Door Approaches

There’s a comedy video I saw once where a guy has some rather clever responses to telemarketers, which waste their time and thereby get them to discontinue calling. But most important is that the responses are clever.

When I heard about Biden’s plan to send US government workers door-to-door to persuade people to get the vaccine, I thought it might be a good idea to prepare a clever door answering approach. Other people have been coming up with some possibilities.

There’s this one, posted on my friend Alan Vera's FB wall with the caption, "Day 1 of the door-to-door white house vaccination canvass!!"

from Alan Vera's Facebook wall

And this one, posted by my friend Mark Ramsey, who said it was on a friend's door when they went to visit and gave them a good laugh:

from Mark Ramsey's Facebook wall

And this funny’s guy’s short video of a door-to-door team's supervisor advice:

screenshot from video shared on Facebook
by friend Tina Riddle

And I liked this cartoon by Lisa Benson, from Saturday, July 10, 2021: 

 

What about things to say? I’m probably not the best source for clever/funny answers. But I am thinking about it. There’s a claim by the government that they do not have and maintain a database of who has received the shots. But they fail to clearly say that they will not access such a database made available to them. So maybe there’s a way to challenge that.

The people come to your door and give their persuasive spiel. And you say:

Now, why in the world would the database show me as still needing the vaccine?

It’s likely that the people at your door know very little beyond the script given to them. And they go where they’re told. So, do they know whether there’s a database? I don’t know. If they’re going to targeted houses, rather than every residence, then they should know there’s a database being used. If they answer with, “OK, I’ll make sure that information get’s reported,” you can say, “So you’re verifying that I am in a database?” and they’re stuck. Or if you say, “You do that,” you’ve gotten the database to mark you as vaccinated without your actually saying anything definitively stating that you are.

Another door approach is the overly friendly religious welcome. No matter what they say, fail to address their question about your vaccination, but ask them, “So, do you go to church? Are you interested in some reading materials about my church?” And engage them as long as they’re willing—because, if you’re like me, that’s a conversation you really would enjoy. If they’re not interested in anything but a vaccine conversation, you’ll know that pretty quickly, because they’ll excuse themselves.

If they are wearing masks, ask, “So you haven’t been vaccinated yet?” They likely will say they have been, because it’s probably required for the job. Ask, “Then why are you wearing a mask? Outside? Social distanced? What’s the point of getting a vaccine if it doesn’t even help?” You’ll get a long spiel for asking that question, though.

You could respond to that with a portfolio of data you’ve put together to neutralize each point they might bring up. These might include:

·         “We’ve never before been pressured to risk a medical intervention on ourselves for the sake of the rest of society rather than for ourselves.”

·         “The disease is very low risk for anyone under 65—and miniscule for anyone under 40, and is highly treatable with low-cost, safe medicines. A reaction to the vaccine is more likely in the young—and not easily treatable.”

·         “Regardless of what you say about the safety and efficacy of this vaccine,’ you don’t have me sign an actual 15-page experimental release form that spells out the risks I’m taking; you pressure me to sign away my rights to indemnify the producers, so if something happens to me, they’ll be protected—but I won’t.”

·         “Here are the VAERS reports, as of today. No other medical intervention with that kind of track record has ever been left on the market—but you’re going door-to-door to peddle it. Why should I believe you instead of the data?”

·         “The data shows that the pandemic spread is over. The Houston Chronicle just stopped providing the daily “Coronavirus at a Glance,” because there’s no longer a public need for easy access to that data. We seem to have gotten through it with the number of people who have had the disease and those who’ve already been vaccinated—so we don’t really have a need for anyone else to get vaccinated.”     

My puppy, at 7 months. 
Her nickname is Destroyer of Worlds.

My guess is that, with millions of people to contact, I will not likely see someone at my door. And if such a person did come, what is the likelihood I will be home at that moment? And if I’m home, what if I’m busy and don’t go to the door? Or if I do answer, I won’t be able to converse because my very large puppy is trying to break out—to get licks and pats from them, but her exuberance looks more scary than friendly. So, really, in itself, the door-to-door campaign isn’t a huge worry.

What is worrisome is that we have a government that thinks it’s a wise use of our tax dollars to track us down and pressure us to get an injection of what is an experimental drug—with multiple side-effect risks—and pushing it on low-risk individuals (young people) and no-risk individuals (people who have natural immunity from having the disease).

