COVID-19 Back to School: Is Georgia Ready?

In my opinion, schools should not re-open unless the case load (the number of new cases per day per million population) is under 40. I call this the “green zone.” At that level, effective contact tracing really works — that, and a mandatory mask order, is how you stay in the green zone.

The latest 7-day average for the state of Georgia (as of July 10) is 279. That’s in what I call the “red zone” (> 250). It means “red alert.”

COVID-19 in America

From CNN:

As the US plunges into an ever deeper coronavirus morass, setting record new infection rates and the death curve begins to rise again, there’s no prospect of the nightmare ending for months.

Delusion dominates an administration that perversely claims the United States is the world leader in beating this modern day plague. There are only contradictions, obfuscations and confusion from the federal officials who ought to be charting a national course.

The massive integrated testing and tracing effort that could highlight and isolate infection epicenters doesn’t exist. Attempts to reopen schools in a few weeks are already descending into farce amid conflicting messages from Washington.

Amid all of this, the coronavirus task force does not hold daily briefings, and when it does, they are an exercise in dodging difficult questions and self-congratulation.

Months into the worst domestic crisis since World War II, there is no sense that a fractured country is pulling together to confront a common enemy. People are still arguing about wearing masks — a tiny infringement of personal freedoms that represents one of the few hopes of easing the contagion. The one federal official who does seem to have answers, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has been banished to the podcast circuit by President Donald Trump, who was on Fox News Thursday night boasting about acing a cognitive test as the US hit another daily record of infections — over 60,000 — on a day on which more than 900 new deaths were reported.

COVID-19: Unhappy Swedes

Sweden’s experiment isn’t going very well.

It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself.

COVID-19: It’s Complicated

Not only is testing complicated by sampling issues (we’re not testing randomly), it’s complicated by medical issues too.

COVID-19: New York puts Sweden to Shame

I’ve received some bullshit comments over the years, but every now and then one just goes that extra bullshit mile:

Yeah, holding NY up as an example doesn’t make sense. Stockholm has better numbers than NYC, and Stockholm did (almost) nothing. Cuomo’s response seems to have been worse than neutral, that is, it seems to have made things worse. Does anyone seriously think that any state in the US is going to catch up to NYC’s death total? Even on a per capita basis?

Let’s start with some facts. Andrew Cuomo is governor of New York state; here’s the NY case load (per million population) compared to Sweden’s (per million population):

Here’s the daily death toll in NY compared to Sweden’s:

Florida: COVID-19 silences DeSantis

COVID-19: Doing It Right

We can defeat the COVID-19 epidemic. We’ve already been shown how.

New York state was hard hit by COVID-19, and hit early by U.S. standards. Because of the incompetent federal response, nobody in the U.S. was properly prepared. Responding quickly, New York State took the tough steps that brought the disease under control. They even forced the outbreak down — they didn’t just “flatten” the curve, they crushed it. And they haven’t wavered, but have stayed the course, holding on to those measures that have enabled them to lower the daily case load from over 400 per day per million population, to under 30.

COVID-19: Back to School?

One of the first states hit by COVID-19 (some would say, the first) was Washington. It, along with California and New York, formed the epicenter, the focus of the initial invasion of the deadly virus.

But Washington state did a terrific job containing the virus. Perhaps one of the reasons was quick action by state government, including closing public schools very early.

Please shove your COVID-19 Conspiracy theories up your ass

I’ve received some comments on the blog which went straight to the trash bin.

For instance: someone wrote to tell me that the only reason “red states” (with republican governors) looked so bad is that Massachusetts had a republican governor, even though they’re a “blue state.” Red state outbreak? Blame it on Massachusetts.

Someone wrote to tell me that the southern-state red-state outbreak was because summer broght warm weather, which induced people to go outdoors and do more socializing. At the same time, someone else wrote to tell me that the southern-state red-state outbreak was because summer brought hot weather, which induced people to spend time indoors with air conditioning, in closer quarters.

Then there was the person who declared that “80% of COV19 cases are mild, that being the case who cares how many people have it … the question is how many people “die” from it.” Well, quite a few of those who don’t die are still ravaged, requiring a lung transplant or a life of dialysis or inability to breathe without an artificial oxygen supply — maybe they care? How about the people who actually *love* those who die?

How about all the people on the receiving end, when “mild” cases infect others? I’ll bet those “others” care.

For over 10 years, I fought against the stupidity from those who denied the reality, human cause, or danger from climate change. They brought their crazy idiot conspiracy theories, I smashed them. It was fun. It was useful. I helped stem the tide of lies that climate deniers use to sabotage action.

But I’m not going to do that with COVID-19. Yes there are deniers — people in serious denial (usually for political reasons). Let them bring their crazy theories here. Let them spend hours, days, weeks, composing their manifesto and submit it to my blog. It’s going straight to the trash can.

Because as much fun as it is to show idiots just how stupid they are — I don’t have time.

COVID-19: Where the Bois are

Red dots show grids with over 250 new cases per day per million population. Orange dots, over 100. Blue dots, over 10. Green dots, less than 10. Grid boxes are 2.5° longitude wide, 2° latitude tall.