May 1, 2020

Pence dared not wear a mask because they want masks to be for "weirdos" to fit their plan

They won't be able to get back to the old normal if masks are the new normal. tRump and Greed Over People are so all-in on the economic plan to "re-open", so all-in that they can only believe one possibility: the country goes back and some people die. But they have magical thinking "Oh it won't be too many". They don't want to try to understand the math (which is not hard math), even though basic graphs tell you what you need to know.

No, they have to appear confident and "normal". It's part of their only hope, their Hail Mary pass for getting re-elected.

Stay focused and be careful.

April 29, 2020

RW sites say "I knew I had something in November!" which is nonsense. I'm thinking

I have in mind the 5 week period from Feb 2 through March 11. The time between the Chhyna travel ban and the Europe travel ban (but not UK). In between, he appointed Pence and banned Iran travel. Oh and he had many rallies and much golf in the lost 5 weeks.

Frankly there wasn't much action two weeks before (following first US case) and a week or two after.

It is fashionable for RW posters to say they got something in November or December. But they can't simultaneously hold the position that they knew what was going on but their genius tRump was hoodwinked by the Chinese in the same period.

April 22, 2020

They should use new slogan "Don't stay home without it!" . . . . nt

April 21, 2020

It is the logistics curve. Think an exponential and a reverse exponential glued together

Basically it is exponentially increasing until 50% and then exponentially decreasing, which means a long taper as the human population gets saturated with infection. It describes in a way the population growth of antibodies in the human bio-culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function#In_ecology:_modeling_population_growth

What is the intuitive explanation? We all know that it seems like infections (unchecked) blow up in an area. This is because from this virus's point of view new hosts are easy to find and you're only killing off something from 1% to, say, 5% of hosts. But at the halfway point, infected people start to outnumber uninfected. It gets increasingly harder to find hosts. So the curve slows down and starts running out of steam. At some point like, say, 90% infected, what remains are pockets that don't communicate much with others. So the top flat part of the curve is never really 100%. This is effective herd immunity. The herd is essentially immune and its as if the infection has died out.

Now there are many confounding factors at play, but basically it is a logistic curve. For number of infections think of the vertical as 0.5 = 50%. Think of the horizontal as time. You can think of Month 0 as the worst month of the epidemic.

Logistic curve (Wikipedia):


The rate of change of the curve is the famous Curve We Are Flattening, because that is the rate at which we adding new cases. Technically it is called the logistic distribution (though it is not a probability distribution). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_distribution As you lock down, you slow the rate of infection, which flattens the curve and spreads it out so that hospitals and health care workers are not overwhelmed.

The logistic distribution is the derivative (slope) of the logistic curve.
The logistic curve is the integral (area under) the logistic distribution.

There. You've just learned a bit of calculus. An example of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.

Logistic distribution (Wikipedia):

April 19, 2020

The key undeniable fact to keep in front of voters: Trump FAILED TO DEFEND America

It does not matter how the virus originated.
It does not matter where it originated.
Trump failed at his primary duty.

He swore to defend the US Constitution. You can't do that if you fail to defend the country of that Constitution. How do you keep a nation free by failing to defend it?

The Vice President, each Member of Congress, all officers in federal service (military and civilian as well as every enlisted service member explicitly swears to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …", except the President. But as Commander in Chief, it is implicit, as well as being implicit in the President's Oath:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and [b]defend the Constitution of the United States."

Trump failed to defend the US.
He destroyed some of the warning systems (2018, 2019).
He "trusted" the WHO though he now says they are untrustworthy.
He disbelieved the USA Intelligence Community.
So many other markers of inaction and wrong actions.

Political advocacy is most effective when it clear, simple, and undeniably true.

Please add points and ideas on how to keep this key fact front and foremost through Nov 3 in the minds of voters.

April 19, 2020

My best guess is that (50K) will be the count about April 24 or 25th. Then

Then I worry about a spike developing and being noticed around then. It may be confirmed on 3-day moving averages a couple of days later, around the 27th. My guess is that it would be detectable in national data but far from obvious and a blow up at the local levels. It would take longer to confirm at the national level, needing say 7 day moving averages?

Source of spike? This weekend's throngs worry me as superspreaders. The protests are bad enough, but you know a number of churches will be full or fairly well attended on Sunday. Will physical distancing be observed? Hmm. Will there be no singing? That is possibly the main mechanism of spreading in churches according to a DU post. Makes sense: all exhale and all inhale, making a large air volume mixture. Places are going to have good weather and barbecues and lots of "Oh hi Jenny" half hour convos.

Anyway, it would not surprise me if a number of alarm bells are ringing at the end of April just as El Puffy-in-Chief is getting ready to crow about "opening up" May 1. His handlers may be able to get him shut up, but he may end up feeling very peeved and wounded.

I don't know. I am not an epidemiologist. I just worry that if the trumpanzees are ever going to wake up, they may need to be shocked badly by a spanking from reality that they can't deny: dead people they know. It is that bad inside the cult.

April 18, 2020

There are already 37,000 deaths. It won't be 25% of the current rate for 3 months

The rate of new deaths seems to have declined to less than 7% per day, a good sign. If it is 6% for a week, then 5% for a week, the 4, 3, 2, 1 ... six weeks.

1.06 ^ 7 = 1.50. Times 37,000 = 54,600
1.05 ^ 7 = 1.47. Times 54,600 = 80,700
1.04 ^ 7 = 1.31. Times 80,700 = 106,000
1.03 ^ 7 = 1.23. Times 106,000 = 130,000
1.02 ^ 7 = 1.15. Times 130,000 = 149,000
1.01 ^ 7 = 1.07. Times 149,000 = 160,000

If we do better: Four weeks ago there were 100 deaths. If we posit we are at the peak and can have a four week decline ahead of us, ...

1.055 ^ 7 = 1.45. Times 37,000 = 53,800
1.040 ^ 7 = 1.31. Times 53,800 = 70,500
1.025 ^ 7 = 1.19. Times 70,500 = 83,800
1.010 ^ 7 = 1.07. Times 83,800 = 89,700

(I have retained extra digits in my calculations, so yours probably won't match digit for digit but should be very similar).

So my best case is at least 90,000 deaths. I think it is more likely to be the first scenario, perhaps 160,000 deaths. But it could easily be more depending on how red hatters roll the dice in the next 10 to 14 days. https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=13306154 We could be soon into a second wave, a red hat wave and go beyond 160,000.

April 18, 2020

The next two weeks will roll the dice, espec in rural red state America

(on edit: added a "not" )

They are showing signs of blowing up (rapid climb in infections). This hasn't and can't (at this stage) penetrate the awareness of baggers, except perhaps that plant in South Dakota. The Wisconsin data is showing that infection starts up again 5 days later and is detected a couple of days after (lab test round trip) and confirmed a couple days later when 3 day moving average confirms it. Call it 10 days.

With the body bagger movement pushing and tRump et al, there will full churches in lots of places for the next two weekends. Then about April 27 alarm bells will be ringing in surprising places. However the lag in awareness for the red hatters will be one to five days later. Right about when tRump will crowing about "opening up" and people will surging together in groups as if released and not ready to tolerate the slightest bit of physical distancing.

By then it will be too late.

April 17, 2020

Folks, protect your pets, esp cats and small dogs. Predators are being sighted

(on edit: added some predators)

Coyotes
Eagles
Hawks
Owls

They can carry away small pets. Yards that may seem secure from penetration might not be and probably aren't from above. A thread in DU Lounge about a Visitor in the Neighborhood had a photo of a Bald Eagle.

April 17, 2020

Body Bagger movement. Astroturfed by DeVos. . . . nt