One thing is certain: they’re not doing this campaign because of concern for my health. They have a real reason, and it’s not good. I'm gathering more details on that, but I’ll save them for another day.

The Neverending Convention, Part I

I’ve been away from this blog for the last week and a half, doing work associated with the Texas Republican Party state convention. As I did two years ago, I’ve been doing editing work on the platform. At this level, I don’t have input into content, just in how it looks. And even at that, much is beyond my control.

It’s likely to take me a number of blog posts to debrief the whole thing. Today I’ll focus on the overhanging issue: Houston’s Mayor Sylvester Turner invoked the Force Majeur clause of the contract five days before the start of convention—that was Wednesday, July 8^th. A week prior to that he had given his “final” word that he would not interfere with the convention because of the pandemic.

There were multiple efforts put into preparing the intended location, the George R. Brown Convention Center (owned by the city, run for the city by an entity called Houston First) to meet any and all guidelines for safe meeting. These included using larger spaces with chairs spread out, larger rooms for caucus meetings and committee meetings, temperature scanners at each entrance. There’s no competition for space right now, and that convention center encompasses 1.8 million square feet indoors, and can accommodate 55,000 people. The typical state GOP convention is around 9,000-10,000 people. It’s typically the largest GOP gathering in the country, even bigger than the national convention. But last time we held the state GOP convention in Houston we shared the space with two or three other conventions.

The convention was originally supposed to take place in May, but it was rescheduled because of the pandemic. City businesses were glad to host, since their usual business clients have been curtailed. The full convention was rescheduled to July 16-18, but committee work actually gets underway on the Monday before.

When Mayor Turner broke the contract just 5 days before committees were to meet, the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) which is made up of a man and woman from each of the 31 state senatorial districts, met in an online meeting to decide how to proceed. The two options were in person nearby the original plan, or online. A combination is not possible, according to Roberts Rules of Order, because it isn’t possible to know whom to recognize and in what order.

The Marriott Marquis, a large hotel across the street from the convention center, offered to accommodate as needed, so the official meeting would happen on the sidewalk in front of the convention center, as required in the rules, and then temporarily adjourn and reconvene in the hotel. That is the option the SREC chose, in a 40-20 vote. People recognize the value of meeting in person.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) lawsuit against Mayor Turner went forward quickly. On Thursday, a local democratic judge ruled against the RPT, who then appealed directly to the state supreme court for a quick ruling. Those justices met over the weekend and gave their ruling Monday morning.

It was while I was driving downtown Monday morning that I heard on the news that the ruling had gone against the RPT. The committees, already set and able to meet in person, went ahead with the downtown plan, but it meant that on Thursday, once the official convention gaveled in, everything would move to online.

There was one non-negotiable deadline: Monday, July 21^st, by the end of the day, the names of those elected as delegates and alternates to the national convention, plus those elected to be electors (the ones who physically vote in the electoral college in December) had to be turned in. If nothing else happened, we could recover, but law required that business to be completed.

There was also a state party chair race, vice chair race, plus election of permanent committee members and State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) races.

It took much of Saturday to accomplish the essentials. Late in the evening permanent committee members got elected. So, we had to be poised and ready all day, but the meetings the committees were to have held did not take place that day.

The Platform Committee Meeting took place Sunday at 9:00 AM, with a tight deadline—originally one hour, but we ended up taking until past noon, with many complaints about not enough testimony time, or time to change anything after the testimony. Maybe I’ll talk more about that another day.

We got through the Legislative Priorities report in a Sunday afternoon general session, but not the Rules or Platform reports. There was an effort to try to reschedule the rest of the business to another time and place. That discussion took up more than an hour that could have been spent accomplishing business. And the proposal included a request to develop a committee from among the body to come up with a plan. Suggestions were open, electronically. They came in and didn’t stop. There were more than 5,000 suggestions the last time I heard it announced. This was a DDOS attack (denial of service). It’s a purposeful disturbance. A hack. And DDOS attacks explain much of the difficulty of Friday through Monday with credentialed delegates being unable to get electronic credentials to join meetings and have voting rights.

People were patient much longer than in an in-person convention, probably because they were in their kitchens and living rooms with creature comforts available—albeit little sleep. But the fact is, Mayor Turner indeed deprived people of rights. My senatorial district didn’t manage to convene for its final caucus until Monday morning—after the state party chair and vice chair races were a done deal.

