Coronavirus Data
I spent some time yesterday going over coronavirus data. We’ve
been opening up here in Texas, with enough time to see if there’s a spike. I
wanted to see if there was anything to worry about. The county judge says she’s
going to issue a new stay-at-home order in a day or two, although it looks like
the community is going by the governor’s recommendations regardless of what she
says. That means we’re entering phase 3, in which restaurants and some
businesses can open at 75% capacity.
The Houston Chronicle has provided a page of data
every day since March 31st. It has a map of cases per county, and
other charts. Mainly the page gives cumulative cases and deaths, with an ever-rising
chart. Of course ever-rising. Because those numbers aren’t going to go down. There
are other places to look at data that recognize a given estimate of recoveries;
I think that number is low, but at least it doesn’t imply that each new case
means the total number equals people wandering around possibly infecting you.
More useful data are daily new cases and daily additional
deaths. And then, we need to ask questions to know what we’re seeing. Case
counts and death counts both depend on when things get reported. Some numbers might
be held over a weekend, or accumulate for a particular lab for a couple of
days, and then it appears there’s a spike when there really wasn’t. So it’s
more accurate to look at the 7-day rolling average. That means you look at the
last 7 days, add them together, and divide by 7, to get the average of those 7
days. There’s a new number each day, but it’s less volatile and provides a more
accurate picture than a simple daily count.
So, using all those daily counts, I figured out the 7-day
averages and made charts. Here’s the 7-day rolling average of new cases in the Texas.
Yes, there has been an uptick in cases. But, unlike when
this first started to spread, we are behaving differently. We’ve educated the
public enough to know to protect the elderly, who are most susceptible to a
severe case. And people with preexisting conditions know to be more cautious
for their own safety. That means, even when there are more cases, that doesn’t
necessarily mean that many more deaths.
There’s a lag of one to three weeks between the cases chart and the deaths chart. Here’s the 7-day rolling average of additional deaths in Texas. We’re not yet seeing anything like a surge in daily deaths.
Some people are predicting a dangerous surge in deaths in a week or two. We may see some, but the goal always was to keep from overwhelming the medical resources. I think it’s safe to say, we’re going to stay within those parameters.
I wanted to know things more locally. I didn’t have ready access to daily death rates covering this same area, but here’s a chart of the 7-day rolling average of new cases in the Houston area (Harris County plus several surrounding counties). There was an uptick a week after Memorial Day, but it appears to be going down already.
One thing I’m finding frustrating is that “confirmed cases”
seems to be low. We don’t know actual death rates for those who contract the
virus. Estimates are that Texas is probably 0.1% to 0.5% by the end of this.
But if you do the math of confirmed cases to fatalities, Texas is at about 2%.
I looked up data by zip code. Mine is still fairly low. I
was surprised to see there have been 2 deaths; there hadn’t been any when I
looked a couple of weeks ago. There have been a total of 136 cases. That comes
out to 1.47%. We know the death rate is not actually that high. So why is the “confirmed cases” number so low,
causing the skewed death rate? That’s been frustrating from the beginning.
I found this chart helpful for perspective. It compares deaths per 100,000
in the US (green), Texas (yellow), and Harris County (red). Texas is still way
below the US average. Harris County has at times been below the Texas average,
but right now they’re about the same. But, unless something drastic happens
that causes us to go up where the US average was during its apex, which still
didn’t overwhelm the system, we ought to feel safe opening up cautiously.
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| Data put together by Leslie Joan May |
Senate District Convention
I’ve been thinking about the data, again, because this
weekend is our District Convention. This was supposed to be held back on March
21st, but the stay-at-home began the Saturday before that—a date we’ve
been able to keep track of, because Mr. Spherical Model broke his ankle that
day, so stay-at-home orders coincided with his need to heal. He’s back to
walking and doing physical therapy—not quite at full capacity, but getting
there, which seems like a good comparison.
Anyway, the senate district convention could have as many as
300 people, although maybe less this year because of the virus and people’s
worries. Masks are welcome but not required. This is the biggest (only)
gathering we’ve been to since early March.
I don’t expect a guarantee that I’ll be safe. But I want to
be safe, without having to spend the entire day breathing through a mask if
possible. Hence the dive into the data.
I’ve been on the resolutions committee—that is, the platform
writing committee. We took all the resolutions submitted by precincts, compared
them to what is in the 2018 state platform, decided what to incorporate, worked
on wording, and worked on improving wherever we could.
When we get to the district convention, we temporary
committee members get installed as permanent committee members, and then we consider
additional resolutions and testimony, and put together a draft for the entire
floor to consider. Then that gets taken to the state convention in July.
[Note: I heard today that, because of logistical challenges
related to the national convention, they will not update the national platform
this year.]
I don’t know how to predict what the floor will find
important. Sometimes the arguments there surprise me, because I think we
committee members are pretty agreeable on conservative philosophy. But here are
a couple of things I think will get noticed.
On abortion, we’re shifting from an incremental, piecemeal
approach to an abolish-all-abortions single bill strategy. It’s time, I think.
