  Not hitting the top 12 causes of death.  For the unvaccinated, 18,000 deaths, which puts Covid at #3 over accidents, (13,400 per month in 2017).

If you account for the concentration effect, that those deaths are going to occur in a sub set of the population, would be 36,000 equivalency for the month, which does not reach #2 spot of Cancer at 50,000 per month.  

I am just trying to put the numbers in perspective. 

If you are vaccinated, don't worry about it.  Enjoy life.

If not, WTF is wrong with you?

Covid deaths are now preventable.

A cartoon from the 30's.  History repeats.