US District Judge Lynn N. Hughes ruled
July 17, 2020, in Hotze v. Abbott
image from here

While the Texas Supreme Court ruled against the RPT’s lawsuit, there was an additional personal lawsuit filed in federal court from individual delegates who can show harm caused to them. RPT has since joined in that suit. But it went to Federal District Judge Lynn R. Hughes, who ruled against Mayor Turner on Friday, July 17^th. The case is Hotze v. Abbott (because it was Governor Abbott’s limited lockdown order GA-29, supplementing GA-28, which led to the Force Majeur). The 7-page ruling is a thing of beauty to read. 

Son Political Sphere tells me it’s more of a great op-ed, but legally it isn’t likely to stand up on appeal. Nevertheless, I want to pull out a couple of points.

One is about standards. This relates to letters from Dr. David Persse, director of Houston’s Emergency Medical Service, who served as the Mayor’s chosen medical “expert.” Judge Hughes writes:

In court, high standards restrict technical data offered in evidence. That kind of opinion testimony must have rigorous science applied to precise data in a recognized method. Persse’s letter abounds with emotion and assumptions. His letter uses the phrase “clear and present danger.”

…He presented no dispassionate analysis; he only recast odd pieces of what is in the papers.

I’ve been looking at numbers. The horrendous spike in cases, the way the press talks about it, you’d think bodies were lined up in the street. In reality, the 7-day rolling average for Harris County, where Houston is located, a population of over 4 million, reached 12 and hovered there for about a week, but was lower than that by a couple of deaths per day when Mayor Turner broke the contract. That is a total of 12 per day. The total for the county to date (as of today) is 560. That’s a lot of people. But New York city has had 18,800, with an additional 4,624 probable COVID-19 deaths that weren’t verified by testing. Their population is 8.3 million, roughly double Harris County. Their number of deaths is 34-42 times the number of deaths in Harris County.

Let me say that another way, for each death to date in Harris County over the entire time since the disease caused its first death in Texas, 34-42 people died in New York City. From first death to today (so, not counting the many zero death days prior to that first Texas death on May 18^th, that’s 128 days, an average of 4 per day in Harris County. Regrettable, painful to those experiencing the loss, but not an all-out emergency.

Getting data is still a challenge. The Houston Chronicle had been providing daily deaths in Texas, so I could continue to chart that. The paper used to show deaths in the Houston region, including surrounding counties. They stopped doing that on June 23^rd and started emphasizing new cases by county, not 8 counties together, plus positive test rate and hospitalizations. But no county death info. So I started going daily to the county public health site. I don’t know how to get anything there but the current day’s data, so I have taken a snapshot every day to build up some data to draw a picture from.

Daily deaths in Texas, over the entire length of the pandemic, shows there has indeed been a recent rise (7-day rolling average):

Deaths in Texas, rolling average, as of July 21, 2020

Starting when I began charting the data, daily deaths in Harris County, starting June 24^th, look like this:

Deaths in Harris County, rolling average, as of July 21, 2020

It's not an exponential curve. It's not a reason for panic. Or for cancelling contracts.

Out of curiosity, I look at data for my zip code. We have a population of a little over 37,000. So far we have had 3 deaths. I couldn’t pinpoint on which days each of those were reported, but I do know we had had 2 by June 10^th, and we had had 3 by June 25^th, when I started looking daily. So we have gone essentially a month or more since the last COVID death in my zip code. The 7-day rolling average is a flat line.

I’m here, alive, to let you know that those several hundred of us who met for committee meetings downtown: it has been a week, and so far we have a spike of—wait for it—zero. Zero cases. So zero deaths.

The next point in the lawsuit is about what qualifies as essential. The ruling says,

The meeting is not a classic-car show nor a quilting exhibition. The Texas Election Code requires it—and requires it now. This convention is the source of a party’s officers for the next two years and delegates to this year’s presidential convention among other administration.

The governor’s orders frequently use the word essential to specify exclusions from the full impact of the limits. In GA-29 [Governor Abbott’s order], for example, the rules do not apply to election-related gatherings nor the mask rule to someone giving a speech. Department and grocery stores are open and excluded as essential. The individual stores in some cases will exceed the few thousand delegates expected at the convention. It exceeds their essentialness, because critically it is a single event—not repeated every day.

And he adds that our founders did what they did because of arbitrary government. Further down he notes that the Texas Attorney General wrote a letter May 29, 2020, instructing “the secretary of state that political conventions are excluded from the strictures of the executive orders.” That seems pretty clear.