Decades of the other approach have not gotten us where we want to be. And every
incremental bill tacitly enshrines the right to kill innocent human life.
Certainly there will be arguments about the tiny percentage of unwanted pregnancies
related to rape or incest—which happen against the choice of the woman—and also
instances where the life of the mother and the baby can’t both be preserved (the
latter of which the platform does acknowledge). But the platform isn’t to write
law; it’s to present philosophy. So we’ll see how that goes. Texas is already
behind other states taking this approach.
We’ve added in some concerns about contact tracing, which
have come up during the pandemic. Contact tracing is a somewhat useful tool at
the very beginning of an outbreak, to completely prevent the spread. Once the
spread has happened, it’s almost useless. What it does do is put a lot of power
into the hands of government bureaucrats. Picture, for example, you go to
dinner, and someone at the restaurant—someone you don’t know and did not even
have close contact with—learned the next day that they had covid-19. Everyone
that person was around for the past couple of weeks gets notified. You get contacted,
because you were at the restaurant; contact tracing uses, for example, a phone
app to track you. You are then required to be in quarantine (lockdown without
being able to go out for food or other essential reasons) for at least two
weeks. At last you’re released, and you go to the grocery store to resupply.
The next day you get informed someone at the grocery store tested positive, so
you’re required to quarantine for at least another two weeks. And so on.
During none of this time are you sick. You don’t prevent any
spread, because you never had the disease. But your life, your livelihood, and
your “pursuit of happiness” are denied you by a government entity exerting more
power than is useful. If you volunteer for such tracing, that’s up to you. But
forcing it on healthy law-abiding citizens is unacceptable in a free society.
Another issue relates to gun-free zones, which can include
churches, schools, theaters, places of businesses—anyplace that declares itself
to be a gun-free zone. A place that denies citizens the right to protect
themselves is held liable for their protection. It’s a pretty simple idea that
hopefully will cause businesses to think about the ramifications before
declaring themselves a gun-free zone. Again, this isn’t legislation; this is
the expression of ideas.
Anarchy
The temporary committee finished our work two weeks ahead of
the convention. Since that time, there’s been a breakout of protests, riots,
and anarchic terrorism. I expect we’ll see a resolution or two to address that.
Conservatives think it’s bad. Are there reforms to be made for various police
departments across the country? Maybe, although my sense is (according to the
data I’ve looked at) that the need is highly overblown—for the purpose of
stirring people up to anger. I don’t think it’s wise to cede any ground with
these people.
The anarchists who have seized ground in Seattle are, I
think, an example we should be noticing—to prevent any pandemic spread of their
diseased thought processes.
Someone posted the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement’s 10 Points
of Action. I think these are put out by the CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) militants in Seattle. I’ve responded to
each one.
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| Image found on Facebook, my comments added. |
I'm reminded of the inane demands made by Occupy Wall Street, back in the olden days of the previous administration. And I'm wondering if some of the same supporters of that encampment are supporting this one. You can find a list of those OWS backers here.
In a normal world, you would see that, if you set yourself
up in a “fortress,” walled in, with the enemy on the outside, you survive only
as long as you have supplies. These guys don’t have any resources inside. They’re
using electricity, water, cell service and even their barricades from the City
of Seattle. They had some food. But they invited a bunch of homeless people in,
who stole all the food. Because—no laws, no police. So, using their cell
phones, these militants against the greatest military force on earth asked for
donations of vegan meat replacements, oats, soy, and other “foods” to be
delivered to them.
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| Seattle's lost hill, called CHAZ image from here |
The city, in an effort to be accommodating (for unfathomable
reasons), provided port-a-potties.
While streets are blocked, they are allowing residents of
the 500 or so homes and businesses in their non-America to come and go when
they provide ID (which, of course, comes from the enemy state).
To thinking people, this is ridiculous. Send in the national
guard to round them up, prosecute them, and be done with it. With some luck,
the good guys (America) won’t even have to shed their blood.
But Seattle’s mayor, and apparently Washington’s governor,
don’t seem to be thinking people. And people voted them in. It’s the same
problem as in Minneapolis; the people voted these anti-Americans in. So I don’t
know how to predict how this will go.
It’s untenable to allow the seizure of US soil by anarchic
terrorists.
It has always seemed to me that, if you could lay out the
truth, the facts, and the philosophy clearly, people will of course choose
freedom, prosperity, and civilization. So it has been confusing to me why so
many people eschew the good and purposely choose tyranny, poverty, and
savagery.
One explanation is that we live in apocalyptic times. But I’ll
save that discussion for another day. In the meantime, I guess we watch what’s
happening and hope it stays far away from home.
Speaking of—Harris County Commissioners Court met on Tuesday
and discussed police reform, but stopped short of calling outright for defunding
the police force. The county attorney reminded them that they have no power to
direct other elected officials, such as the county sheriff or the DA, to do
anything; they are instead accountable to their voters. So nothing much came of
it, at least for this month.
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