Then the judge describes the mayor’s actions the way a prosecutor might. After the Republican Party of Texas had already agreed to all the precautions, the mayor piled on:

The contractor was told [by the mayor] to require a cluster of additional precautions. The Party agreed. Frustrated, four hours after he imposed conditions that he thought would cause the Party to abandon its plans, Turner told the contractor to cancel the event. The city doctor furnished defective smoke-screen letters.

The contractual clause allowing First to cancel the use of the building says exactly what First and the mayor say it does. What it does not mean is that the cancellation may be based on reasons extrinsic to the virus rules and, instead, be based on raw political sabotage.

As for fear of risk to the city, he says,

Allowing the Republican Party to meet its responsibilities does not cost the city. All it has to do is stop interfering. Comparable numbers of people will patronize many places as the Party meets. Its contribution to viral risk is no more than another large grocery store.

In case anyone missed the mayor’s intent, the judge says,

Sylvester Turner worked to get First to cancel the license to the Republican Party after 18-odd months of preparation and cooperation under the guise of public safety based off twisted readings of the governor’s orders.

I don’t know how this will all play out. But one thing is very clear: Democrats are underhanded and untrustworthy, and they’ll go to great ends to thwart the will of good, America-loving citizens.

We cannot let such people win their war in what they see as a right to rule over us.

Data, Debates, and Dystopia

Today’s post is about three somewhat disconnected things: coronavirus data, the senate district convention, and mayhem of anarchists. Maybe we’ll relate them somehow.

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 31^st. 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.

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 21^st, 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.

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.

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.

Coming to Be at Peace

Sometimes I do math and fall into something of a rabbit hole. Let me take you with me on such a trip.

There has been news that 40-50% (low estimates) of deaths in the European Union and in California have occurred in nursing homes.

I’d like to know what percentage of deaths in New York City happened in nursing homes—where the governor made a policy requiring that nursing home patients who tested positive for the virus but were not in need of hospitalization be placed back in their nursing homes, rather than quarantined at some other location, essentially saying, “Well, you have to let them go to their own homes, after all. And trust us, we’ll keep everyone else in the nursing homes safe.” This was a monumentally misguided policy. It happened in Pennsylvania and several other states as well.

In a piece on May 6^th, Ben Shapiro said:

Had the authorities properly protected nursing homes, the infection fatality rate across the industrialized world could be half of the current rate.

Fatality rates could have been cut in half. That’s an easy number to cut, I thought. Then I could see what the death rate among the rest of the population is. If only I knew what number to start with.

I got some data, but not all I needed.

I started by asking, how many seniors live in nursing homes? One estimate was 3% (according to Senior Living ). But this answer from NursingHomeDiaries.com was a bit higher and a bit more nuanced:

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, slightly over 5 percent of the 65+ population occupy nursing homes, congregate care, assisted living, and board-and-care homes, and about 4.2 percent are in nursing homes at any given time. The rate of nursing home use increases with age from 1.4 percent of the young-old to 24.5 percent of the oldest-old. Almost 50 percent of those 95 and older live in nursing homes.

I'd need to dive deeper to find out how to carve out nursing home death rates from population-at-large death rates—and neither death rate is known.

To know the actual death rate, you need to know how many people have been infected, but since so many are asymptomatic or not severe, and mostly only severe cases get tested, we don’t know this number. (I did some math on this here.)

According to the graphic we get in the in the Houston Chronicle, as of today in the state of Texas we’ve had 501,776 total tests, of which there have been 39,783 confirmed cases, and 1099 deaths. Deaths per confirmed cases is 2.76%. And when we’re testing mainly suspected cases, only 7.9% are positive. Does that mean a lot of people wrongly suspect Covid, or a lot of people are getting tested in the general healthy population?

Anyway, deaths per confirmed cases looks much more dire than we think it will once we have a better idea of how many people have been infected without knowing. We don’t yet have broad antibody testing, showing who has successfully faced and defeated the virus. With current antibody tests, because of the high number of false positives, they’re better for population data than for individual use. That means they can’t be used to identify who is safe from getting or spreading the virus.

Always more questions than answers. 

It’s only the first week of opening up in Texas. Things aren’t looking very different yet, nor have we experienced a significant, and expected, increase in cases.

Deaths per population, which I’ve used before, gives us a little more perspective, but it only tells us “deaths so far,” which has a lot to do with how dense the population is and whether social distancing measures have been done. It says nothing about how many of those eventually infected will die.

Again, what I really would like to know is still unknowable. So I’m climbing back out of that rabbit hole.

But there is enough that we do know to give us some perspective.

Most people, including me, don’t understand risk. When I was taught about germs as a child, I got the impression that, if a single germ got inside me, that meant I would get sick. I think that was a scare tactic to get me to stop biting my nails. Hint: it didn’t work; it made me more nervous, but it did get me to wash my hands a lot. (I finally overcame the nail biting in my 30s; thanks for your concern.) Anyway, with all the hygiene lessons we’re getting everyday, we do seem to be getting told that, if a single microscopic germ of Covid-19 makes its way into our house—like a speck of glitter—on our mail or groceries, we’re sure to get the disease.

And if we get the disease, it’s sure to be bad, or quite possibly deadly.

And that’s why we have to remain locked up for the foreseeable future.

But most of that dread is just unfounded. A glitter spec of virus is easily handled by your immune system; it’s a heavy viral load that leads to infection, like you’d get from being directly coughed on by an infected person. And most infections are not bad.

Still, it’s a bad virus. I think ambient deaths is a good indicator. That means, deaths above and beyond what you’d expect from the normal sources. We’re not imagining the coronavirus deaths. They’re real, and they’re pretty close to the numbers being recorded, despite some probable errors in both overcounting and undercounting.

So that is known; it’s bad. But how bad?

Since we don’t know the actual death rate, we have to do some guessing. It’s more than flu. It’s less than a lot of other things.

This chart[i] shows the typical daily deaths of a whole lot of illnesses. The orange lines show diseases causing a current worldwide outbreak. The other lines are diseases that are endemic—always around.

graphic from InformationIsBeautiful.net Coronavirus Infographic Datapak

My new question is, why do none of these other things make us feel so panicked, so willing to shut down our economy? It’s not because Covid is the most dangerous thing. It’s not even the most dangerous current outbreak.

It is not causing the most deaths. It is not the most likely to cause deaths. While the rate of contagion and rate of death are unknowns, their ranges are higher than some but lower than many others. Contagion range is 1.5 – 3.5 persons spread to from each infected person. Death rate range is somewhere between 0.7 – 3.4%. The rate seems to be going down the more testing we have.

Measles is a whole lot more contagious and just about as likely to cause death. We’ve never shut down the world for a measles outbreak. We didn’t shut down the world for Ebola, which is much more likely to cause death and is in a similar range for spread; we contained and successfully quarantined it. But you can see on that chart that it isn’t eradicated.

There’s one difference between this and every other disease outbreak: media. Total mentions in the media (from inception to today)[ii]:

·         HIV 69.5 million

·         SARS 66.3 million

·         MERS 33.1 million

·         Ebola 16.2 million

·         Covid-19/Coronavirus 2.1 billion

That’s 130 times for every mention of Ebola, 63 times for every mention of MERS, 32 times for ever mention of SARS, and 30 times for every mention of HIV/AIDS.

If we could filter out all the media shouting, what would our reasonable response be?

My son Political Sphere says that people often give him a shocked reaction when he says he expects to get this virus eventually. “You think you’re going to get it?” they ask, as if that’s an entirely new idea they can’t accept. “Of course,” he answers.

Because what we’ve been doing is slowing the spread, not stopping it.

What would it take to stop it? More than you’re willing to go through for this level of risk.

An absolute total lockdown for 3 weeks or so (the longest length of time from exposure to showing symptoms—and after that an additional 3+ weeks of quarantine for those who show symptoms, along with those exposed to those persons). That means no hospitals—unless you keep every hospital worker at the hospital the whole time without allowing them to leave the premises. You don’t have food suppliers. You don’t have workers keeping the electrical grid working. Or water or other utilities; whatever works automatically you can have, but no troubleshooting if you have issues. No one can work outside their homes—including "essential" services. No newspeople. No broadcast media. No police. No firefighters. If you happen to need emergency help during this shutdown, tough luck for you.

The deaths from other causes would likely eclipse the lives saved from Covid-19 during a total shutdown.

It should be obvious that we’re not set up for that kind of shutdown; we’re not willing to submit to it; and there would be no way to enforce it.

And, did I mention it would have to be worldwide? Otherwise, it would still be spreading somewhere; and if it spreads somewhere, it eventually spreads everywhere.

So, no, this CCP[iii] virus is not being eradicated by total quarantine. That means we never had any intention except to slow the spread. It will indeed eventually spread through the population.

Pretending that we’re going to get eradication from our partial measures is a common misperception. But you aren’t saving lives by staying home; you’re postponing inevitable infections. Not only that, you’re expecting “expendable” people to supply your needs while you’re doing your virtuous stay-at-home. It’s not a matter of whether, but when. 

We can—and should—do what we can to protect nursing homes and other vulnerable people—not by shutting ourselves up, but by quarantining them as much as possible. I don’t know how you can do even that protection with total success, since  workers and suppliers have to come and go. Already we’ve deprived nursing home residents of visitors for two months, which has to be pretty painful.

So, unless you completely isolate yourself, at some point you’re going to get it.

Unless there’s a totally effective vaccine developed before you get it. Doubtful.

So, accept that it’s coming to you. Should you be drawing up your will? Probably—but only because you should do that anyway, well ahead of imminent death.

But, it could be bad, right? Possibly, but what are the odds?

If you get the virus and you’re under 60, you can expect a mild case. Because 80% of all cases are mild—including for the elderly and those with underlying conditions.

According to the data so far, 80.9% of cases are mild—like a cold. You stay home for a day or two (and maybe you should stay home longer just to avoid spreading it to those who can’t afford the risk), and you’ll feel fine. You probably won’t even see a doctor or get a test to know that’s what you had. Some in this group will have a harder bout, but will still not need more than a doctor visit and enough time to recover at home.

Fourteen out of a hundred people (13.8%) who get it will have a bad case—enough to require hospitalization. Like we said, these will probably be older people with multiple underlying conditions, although younger people with multiple underlying conditions might want to protect themselves. If we get successful treatments, some portion of this group will move into the milder case category.

Only five out of a hundred (4.7%) need intensive critical care, such as a ventilator. And 50% of those who need ventilators survive. And, again, if we get more reliable treatments that can be used earlier, we prevent many of these critical cases.

Deaths by age. Graphic from InformationIsBeautiful.net

Age is a factor, but that doesn’t mean this disease kills all old people.

Data from Italy, of people whose average age was 79, shows us that only 1% of those with a serious case of Covid-19 at time of death (i.e., died because of the coronavirus) had no known underlying conditions in addition to their age. All the rest had at least one underlying condition. Nearly half had 3 or more underlying conditions.

Risk factors of deaths of average age 79
Graphic from InformationIsBeautiful.net

That means, if you don’t have the risk factors, you’re not likely to die. Even the vast majority, 85-90%, of those who are in the danger age range and may have one or two risk factors nevertheless survive.

If a vaccine—one that is more effective than the flu vaccine has ever been—becomes available in record time, then maybe you can avoid the risk. But if you’re not willing to stake the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Americans (and billions of people worldwide) on that unlikely hope, then maybe you need to come to be at peace with the probability that you will get it—but along with the expectation that it will probably not affect you badly.

If enough speak that truth to themselves and re-enter the world, letting the virus spread through the least vulnerable—the healthy, young people—then the virus runs out of available hosts to keep passing it along. It runs its course.

And maybe we can get to that point before the virus gets to our most vulnerable. Maybe that should be our goal.

There are many risks that we have come to be at peace with. We drive. We swim. We fly. Even though it’s a risk, we don’t expect death every time we walk out the door. We weigh the risk against our determination to meet some other goal, and we accept it.

This virus is a new risk laid on top of all those others. We don’t like it, but there it is. If we can’t eradicate it—and thanks to China, that possibility is long gone—then we’ve got to learn to live with it.

Think how you’ve done that with all those other risks. Repeat that process for this big thing.

People who work to overcome phobias find that experiencing the risk a little at a time helps them get over the fear. Tiny steps. But continuous tiny steps toward the goal of facing their fear—and they can handle the snake, or take the cross-country flight, or whatever it is.

So let’s take this time of reopening to overcome our mostly irrational fears so that we can get back to the business of living our lives.

Become at peace with what is. It’s probably a good time to turn to God, rather than government, to help you do that.

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[i] This chart and several more I’m sharing today are from InformationIsBeautiful.netcoronavirus infographic datapack. 

[ii] InformationIsBeautiful.net credits this information to Google News.

[iii] The Epoch Times made an editorial decision to refer to Covid-19/coronavirus as the CCP virus, because the worldwide spread was caused by the actions of the Chinese Communist Party.